@@brosephnoonan223 I'm sorry, but now thanks to your handle AND your comment, I have an image of Heimskr giving a fiery sermon in Whiterun about how Madoka's sacrifice saved mankind from the witches, but the ELVES AND THEIR TOADIES are trying to bury her legacy!
There's magic girls now ? I thought that died out and people nowadays only make Parodys Or death games or even them dying with blood every were and the Mascot character is evil.
Not my first, but I really did get a girlfriend because of FF8, because I supposedly had a passing resemblance to Squall. In the end, we both ended up disappointed.
"In this way, by transforming the world's population of enemies into Triple Triad cards, you can learn NOTHING, while gaining EVERYTHING." This is my new favorite video now
The word "petrol" derives from the Latin word "petroleum" which probably derives from the ancient Greek word "petra", meaning "rock". I suppose this means we can postulate that the first instances of oil were discovered in rock shale. However, there's also an ancient city in Jordan aptly named Petra, which features some rather nice architecture carved directly from the local rose colored rock. You might have seen it in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. So, who knows, maybe oil was first discovered bubbling out of the ground around those parts. This isn't really going anywhere, but yeah, the draw system sucked.
The fun thing about going back to FFVIII, in my opinion, is realizing how surprisingly good it is. Well, in certain parts. There's two critical parts that are broken: gameplay balance and endgame plot. You can break VIII's draw system clean in half by Disk 2 (though admittedly that takes work). But there's so much boldness in this game's direction. The character dialogue is funny and grounded with a great localization, the graphics are beautiful even by today's standards, the OST is varied and excellent... It's great. Then TIME KOMPRESSION happens and the plot falls like a house made of popsicle sticks. So if you HAVE broken the magic system over your knee like Bane to Batman, there's not much left for you.
FF8 is a great game. Too many people just didn't understand the magic system and therefore hate it. The idea of being able to get super overpowered immeditely as you start the game is super rewarding though it does make fights trivial after this point. The idea of using the card system and turning that into magic is an idea most newer players will be a thing most people won't realise about. The drawing system was a pain though. Not sure how they could improve it. There's something to be said for making it hard to draw unique magic from bosses, but also to not make it drag it out for so long that it becomes boring.
The first time I blamed me not paying attention for not understanding the plot developments in FF8. I played the first half and the final dungeon with my friends when I was young. I played it in full again many years later and the plot is snookerloopy nonsense. You have magical amnesia, you are timelinked to another important NPC's past, the best interpretation for many individual character stories is "coming of age", those personal stories take up much of the spotlight that the peculiar worldbuilding could really use, and it turns out basically all named characters bar 2 have been secretly a family all along(which everyone forgot). And then comes the timeloop/TIME KOMPRESSION which you can only survive by GROWING UP. No, really. That's the final piece of the coming of age story. The plot is incomprehensible and insufferable from the player's perspective.
dude...no FF8's plot is so bad, it's like it was written by monkeys. So many non-sensical moments it drive me nuts it was actually shipped for sale. For example, they say there's no radio transmission in the entire world for like 20 years, okay. The whole "oh we were all raised by the sorceress but forgot" thing was SO stupid, so you're telling me Irvine, which is the ONLY ONE that remembers it, never felt the need to mention it, even when he's hired to SHOOT HER IN THE FACE. Like "Oh there's my adopted mother, time to murder her I guess" Then you have stuff like, the sorceress murdering a guy in front of crowd telling them she's the new Hitler and the crowd going cheering for some wtf reason. Rinoa attempt's to "assassinate" the sorceress by going to her room and say "hum...hello I'm the leader of the rebels, can I kills you?" then she gets f#ck (what a surprise huh). There's Seifer turning evil which is so poorly written it makes Anakin becoming Darth Vader seem like shakespeare.The whole Elone thing going back to the past even thought she knows it's impossible to change stuff but she does it anyway because f#ck you...SO SO many little nonsensical moments, it's hard to believe it wasn't written by a child that just wanted to have cool things happen regardless if they obeyed logic or not
@@olserknambecause why would people keep radio around if it was dead for 20 years? And why was it not repaired quicker? This is crucial piece of infrastructure
I really enjoy FF8 for how easy it is to break and become ludicrously overpowered, but if you asked me how the game is meant to be played, I would have no idea what to tell you.
I feel like what the intention was was that they wanted it to feel like a risk-v-reward mechanic where your prize is another risk-v-reward mechanic. You can draw from this mouse to gain resources, but don't give it too much time or it'll just kill you because level scaling! And that lets you use spells that can hit weaknesses and do good damage, but don't use them too much or you'll become weaker! The problem mainly hits when you have both of these things right next to eachother. If casts could be restocked and you just bought more charges then power boosts would make more sense because you're not really losing anything and it lets the player make more decisions about using melee or magic attacks. And if the stats didn't go up but you could draw magic, then that would also fix a lot because then you'd be incentivised to draw as needed, but you wouldn't just be spamming draw because it'd be pointless. Having 99 Blizard casts doesn't do anything when you're going to get Blizzara anyways. It's when they do all of it together that it becomes a problem because then the game heavily incentivises hoarding. And that incentivises drawing casts forever. Which is level-scaled, so it incentivises running away so you don't gain experience after you've drawn a lot of magic.
@@dracocrusher I know, right? All the ideas, individually and on paper, would make for good mechanics. Taken together, it creates a system that encourages the player to act completely counter to standard JRPG convention. Convention which the game still allows and/or encourages, despite hobbling it. The design elements of the game are acting against one another, and optimization is both incredibly easy and terribly tedious. There's a saying that players will, given the opportunity, optimize the fun out of a game. FF8 dives headlong into this fact.
@@catantcha99 But enemies scale. So it doesn't really matter. Exp isn't a real asset, your stat boosts from drawing magic matter way more. So if you just farm draws then that's basically the same as farming experience, except it's way less direct and more tedious and you're essentially losing progress by using spells. Essentially, what this means is that because levels are scalable, drawing is your new Exp, and you just burn your 'experience' by using spells, which is terrible. If it was a mechanic attached to an actual traditional level then nobody would choose to use those spells unless they're stupidly busted. But because you don't even really get that resource naturally, it just feels even worse to obtain.
@@Bluecho4 >There's a saying that players will, given the opportunity, optimize the fun out of a game. A power-gamer optimizes for power. A true gamer optimizes fun. E.g., cheats give power but often take away fun.
FF8 is my favorite FF because there is just so much of it. There's tons of little world-building details (the ice hockey monsters get mentioned on your first trip to Galbadia Garden, the return to Garden is turned into an explanation on how SEED is funded), lots of things you can reasonably assume (Seifer's dream of being a knight and gunblade stance are inspired by seeing the movie Laguna was in), and genuinely cool and weird moments like Fisherman's Horizon and the Lunar Base. For all the missteps and bloat that FF8 has it's little things that definitely don't make it more than the sum of its parts, but still stand out as being weird and off the beaten track for the series. And for the record I think 6 and 9 are the best.
Pushing past it's faults of being tedious I actually really like that the game offers something different then just grind endlessly against monsters to become overpowered and curb stomp every boss. It offers the players a different way to gain power and it also as Plague said is a test to see how well you understand the system and can break it because it really isn't that straight forward, but the option is there if you want. I never really engaged the card and junction system fully in my youth, but as an adult it is awesome to play around with it and see just how broken you can make yourself. It was very ambitious for it's time and while not perfect it was at least different and I crave that sometimes.
Despite it's flaws, I love this game. While the drawing itself can be tedious, but the surrounding systems like junctioning, GF learning abilities and refine abilities are all pretty fun. The main problem is that those tutorials suck ass and many people just don't understand these systems (which is understandable). The level system is stupid though, and in combination with the junctioning system that game and it's difficulty can be completely broken.
I’ve always felt that FFVIII’s level and junction system was a MASSIVE part of its charm, although I get why it turns some people off. As someone who loves the idea of absolutely melting games by abusing its own systems, FFVIII is like freebasing cocaine for me. But it’s also a system that you ABSOLUTELY do not have to min-max in order to play competently.
@@wohdinhel A few months back I decided to play a little of FF8, just to have fun with breaking it. I got to Timber and then stopped, cuz I'd basically overpowered my character enough and the game was just becoming a chore.
It's a chaotic cocktail of systems that half work or are incredibly obtuse. But hey, it's ok to like trashfires, and I do enjoy VIII, warts and all (and there are many, many warts).
@@wohdinhel To me junction is the problem, as it encourage not using magic to keep stat high. Personally don't mind the draw part, as I usually avoid drawing by quickly getting the refinery skill and playing triple triad. One of the rare spell I go out of my way to draw a large quantity from enemies is sleep (to other been aura and triple, if I remember right, as they are even more of a pain to refine), as the status magic RF come from Diablo and he's one of the boss I absolutely want sleep for.
what I got from this video is that the Drawing system and it's associated card game turns FF8 into a YGO spin off series with gunblades and summons/GF what not
Fully agree I have taken the idea for various videogame documents and assorted fiction. “The almighty magic is now...!” Lemme give it a try... ARE YOU IMMUNE? “YOU!?” [Cue Boss Fight]
@@lantizeldaappeared5993 And yet many of the people who play the game rightly point out that by using junction stats and stat up at level up skills (yes, those exist) you can get SIGNIFICANTLY stronger than enemies, meaning avoiding level ups because "the enemies scale" is stupid. There's literally skills that give you 1-3 additional points to your stats per level. You'd have to be bad at math to think roughly 150 extra strength is "pointless."
@@Nekufan1000000 Do not worry I'm not the only one saying this system (I could also say this game) sucks Redrawing Final Fantasy VIII's Draw System PlagueofGripes
Listening to this gave me the idea that instead of drawing resources (spell casts) you instead use it to learn spells for that character and then can use it like a typical mp-based one. You could even expand it to have more than just spells. I was imagining a combination of draw and blue magic, and if you still wanted to use these to junction onto your GF for boosts you'd lose access to that *specific* spell for that character as a trade-off, so it becomes a question of, "Do I want to be able to cast this freely or would I rather take the buffs to this character and maybe have someone else cast it?" One way you could avoid just never having access to a spell is make the adjustments or changes with the junction function a bit differently depending on the GF, so if you wanted a physical fightery guy you use Titan or something and junction attack spells, so that way you could control what role a character fulfills to allow for strategy and player-driven optimization without totally removing access to "that one spell" since it wouldn't be the best one across the board. Technically this means that you could find a single optimal strategy to always use but it would allow wiggle room for who you use it on, and if you want to avoid optimal choices entirely, you could implement other effects and abilities as a result of the junction so there's more than one "good" spell to junction per GF, maybe even based on what spell you use to begin with.
Me: "Oh look! Plague uploaded a new video! Final Fantasy? I've never played those, but I'll watch it anyway because I like everything that Plague makes." Video: "Begone, normie! This topic is too deep for you!" Me: "I severely doubt that. I am a full-fledged nerd and geek. I've watched every (good) Star Trek series, I've studied programming, physics, math, and science. I get every single reference made on The Big Bang Theory. I can handle a little technical jargon." Video: "Suit yourself..." Plague: "-in addition to drawing 99 of every spell in the game, you can also still equip them." Me: "Okay, makes sense." Plague: "If you junction a summon to your body, then depending on what abilities the GF has learned, you might also be able to junction the drawl magic onto your stats, thereby increasing them." Me: "...um... what?" *begins nervously sweating Plague: "Drawing generic MP turns the function into an ether. Success on physical attacks is almost guaranteed on a rigid timer, so tying it to that doesn't work. Raising the spells you draw, invalidates the system." Me: "I'm sorry professor, I must have walked into the wrong classroom. I was looking for calculus. It's a much easier subject." *sprints out of the room
Pretty much my feeling too. I finished that feeling "I understood all those words and the sentences they make, but I have no clue wtf he was talking about" Which probably doesn't bode well for me playing it someday
These near-30 minutes of you talking honestly felt like five. I love how I can listen to you talk about whatever and time just flies by. Love your stuff man
What you said about creativity, as well as when you write, in painting you try to explore what is inside your mind, it is a good way to see it, that helped me, thank you.
I played FFVIII for the first time at like 10 when it came out. I had no idea how the junction system worked, so my first playthrough was a very difficult 100+ hour no junction playthrough. Now it's probably the game I've played through the most and everything is super easy since I know how things work.
Thinking about it, the way FF8 handles magic and junctioning reminds me of how rich people accrue wealth, then invest it in various forms. In property, land, businesses, stocks, art items, etc. They still _have_ the wealth - they're still rich - but their wealth gets tied up in assets that must be liquidated or sold if they want to use it for spending. But while it's tied up in solid assets, it's probably also making them more money, or otherwise gaining them some other benefit. FF8's junction system just uses their magical wealth to invest in the characters themselves. The issue, of course, is the same issue as with Capitalism: when you gain so much benefit from the investment of these assets, it encourages you to _hoard your wealth._ This becomes a problem in Capitalism because it means wealth just sits in the possession of a few rich assholes, rather than moving around and into the pockets of the rest of us. In FF8, however, the problem is of a different sort. At least with cash, there's nothing better to do with wealth than to spend it. Money has only the one function. Whereas magic spells in FF8 are commodities that can have utility of their own, if consumed. There's a reason that in Real Life, we don't make cash out of steel or eggs or chocolate. Not just because gold (or fiat currency) keeps better or is rarer, but because gold/fiat currency ONLY have value as a medium of exchange. You wouldn't "use up" your gold or dollar bills; you can't eat them or forge a sword out of them. (I mean you _could,_ but you wouldn't want to). Magic spells in FF8 are meant to be cast; they have value outside their utility in junctioning. But then you'd have fewer spells to junction. Your stats would drop. Casting a spell for momentary utility is, in the minds of many players looking for optimization, less valuable than hoarding it. So the game incentivizes never doing it.
So it's a combat system that discourages you from using magic or leveling up, encourages you to spam overpowered limit breaks, and also play a card game in order to avoid battling in order to refine into post-battle items to immediately max out your stats. Seems legit.
@@night1952 Leveling up makes the random encounters harder, while boss fights are a flat level. Gear is still limited to actual progression in the plot/world. You can absolutely level up to the point that your lack of better gear causes random encounters to become unreasonably hard.
@@Xeronoia Nah, gear barely does anything except unlocking Squall's limit breaks, you can beat the whole game with the original gear at level 100 easily with just junctions.
@@night1952 That doesn't really change that if you overlevel early in without access to gear and more spells to junction, the random encounters swiftly outclass you. Especially when the bosses and all plot progression are level-locked and yknow, you CAN outlevel them to brute force it?
@@Xeronoia but why would you grind like that? You're complaining about a problem you created. And no, even if you grind from the start you'll still be fine as long as you junction correctly since you can get high tier spells easily at all points, specially if you grind. Edit: besides, If mob enemies out class you you can just run away or turn encounters off.
FF8 was my first FF, and despite its flaws it holds a special place in my heart. As an introvert who is awkward around most people and is happiest spending time away from most people, I totally got Squall. Also the music. And especially that ending music. Holy shit.
It was my first as well. My favourite is 9 though. I think people are way too harsh on ffviii. It's true draw+junction is convoluted and broken but the game is charming af
Final Fantasy VIII is my favorite "bad" game and I know that's obvious because I have the loner teenager as my picture still but it's weird world and cast of weirdos are still captivating to this day despite its busted mechanics and stupid plot twists. Gunblade cool.
After watching this a dozen times, I think I'd make each individual enemy type to give you a +X to the max level of a magic, so you'd only have to draw from each enemy a single time
@@pn2294 it's really, really not. Random battles are badly designed. Giving you an area to explore (as most FF games do) but then forcing more and more battles on you the more you explore, is a self defeating design. Say you're playing FF7. You find that you're at the exit of an area...but you know you didn't go down some paths. You really love finding new Materia, as these paths could have. So you back track and explore, forcing more battles on you. You fight them, and end up over leveled, now the boss at the end of this place (and current fights) will be a piece of cake, and there for, no fun. Out of boredom and not wanting to get over leveled, you begin running from battles, aka, not playing the game. Which seems like it ruins the point of playing at all. FF6 is one of my fav games of all time. I love old RPG's. But random battles, as they are in those games, just aren't very well done.
@@Vipes3 it’s almost as though battles are one of the main features of the game./s Having them be random also tests your management skills. “Did I overextend Squall? Will we have enough items to make it through the dungeon?” Those sorts of questions.
@@pn2294 Just because something is a main feature, doesn't mean it wasn't done badly. The traditional random battles, are never ending. Which means back tracking and exploring, just become a pain in the ass, instead of fun. Almost always these battles aren't challenging, they're just in the way. Which is fine if you're just going from point A to point B. But again, if exploring, or trying to find the right way to go, you just begin to accidentally grind, which isn't an outcome one may want, and can be very annoying. It's really just a flawed way of doing it. Have the random battles "run out" unless you leave the whole area. Have them appear on the overworld or something. Some flaws just get figured out over time. So yes, you're right. Battles are a main part of the game. One would hope they are fun, engaging. But having to fight the same enemies again and again, that long ago lost thier threat, all because you missed a chest, is just annoying. Feels like the game is nagging at you.
I still love this game, and i would love a modern take on the game. I feel like this game fits the FF7 remake style of combat really well too, so it could be made in the same engine. I would change the draw system not to be as grindy and that you're drawing atunement to the spell, not storing a stock of uses. This way it's about potency of the spell going up as you draw from things.
i want a ff7 style action remake too, sounds badass. how would u do this "attunement" thing tho? blizzard turns into blizzara at 100%, then so on? it only affects power? or junction? if power, then wat about characters magic stat?
I love how eloquent and sarcastic you are, calling your viewers out on statistics you see while also establishing not only the point you are making but expounding on it to a degree that shows great thought and understanding. TL;DR I feel smarter after every video of yours I watch.
I really enjoyed 8. At the time I didn't know enemies scaled to me so it gave a good amount of challenge. Besides healing i rarely use magic anyway so junctioning was something i loved, it allowed me to makes use of spells i never used. I also liked that summons had purpose besides dealing damage, just like ff6... But this is specifically for me and definitely not for everyone. I feel this game works best if you don't know the ins and outs of the hidden mechanics.
It honestly feels like every one of your long-form videos is scratching a bit at The Meaning of Life, and honestly that would be the best format to approach it with, small tid bits of enlightenment here and there sprawled throughout chunks of otherwise mundane existance. Honestly whenever someone tries to make a big comprehensive meaning of life thing, be it a book, talk show or movie, people seem to not care, perhaps because it's hard to digest so much information at once. Our primitive brains don't like it when they're hit with so much introspection they just go "La-La-La-La"
The fact that I cannot grind and that things become impossible if I level up too quick made me set down this game. I'm a big Final Fantasy fan and this one just pissed me off.
@@teh0wnz0r76 I think the point being made is that level grinding is disadvantageous and while the rest is a bit hyperbolic, I do agree that normal battles being stretched out to minutes a piece unless you spam limit breaks or insta kill with degenerator when my party should be strong enough to achieve the same result without that stuff is beyond frustrating. Idk if you’re familiar but it’s like grinding in duel links. The mechanics are fun at first but eventually you get so frustrated that you try to engineer the game to the point to where you no longer interact with it.
@@TSfish94 bruh my 1st playthru i grinded to 100 n used GFs, magic etc. it was far from optimal. but guess wat? it was also far from impossible. it was fun. these ppl wanna grind to 100 to steamroll games. any hint of a challenge they fold, any need to think or strategize, they fold. this is a dead meme n im tired o hearin about it after all these years. ppl refuse to take personal responsibility, learn, n adjust. its sad n pathetic
the game becomes far from impossible lol. much harder sure but when me and my friend played it for the first time we leveled to 100 on disc one because we found an enmey that would give between 650 and 850 exp every fight so we just put in the time thinking it was making us stronger which of course it didn't. we still managed to beat the game without too much of a hassle and we were like 11 years old and did not have access to the internet
Golden Sun took a different approach that dodged so many of these issues. Standard magic bar, but you can find and bind an array of elemental critters to your characters. Stats go up and higher end spells become accessible, and the type of spells you can use change by mixing elements. You can also unbind them mid-fight for an effect, and en-masse use them for a powerful summon attack, leaving them unusable for a few turns. Gave a nice risky ebb and flow to tougher fights, balancing mana use on attacks and healing between summon bombs that could leave even the tankier fighters open to a bosses ire.
I always felt that spoonies 10 minute footage of drawing far better explained the pain of this system. The footage is of him drawing a single spell from a bug while getting teabagged by the bug and it takes him near the full 10 minutes to do so.
@@agenticex that's why you mess with settings. Literally this could have been cut in half with settings alone and the -remakes- -have- -a- -fast- -forward.- -Why- -is- -he- -not- -holding- -R2?- -Fucking- -memes.-
okay, I took notes this time. Eli, feel free to favorite this comment so as to staple it at the top. Here's the system for anybody who needs help: 1:First if you acquire a spell it stays in the menu. Spells are rechargable, not disposable? 2:Junctioned magic is less particular about which spell is best for which attribute. 3:There is a way to restock junctioned spells in combat 4:A spell has a different maximum stockpile and draws per turn, based on power 5:You restock your spells when you rest or save 6:One attribute-junctioned spell is as good as its maximum number. 7:Limit break status allows drawing of a junctioned, depleted spell from any monster. Basically, the new system lets you cast junctioned magic mostly without worry about dwindling stats and incentives the player to use the draw command much, much more often to restock spells. It also encourages players to junction their FAVORITE spells, the ones they want to use all the time.
I'm glad you're alright. Sorry to get parasocial, but I relate to you a lot. Know what it's like to have an attack when your body's already malfunctioning. Keep an eye on your heart rate.
FF8 remains one of my favorite RPG's ever. Understanding the bizarre junction system allows you to break the game is so many awesome ways. I think people who look for ways through invisible walls and screwing with rudimentary NPC's are just into FF8 for the joy of ruining it in the most fun ways possible.
Over the years, I've seen you in odd places I don't expect sometimes. I see you sharing similar viewpoints. Now, you have also just revisited a game I revisited and made the same conclusion (albeit you are touching upon another person's conclusion), that the draw/level/junction system was stupid in FF8. I think you'd be a nice guy to grab a beer with. In the remaster I was really hoping they'd change it. Solid idea, poor implementation where it teaches you leveling up is bad, using magic makes you weaker until you draw it again, don't get into random fights unless you card all the enemies, and also sit there while drooling on yourself as you draw an enemy for 30+ turns to get a stack of 99 of something for all your party members so you're optimized. It's counter-intuitive. The draw system itself really goes back to your Breath of the Wild video when it comes to japanese developers basically ignoring anything regarding QoL and time-wasting mechanics. After the boring task of drawing itself, every time I got a new stack of 99 of something I needed to see if what I drew makes better numbers on my stats except in regards of equipping certain things to status/element that a foe is weak against... Which usually only NEEDS to be done towards bosses..... Of which the first time you face them you usually have no F$#*&ing clue what they will be weak against unless you looked it up or fought them in the prior save because it often made 0 sense whom or what something was going to be weak/strong against besides the obvious fire monster means ice weapons or whatever. Even at x3 speed and using the max health/atb thing in the remaster (usually I'm opposed to this but the draw system feels like such a chore otherwise), it still feels like it takes too long. I have no idea how I did any of this shit when I was younger when it took THAT much longer. To top it all off there was so many people that would defend FF8 to death saying "Oh I guess you're just too stupid to understand the very sophisticated and superior junction system." No, it's because I understand the junction/draw system that I think it's stupid.
My idea to fix the draw system was to - Make the magic you draw like materia that you can slot into your stats and it would increase that stat based on a spell. (not the quantity) - These "materias" could be crafted together to make more powerful spells so there is a reason to keep drawing more of the weaker ones (10 fires = 1 Fira) -These can break after a certain amount of uses but with items you find from monsters or crafted from cards they can be repaired when taken to shops (or a GF ability) - if your materia breaks, you keep the stat bonus till the end of battle but the materia breaks afterwards and gives a lower stat bonus. I think this system makes it so you arn't drawing for every spell all day but also still looking for some spells to craft into better ones, which also keeps weaker spells useful later in the game including spells you don't usually use. You also arn't going to be punished every time for casting spells, but when you do run out, its not immediately back to the grind because they can be repaired. Enemies should also have a chance to drop spells as well as there should be more draw points through out the world so that drawing from monsters isn't so over used. ALSO on a side note, I think the GFs should have more of a theme to their abilities because they feel pretty random (Shiva could have a White mage theme and give a higher stat bonus and higher heals from cures or atleast more damage from Blizzard spells because its Shiva??)
18:38 I know the answer to that. FF8's development was a very troubled one. The main problem was that the writers spent months, and then over a year furiously running in circles trying to figure out what the hell their game was actually going to be about. Eventually, someone higher up (almost certainly Sakaguchi) dragged them out kicking and screaming, and forced them to write something safe and appealing just so the rest of their very expensive production staff could get to work. This resulted in the original main character (Laguna) being replaced with a safe and appealing main character (Squall). However, Laguna would not be forgotten; the game was running on such a thin margin that they repurposed Laguna's finished story segments by surgically grafting them onto Squall's via some of the most insane asspull nonsense in any game imaginable. Only in an era where Neon Genesis Evangelion, would such a feat be acceptable...speaking of which, that reminds me of the real victim of Final Fantasy 8's wastages: Xenogears. See, FF8 had gone so far over budget that Squaresoft cannabalized Xenogears midway through its production, and Xenogears was by no means meant to be a small game. This wasn't the first time Squaresoft had pulled such a stunt either; Secret of Mana had half of its large budget chopped off and handed off to Final Fantasy 6. (for completely different reasons centered around the abandoned CD-hardware expansion for the SNES) If Final Fantasy 13 didn't exist, FF8 would absolutely be the single greatest example of a polished turd in Squeenix's library.
... And so in the twilight hours of twentieth year, Plague Father sayeth onto the shapless masses - "In this way, thou shalt learn nothing, yet gain everything." - >)X^D
You aren't allowed to die plague. Your dark work is not yet complete. should contrast 8, with 9; because I never appreciated it's crushing depression till I was older.
Part of the fun of FFVIII was its imperfection, I played through it 3 times and each time I had a different experience. By the end I had broken the game, and using the spell Aura made limit breaks even more broken.
so is more of a Start than a Solution, but the way they referenced the mechanic in FF15 is a good building base: "Drawing" & "Junction" are entirely an off battle thing, scattered all over the world you find Crystal that contain chunks of magic and you could use those magic chunks to either make casting Spells or shove them onto your weapons for extra buffs.
Regardless of it's other flaws, I felt like the draw system doesn't mix well with the standard level up system at all. Like you said, staying low level and using a series of playing cards and refine abilities is technically the best way to play in terms of strength. To me the draw and refining systems all felt like they could've been there in replacement of a level up system completely. It felt like that's roughly what they wanted to me at least. Considering typical player expectations for a level up system though, it's easy to screw yourself thinking you're getting stronger if you aren't very familiar with the junction system yet. With how much ap gains and stocking magic plays a role into getting stronger, you'd think they'd just make those things the only real means of character growth like how in ff2 you use any action to make it better (be it a stat, a weapon, or a spell) and how in ff10 you just gain AP for sphere levels which allow you to pick and choose stats and abilities along certain paths. In these two games it's more than obvious that this is how you get stronger, so there is no grinding trap to fall into in the first place. On the other hand in ff7, level ups are a significant part of how to become stronger as you'd normally expect, while the materia system is a fun add-on that opens up each character's options with very transparent benefits and drawbacks/limitations that adds another dimension to armor and weapon usefulness. It takes away nothing and adds everything. Having more options is a more indirect way of showing progress that never butts heads with the classic level up system. In ff8 leveling up is just a scam you have to watch out for, and there's no real way to reverse it's affects either. It entices you based off of common expectation but also the promise of gaining better spells, when in reality just about anything else is better than levelling up to draw better spells. Tonberry with the level up ability makes this less of a problem, but if anything it's just padding. Even though higher level monsters of the same kind will give you better spells, they could've just made it so monsters have a set list of spells to draw from, alongside set stats and attacks the way any other jrpg would have their random encounters. I think this would've made balancing character progression and overall difficulty WAY easier to do. Raising your strength by 100 when you and your enemies are lv50 is substantial, but doesn't necessarily make everything piss easy in an instant, but doing so at lv10 definitely does. They could make later enemies and bosses get way harder to reflect a steep increase in player power, but that would leave anyone less knowledgeable about the system (or those scammed by the fake level up system) in a pretty shitty position, which is probably why they made the game so damn easy now that I think about it. I haven't had these problems when I play since I usually try not to grind too much in other jrpgs anyways, but I absolutely can see how they could rear their ugly heads for other people. If the game wanted to break the mold and be be revolutionary it should've stuck to it's word and not half-ass it.
My suggestion would be grouping up all the Spells into just a few Elements. 8 tops. Fire, Ice, Thunder, Bio, Earth, Wind, Light, Dark. All spells, including stats and healing, come from one or a mix of these categories. Stop would be Ice. Haste would be Thunder. Blind would be Dark. Meteor would be Fire + Ice + Light. When you Draw, you Draw one of these elements from an enemy, not just the base spell. To learn a Spell, you have to Draw from an enemy that knows the Spells while junctioned with the proper elements. Every player can junction 1 Element at the start, and another Element from their GF. And then they can learn to junction a third one from some plot events/items that show their character growth. Kinda like learning Limits. I think this would greatly diminish the Hoarding factor because you'd be constantly running into enemies that have the Spells you have junctioned, as most enemies will have at least 2 elements you could draw from them, with bosses maybe having 4-8 elements to draw.. Junction would function on 3 Thresholds. All elements would have a Cap of maybe 40 or 50. And would grant a buff to 1-3 stats when junctioned and gain resistance to the element. If a character has over 50% of the Element cap, the character would fully nullify damage from that element, and at 90%+ the character would just absorb damage from that element. So you don't lose stats by using spells. Only damage immunity. Also, to have immunity to Spells that have multiple elements like Meteor, the player would have to have junctioned ALL elements, not just one. The in-battle menu would only display the Magic the character can use with their junctioned Spells. The character/junction menu would however remember and display all Spells you have learned. Kinda like your idea. I'd also suggest making the Junction work on certain "checks" rather This would hopefully make the Draw/Junction system function more like "Jobs" work in Final Fantasy Tactics and other games in the series. Also, I would improve the Draw action to make it more useful. When you use Draw you would get: the 5-10 uses of the Drawn element, +Increased Magic Defense for the turn, + increase a "limit break gauge". In this case the "Limit Breaks" the character uses would have different effects depending on what magic the character would have junctioned. Enemies would also have a certain number of "Element" uses. It would be much higher than the player's in most cases, but draining all "Element" from an enemy could be made viable in some fights. This would make it more like the Default system from the Bravely Default games, which I found pretty fun
Drawing has one option but it'd be crazy long to implement. Every enemy also junctions, and as such has attributes buffed/nerfed(bear with me) based on their spells equipped. A scan spell reveals which spells they have and/or what it's altering. Thus draw not only grants magic, but also acts as a status affecting ability. Here's the rub, the spells you junction are the only spells you can cast. More slots are available allowing for more options. The biggest change is this: the fewer spells you have equipped, the higher the buff. As such drawing becomes not only a way to gain magic, it becomes a way to manage an enemy's stats. If you draw all but one, they get much stronger, but drawing everything out of them "breaks" the stat and makes them far weaker than they were at the start of the fight.
My solution is to cap the amount of spells you can keep (for use as magic and junction) to your level. This will incentivize leveling up despite enemies also leveling up. Also, keep the spell stocks for the junction separate from the stock for using magic. Maybe the junction spells convert into a spell stone or something that can only be used for junction and given to another character only for junctioning. That way, there is no temptation not to use the junctioned spells for magic because you can't use junctioned spells for magic. You have to restock spells for magic in a separate stock and there's no other way to use it than as magic
The easiest fix (to implement in or mod or something) I can think of, would be to cap the stockable amount to the level of the character. So if the character is level 10, you can only stock 10 of them. which would solve the grind in the beginning of the game and the overleveling. of course your solution might be more balanced but more difficult to implement in the existing code base. Balancing stronger with weaker spells (similiar to your approach) could be done with a modifer. weaker spell level*1.5, stronger spell level*0.5.
I’ve never thought of linking a cap to the character level before, but it seems like a pretty strong idea! I think that in addition to this, you could do away with tiered spells entirely (which I know would be HIGHLY controversial for FF, but I think it could work if you could, i dunno, have the spell tier tied to a different thing, like spending multiple “charges” of the spell, or just being determined by your Magic stat). I worry that severely limiting the stock could limit the Junction system’s appeal, but I guess it could also be reworked.
i don't think being able to carry 100 of every spell is particularly balanced, but a lower variant, i feel like replacing it with a slot system like how KH has items is how i would do it, letting you still carry multiples of the same spell but sacrificing room for a more varied set @@wohdinhel i like that idea actually, fira could use 2 casts of fire, and firaga could use 3 casts would avoid the problem of weaker variants being useless
@@dmas7749 sure, I was just thinking practically in terms of effort for modding and the result it would give. If we just draw those ideas on paper then of course we can get into more detail to properly balance this new theoretical system
my thoughts on fixing the draw and junction system are pretty simple 1. dont junction spells. Instead, junction items specifically for it. You can easily repurpose the items already in the game meant for refining them into spells, like dino bones. 2. have GFs learn spells that characters get to use by beeing junctioned to them, cast normally with MP. 3. keep draw mostly as is, minus the spell stocking obviously, just as a means to cast spells for no MP cost.
Personally, my solution is to change the magic system more than the draw system. Because, ultimately, that's where the flaw of FF8's interlocking systems reside. Drawing is fine, the refining system is fine, but as long as magic is stock-based and limited then you have no reason to cast it. You have no reason to interact with draw exempting stocking up. You have no reason to interact with GFs besides stacking them onto your anointed few. Etc. My solution is to simply make magic unique. Instead of drawing stocks of magic, you simply draw THAT particular spell. You want fire? Better go hug a Bomb. Need Bio? Find a slime. Etc. Rare magic, as a result, is RARE. You can simply no longer refine items into magic. You then append mana points to the game, spells cost MP instead of stocks, but retain the junctioning and GF systems. GFs additionally limit what kinds of magic you can junction. Wanna use those Tornados to buff your HP to 9999? Better have Pandemona. Ultima to your ATK? Eden. Etc etc. This requires you to spread GFs out, but also requires you to think about which characters get which magic. Magic is now a percentage scale, and that scaling is limited by GF level. A level 100 Pandemona gives you a substantially higher effect than level 1. This encourages you to level up, as your stats won't scale out of control for your level, and also encourages you to level up your GFs so you get a more pronounced effect. In place of items being refined into magic, GFs can be simply given the option to learn how to junction for all stats. Thus allowing you to use elements for all stats.
My solution would be basically the same, but instead of limiting specific spells to GFs, lock away the ability to cast junctioned spells. Yep. You want a competent healer? Well, better not junction Curaga to that character's HP, you'll need it for other stuff.
Most solutions I can think of would be to lean more towards castlevania's methods regarding a similar system. Once you have a spell you can cast it so long as you have the points for it with the weaker ones being both cheaper and easier to acquire. However I'd first alter the draw system to basically act as a mid-combat ether with a chance of acquiring a spell. Ethers would still be useful in that they allow you to restore mana without eating turns in combat. Copies of a spell could then be spent to either increase the potency of the spell itself, or with a lot of them you could convert the spell into the next tier of spell of it's type. This kind of gets the best of both worlds but might add to the tedious nature of drawing for cards if the chances weren't pseudo random and/or were too harsh. On the other hand it would make sitting there to draw for hours an option rather than required. 50% chance for a tier one spell is a good starting point with some modifiers if the creature actually casts the spell itself.
The system is super easy to fix: -Get rid of stocks. They are gonna be replaced with "mana balls" of differet collors for example green mana allows the use healing spells, red for fire spells, etc. Mana balls dissapear at the end of the battle and each type has a maximum of 10. -Depending on the enemies you get certain types of mana balls. Which mean a fire type monster with some healing spells might give you 3 or 2 red and 1 green mana ball; or something like that. Wouldn`t this give you only ineffective magic against most enemies? yes, it would. -Thats way the draw comand has 2 options when selected: draw and convert. Draw for gaining mana and Convert for changing the mana balls you currently have into other types at different exchange rates. -I don`t get exactly how obtaining skills work but probably will remain mostly unchanged. The only difference is if you want to equip an ability to get their stat buff you can`t use it in battle. -Items and triple triad cards instead of giving stocks for abilities, it just gives exp for a specific ability if that ability gets to a 100exp you learned it in your current GF. -GF have their specific list of skills. Skill are learned by the item method or by just using a skill but in this method you just the next evolution of the skill that is available in the GF.
If it was tied to a simple minigame or something that gave you more based on how well you do, it would make it a lot less tedious. Maybe even something close to the Renzokuken minigame that gets progressively faster as you draw more. If you got good at this, you could potentially max your spell count on each draw. You could also raise the limit on how many spells you can carry but keep the limit on how many you can junction, allowing the use of those spells without affecting the stats. As for the leveling system, ask the player at the end of each battle, if they would rather gain a number of uses of a certain spell instead of XP, (or add another GF ability that does this)
Limiting the draw down to 10-20 is a good idea and one I sorted wished was a thing ever since I first played VIII, not sure about restocking at every save point. As a way to encourage players to cast, Id say still keep the max spells you can draw at 100, but Your only allowed to junction at most 20 to a given character, as a second point, anybody with cast junctioned to them would have access to the entire pool of non junctioned spells, so you dont have to lower your stats when casting. As a final option, Have a shop, where you can buy spells (save maybe the rarest and most powerful versions) so you can just cheaply pay a few gil to stock up rather than spending ages drawing from monsters.
I've played this game several times. Never fucked with the cards aside from a few games for fun. I loved the junction system to bring up stats, allocating elemental/status defenses with physical attacks that could blind or silence. I got excited finding a new spell to draw. Made sure I had my GF with the skill to convert to higher spells. I just hated when they took off your junction set up at parts. Drawing isn't so bad once you can blind or silence, make sure your settings are set to remember your last command and hold X. The characters, music, GF summons and visual design is what I play the game for though.
It's counterintuitive but I don't mind it, honestly. Unless the player wants to min-max the heck out of everything it nearly never becomes a real problem. Of course, that doesn't erase its flaws but it's not really that horrible of a system, especially when you can dump Ultimas on enemies like there's no tomorrow. In a way, the world leveling with the player is a detriment to the feeling of being overpowered but the main difference is that the player gets many more options in how dealing with enemies by going from 2 to 3 teammates, having more GFs, the junctions, items and the spells. Then again, I might be biased on this one and giving it a bit too much leeway.
1 - you don't draw casts of magic, you draw some fraction of the ability to use the magic out of a specific enemy - each enemy gets *1* spell that they countribute to in that way. 2 - you have to find a few different sources of magic in order to gain access to the spell -- say 4 out of 12 total per spell 3 - Once you unlock the ability to use the spell, you can junction it freely -- the whole 'finite number of casts' thing is gone and instead you just get a flat number of casts between tents/inns/etc 4 - drawing from an enemy whose spell you already have restores a small amount of that enemy's spell. 5 - After you have unlocked the spell, drawing the spell from more of the unique sources amps the spell in some way -- damage going up to 50 percent higher, up to double the casts stored, up to 50% higher impact to the stat junctioning for that spell. 6 - card refine is one or two of those sources per spell 7 - draw points are one or two of those sources per spell 8 - Two to three of those levels are actually obtained by unlocking 'school' upgrades from GFs -- Ifrit has school abilities for fire, Shiva for Ice, Quetzacoatl for Wind, Diablos for Gravity, Cerberus for Time magic, etc. 9 - as suggested in the video, your total of any given spell is capped according to its potency So let's say starting out the game you fight buel. You draw fire from the buel to get your fire level to 1/12 -- still need to get it to 4/12 to make it the basic spell. You also draw from Ifrit to get to 2/12, you find draw points at the Garden and in Balamb and now you can use and junction fire at its most basic level. You unlock card refine and now you can refine your Buel cards into another fire level. By the end of disc 1, you can (if you go out of your way) get all basic elemental spells capped and find up to the first 4 parts of second tier spells. By the end of disc 2, you have the same pattern with mid level spells capping and upper level spells unlocking. End of disc 3 obviously you have more or less full access to everything as you did in the original. Seems like an easy fix to actually make draw more engaging and not something you just do on bosses in case they have a GF that you need.
I'm pretty partial to the Skill Crack command from the Devil Survivor games as a 'draw power from monsters' mechanic- each party member has a chance to pick a skill off a monster and if that character kills the monster, they get to copy that skill either to slot on the spot or it's added to their skill list for later. You can even Crack enemy skills you can't use yet for when your stats are better later.
I just put ultima on str. made squall really strong. have him be in low hp so I can spam renzokuken forever. ff8 exp in a nutshell and then some card games.
Hey Plague! Always love your vids, and you drop some deep heavy wisdom nuggets for my hungry gullet. Hope you're doing well keep on keeping on brotherman.
While I think FFVIII is one of the better games in the franchise and is highly underrated for many reasons I do have to agree with the general points you make. Personally I enjoy the junction system because I enjoy meta gaming and breaking a game's systems but that doesn't make the general execution of the game and its systems any less flawed. The draw/junction system suffers from the same issues the whole game suffers from in that its too obtuse. Someone who takes the extra time to really delve into it will find some depth of playing around with the systems just like someone who delves into the story really deeply will find that it's not as nonsense as it comes off but being "good if you really dig into it" doesn't make up for a bad first impression. The average player isn't going to play through the game 5 times, learning all the quickest ways to get the best magic available at each point and how to really use the system to take advantage of status and elemental junctions and they're also not going to psychoanalyze every line of dialog to make sense of the story; and the game shouldn't require that level of analysis to be good or enjoyable. Its there for those who enjoy it but there is a reason why it is the most divisive game in the series and why it has the worst reception out of them all. People love it or hate it and there really isn't much in-between. Enjoyed your thoughts on ways to improve the system and would be curious to see what could be done with it if someone ever tried to revisit the concept. Especially the idea of magic restocking on its own in safe areas. I always enjoyed the system for what it is but now I'm really curious how much better it could feel if done again with some of these ideas implemented.
Albert Wesker explains JRPG design
Im glad this showed up as the top comment because it made this video way more enjoyable
Chris... stop it
My new headcanon is that Plauge is just Wesker expressing his more artistic endeavors now.
Thank you.
COMPLETE. JUNCTION. SYSTEM.
BACK TO YOU
Don't die, you still need to make a video series yelling about the magical girls trope.
Magical Girls are the best.
@@brosephnoonan223 I'm sorry, but now thanks to your handle AND your comment, I have an image of Heimskr giving a fiery sermon in Whiterun about how Madoka's sacrifice saved mankind from the witches, but the ELVES AND THEIR TOADIES are trying to bury her legacy!
@@Titan360
I mean...
They are.
There's magic girls now ? I thought that died out and people nowadays only make Parodys Or death games or even them dying with blood every were and the Mascot character is evil.
FF8 gave me my first GF, needless to say I was severely disappointed.
..... excuse me?
@@tomasmaestrale2031 quetzalcoatl is pretty mediocre
@@protolad2458 duuuuuuuude I thought he meant girlfriend when I wrote it lol. I forgot that’s what they were called I ff8😂😂😂😂
Not my first, but I really did get a girlfriend because of FF8, because I supposedly had a passing resemblance to Squall. In the end, we both ended up disappointed.
@@miserychickadee I'm disappointed just by reading your comment.
The deadpan “Wow, I’ve never seen a boat sink so fast” is going to be a go to soundclip for me from now on
This game was the epitome of "How to become OP before [insert location here]"
Reminded me to check on Primalliquid!
XD
"How to become OP before the game starts."
@@TheAzulmagia OP during Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec.
Before the mission to Dollet
"Don't have anxiety attacks while sick with something that leaves you bedridden " I feel that plague, I feel that spiritually
Fact. Lol
"In this way, by transforming the world's population of enemies into Triple Triad cards, you can learn NOTHING, while gaining EVERYTHING."
This is my new favorite video now
The word "petrol" derives from the Latin word "petroleum" which probably derives from the ancient Greek word "petra", meaning "rock". I suppose this means we can postulate that the first instances of oil were discovered in rock shale. However, there's also an ancient city in Jordan aptly named Petra, which features some rather nice architecture carved directly from the local rose colored rock. You might have seen it in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. So, who knows, maybe oil was first discovered bubbling out of the ground around those parts. This isn't really going anywhere, but yeah, the draw system sucked.
You're not making Final Fantasy better, you're making games worse!
:D It's quite funny that Petrol/Petroleum is explained by somebody with the name Propane
They used a form of solid petrol that melted, kinda like asphalt
My sleep deprived brain:
Dr. Kadowaki
"How are you feeling?"
(Ok, I guess)
(My foreskin hurts)
The fun thing about going back to FFVIII, in my opinion, is realizing how surprisingly good it is.
Well, in certain parts.
There's two critical parts that are broken: gameplay balance and endgame plot. You can break VIII's draw system clean in half by Disk 2 (though admittedly that takes work). But there's so much boldness in this game's direction. The character dialogue is funny and grounded with a great localization, the graphics are beautiful even by today's standards, the OST is varied and excellent... It's great.
Then TIME KOMPRESSION happens and the plot falls like a house made of popsicle sticks. So if you HAVE broken the magic system over your knee like Bane to Batman, there's not much left for you.
FF8 is a great game. Too many people just didn't understand the magic system and therefore hate it. The idea of being able to get super overpowered immeditely as you start the game is super rewarding though it does make fights trivial after this point. The idea of using the card system and turning that into magic is an idea most newer players will be a thing most people won't realise about.
The drawing system was a pain though. Not sure how they could improve it. There's something to be said for making it hard to draw unique magic from bosses, but also to not make it drag it out for so long that it becomes boring.
The first time I blamed me not paying attention for not understanding the plot developments in FF8. I played the first half and the final dungeon with my friends when I was young.
I played it in full again many years later and the plot is snookerloopy nonsense. You have magical amnesia, you are timelinked to another important NPC's past, the best interpretation for many individual character stories is "coming of age", those personal stories take up much of the spotlight that the peculiar worldbuilding could really use, and it turns out basically all named characters bar 2 have been secretly a family all along(which everyone forgot). And then comes the timeloop/TIME KOMPRESSION which you can only survive by GROWING UP. No, really. That's the final piece of the coming of age story.
The plot is incomprehensible and insufferable from the player's perspective.
dude...no FF8's plot is so bad, it's like it was written by monkeys. So many non-sensical moments it drive me nuts it was actually shipped for sale. For example, they say there's no radio transmission in the entire world for like 20 years, okay.
The whole "oh we were all raised by the sorceress but forgot" thing was SO stupid, so you're telling me Irvine, which is the ONLY ONE that remembers it, never felt the need to mention it, even when he's hired to SHOOT HER IN THE FACE. Like "Oh there's my adopted mother, time to murder her I guess"
Then you have stuff like, the sorceress murdering a guy in front of crowd telling them she's the new Hitler and the crowd going cheering for some wtf reason. Rinoa attempt's to "assassinate" the sorceress by going to her room and say "hum...hello I'm the leader of the rebels, can I kills you?" then she gets f#ck (what a surprise huh). There's Seifer turning evil which is so poorly written it makes Anakin becoming Darth Vader seem like shakespeare.The whole Elone thing going back to the past even thought she knows it's impossible to change stuff but she does it anyway because f#ck you...SO SO many little nonsensical moments, it's hard to believe it wasn't written by a child that just wanted to have cool things happen regardless if they obeyed logic or not
@@felphero Why couldn't a world without radio transmission exist for 20 years?
@@olserknambecause why would people keep radio around if it was dead for 20 years?
And why was it not repaired quicker? This is crucial piece of infrastructure
I really enjoy FF8 for how easy it is to break and become ludicrously overpowered, but if you asked me how the game is meant to be played, I would have no idea what to tell you.
I feel like what the intention was was that they wanted it to feel like a risk-v-reward mechanic where your prize is another risk-v-reward mechanic. You can draw from this mouse to gain resources, but don't give it too much time or it'll just kill you because level scaling! And that lets you use spells that can hit weaknesses and do good damage, but don't use them too much or you'll become weaker!
The problem mainly hits when you have both of these things right next to eachother. If casts could be restocked and you just bought more charges then power boosts would make more sense because you're not really losing anything and it lets the player make more decisions about using melee or magic attacks.
And if the stats didn't go up but you could draw magic, then that would also fix a lot because then you'd be incentivised to draw as needed, but you wouldn't just be spamming draw because it'd be pointless. Having 99 Blizard casts doesn't do anything when you're going to get Blizzara anyways.
It's when they do all of it together that it becomes a problem because then the game heavily incentivises hoarding. And that incentivises drawing casts forever. Which is level-scaled, so it incentivises running away so you don't gain experience after you've drawn a lot of magic.
@@dracocrusher I know, right? All the ideas, individually and on paper, would make for good mechanics. Taken together, it creates a system that encourages the player to act completely counter to standard JRPG convention. Convention which the game still allows and/or encourages, despite hobbling it. The design elements of the game are acting against one another, and optimization is both incredibly easy and terribly tedious.
There's a saying that players will, given the opportunity, optimize the fun out of a game. FF8 dives headlong into this fact.
@@dracocrusher if you use the card command and turn the enemy into a card you get no exp
@@catantcha99 But enemies scale. So it doesn't really matter. Exp isn't a real asset, your stat boosts from drawing magic matter way more. So if you just farm draws then that's basically the same as farming experience, except it's way less direct and more tedious and you're essentially losing progress by using spells.
Essentially, what this means is that because levels are scalable, drawing is your new Exp, and you just burn your 'experience' by using spells, which is terrible. If it was a mechanic attached to an actual traditional level then nobody would choose to use those spells unless they're stupidly busted. But because you don't even really get that resource naturally, it just feels even worse to obtain.
@@Bluecho4 >There's a saying that players will, given the opportunity, optimize the fun out of a game.
A power-gamer optimizes for power. A true gamer optimizes fun. E.g., cheats give power but often take away fun.
You did tell us you'll have a talk with Japan about sex in that one Dragon Ball video, I still wanna watch THAT one
He has to experience it before he cam discuss it
Ah sweet, a new Plague video!
Plague: I'm sick.
And just like that Thanksgiving is officially ruined. Goodnight everybody!
FF8 is my favorite FF because there is just so
much of it. There's tons of little world-building details (the ice hockey monsters get mentioned on your first trip to Galbadia Garden, the return to Garden is turned into an explanation on how SEED is funded), lots of things you can reasonably assume (Seifer's dream of being a knight and gunblade stance are inspired by seeing the movie Laguna was in), and genuinely cool and weird moments like Fisherman's Horizon and the Lunar Base. For all the missteps and bloat that FF8 has it's little things that definitely don't make it more than the sum of its parts, but still stand out as being weird and off the beaten track for the series.
And for the record I think 6 and 9 are the best.
Pushing past it's faults of being tedious I actually really like that the game offers something different then just grind endlessly against monsters to become overpowered and curb stomp every boss. It offers the players a different way to gain power and it also as Plague said is a test to see how well you understand the system and can break it because it really isn't that straight forward, but the option is there if you want.
I never really engaged the card and junction system fully in my youth, but as an adult it is awesome to play around with it and see just how broken you can make yourself.
It was very ambitious for it's time and while not perfect it was at least different and I crave that sometimes.
Despite it's flaws, I love this game. While the drawing itself can be tedious, but the surrounding systems like junctioning, GF learning abilities and refine abilities are all pretty fun. The main problem is that those tutorials suck ass and many people just don't understand these systems (which is understandable). The level system is stupid though, and in combination with the junctioning system that game and it's difficulty can be completely broken.
I’ve always felt that FFVIII’s level and junction system was a MASSIVE part of its charm, although I get why it turns some people off. As someone who loves the idea of absolutely melting games by abusing its own systems, FFVIII is like freebasing cocaine for me. But it’s also a system that you ABSOLUTELY do not have to min-max in order to play competently.
@@wohdinhel A few months back I decided to play a little of FF8, just to have fun with breaking it.
I got to Timber and then stopped, cuz I'd basically overpowered my character enough and the game was just becoming a chore.
Fully agree, starter
It's a chaotic cocktail of systems that half work or are incredibly obtuse. But hey, it's ok to like trashfires, and I do enjoy VIII, warts and all (and there are many, many warts).
@@wohdinhel To me junction is the problem, as it encourage not using magic to keep stat high. Personally don't mind the draw part, as I usually avoid drawing by quickly getting the refinery skill and playing triple triad. One of the rare spell I go out of my way to draw a large quantity from enemies is sleep (to other been aura and triple, if I remember right, as they are even more of a pain to refine), as the status magic RF come from Diablo and he's one of the boss I absolutely want sleep for.
what I got from this video is that the Drawing system and it's associated card game turns FF8 into a YGO spin off series with gunblades and summons/GF what not
Draw System
Concept: Good
Implementation: Disaster
Fully agree
I have taken the idea for various videogame documents and assorted fiction.
“The almighty magic is now...!”
Lemme give it a try... ARE YOU IMMUNE?
“YOU!?”
[Cue Boss Fight]
@noponwisdom t It doesn't work so in FF8
Enemies level with you, so level ups are more or less pointless
@@lantizeldaappeared5993 And yet many of the people who play the game rightly point out that by using junction stats and stat up at level up skills (yes, those exist) you can get SIGNIFICANTLY stronger than enemies, meaning avoiding level ups because "the enemies scale" is stupid. There's literally skills that give you 1-3 additional points to your stats per level. You'd have to be bad at math to think roughly 150 extra strength is "pointless."
@@Nekufan1000000 Do not worry I'm not the only one saying this system (I could also say this game) sucks
Redrawing Final Fantasy VIII's Draw System
PlagueofGripes
@@Nekufan1000000 Big Rigs Over the Road Racing > Final Fantasy 8
"...another Pokemon cartoon or something..."
You know exactly what your legacy will be Plague and it will be glorious.
Listening to this gave me the idea that instead of drawing resources (spell casts) you instead use it to learn spells for that character and then can use it like a typical mp-based one. You could even expand it to have more than just spells. I was imagining a combination of draw and blue magic, and if you still wanted to use these to junction onto your GF for boosts you'd lose access to that *specific* spell for that character as a trade-off, so it becomes a question of, "Do I want to be able to cast this freely or would I rather take the buffs to this character and maybe have someone else cast it?"
One way you could avoid just never having access to a spell is make the adjustments or changes with the junction function a bit differently depending on the GF, so if you wanted a physical fightery guy you use Titan or something and junction attack spells, so that way you could control what role a character fulfills to allow for strategy and player-driven optimization without totally removing access to "that one spell" since it wouldn't be the best one across the board. Technically this means that you could find a single optimal strategy to always use but it would allow wiggle room for who you use it on, and if you want to avoid optimal choices entirely, you could implement other effects and abilities as a result of the junction so there's more than one "good" spell to junction per GF, maybe even based on what spell you use to begin with.
14:30 Lancet from FFX is another example, and actually a solid, working basic attack for mages when they run out of MP while traveling an area.
I'm really loving these video essays. Your approach of exploratory problem solving is endlessly entertaining to me. Thank you for uploading :)
Me: "Oh look! Plague uploaded a new video! Final Fantasy? I've never played those, but I'll watch it anyway because I like everything that Plague makes."
Video: "Begone, normie! This topic is too deep for you!"
Me: "I severely doubt that. I am a full-fledged nerd and geek. I've watched every (good) Star Trek series, I've studied programming, physics, math, and science. I get every single reference made on The Big Bang Theory. I can handle a little technical jargon."
Video: "Suit yourself..."
Plague: "-in addition to drawing 99 of every spell in the game, you can also still equip them."
Me: "Okay, makes sense."
Plague: "If you junction a summon to your body, then depending on what abilities the GF has learned, you might also be able to junction the drawl magic onto your stats, thereby increasing them."
Me: "...um... what?" *begins nervously sweating
Plague: "Drawing generic MP turns the function into an ether. Success on physical attacks is almost guaranteed on a rigid timer, so tying it to that doesn't work. Raising the spells you draw, invalidates the system."
Me: "I'm sorry professor, I must have walked into the wrong classroom. I was looking for calculus. It's a much easier subject." *sprints out of the room
Pretty much my feeling too. I finished that feeling "I understood all those words and the sentences they make, but I have no clue wtf he was talking about"
Which probably doesn't bode well for me playing it someday
These near-30 minutes of you talking honestly felt like five. I love how I can listen to you talk about whatever and time just flies by. Love your stuff man
“You get a GF” fat chance
You do, but they come with a terrible cost. Over time you’ll lose all of your memories of when you were an incel.
The only thing I didn't like about Junctioning is that it discouraged you from using any of your magic spells.
Yep, i got some late game magic in the first disc via the card converter thing, and never used it, even when I got some better stuff, in the 4th one
@Terror The problem is that most games condition and train us to hoard resources, and then we make every game harder because of it
Fully agree
why use magic spells i always used limits it was faster
What you said about creativity, as well as when you write, in painting you try to explore what is inside your mind, it is a good way to see it, that helped me, thank you.
Your video essays are always nice to chew on, thanks
I played FFVIII for the first time at like 10 when it came out. I had no idea how the junction system worked, so my first playthrough was a very difficult 100+ hour no junction playthrough.
Now it's probably the game I've played through the most and everything is super easy since I know how things work.
Thinking about it, the way FF8 handles magic and junctioning reminds me of how rich people accrue wealth, then invest it in various forms. In property, land, businesses, stocks, art items, etc. They still _have_ the wealth - they're still rich - but their wealth gets tied up in assets that must be liquidated or sold if they want to use it for spending. But while it's tied up in solid assets, it's probably also making them more money, or otherwise gaining them some other benefit. FF8's junction system just uses their magical wealth to invest in the characters themselves.
The issue, of course, is the same issue as with Capitalism: when you gain so much benefit from the investment of these assets, it encourages you to _hoard your wealth._
This becomes a problem in Capitalism because it means wealth just sits in the possession of a few rich assholes, rather than moving around and into the pockets of the rest of us.
In FF8, however, the problem is of a different sort. At least with cash, there's nothing better to do with wealth than to spend it. Money has only the one function. Whereas magic spells in FF8 are commodities that can have utility of their own, if consumed. There's a reason that in Real Life, we don't make cash out of steel or eggs or chocolate. Not just because gold (or fiat currency) keeps better or is rarer, but because gold/fiat currency ONLY have value as a medium of exchange. You wouldn't "use up" your gold or dollar bills; you can't eat them or forge a sword out of them. (I mean you _could,_ but you wouldn't want to). Magic spells in FF8 are meant to be cast; they have value outside their utility in junctioning.
But then you'd have fewer spells to junction. Your stats would drop. Casting a spell for momentary utility is, in the minds of many players looking for optimization, less valuable than hoarding it. So the game incentivizes never doing it.
So it's a combat system that discourages you from using magic or leveling up, encourages you to spam overpowered limit breaks, and also play a card game in order to avoid battling in order to refine into post-battle items to immediately max out your stats.
Seems legit.
Except getting magic back is so easy that using a few is no issue at all. Leveling up is not discouraged at all unless you want to break the game.
@@night1952 Leveling up makes the random encounters harder, while boss fights are a flat level. Gear is still limited to actual progression in the plot/world. You can absolutely level up to the point that your lack of better gear causes random encounters to become unreasonably hard.
@@Xeronoia Nah, gear barely does anything except unlocking Squall's limit breaks, you can beat the whole game with the original gear at level 100 easily with just junctions.
@@night1952 That doesn't really change that if you overlevel early in without access to gear and more spells to junction, the random encounters swiftly outclass you. Especially when the bosses and all plot progression are level-locked and yknow, you CAN outlevel them to brute force it?
@@Xeronoia but why would you grind like that? You're complaining about a problem you created. And no, even if you grind from the start you'll still be fine as long as you junction correctly since you can get high tier spells easily at all points, specially if you grind.
Edit: besides, If mob enemies out class you you can just run away or turn encounters off.
Appericate these vids, I'm stuck at work on turkey day so these help
FF8 was my first FF, and despite its flaws it holds a special place in my heart. As an introvert who is awkward around most people and is happiest spending time away from most people, I totally got Squall. Also the music. And especially that ending music. Holy shit.
It was my first as well. My favourite is 9 though.
I think people are way too harsh on ffviii. It's true draw+junction is convoluted and broken but the game is charming af
@@davidjorge4135 To me the story is the only thing holding it together, have only played the game once and never again.
Your description of a soul-consuming TCG experience is what I wish my obsession of magic the gathering was like.
oh wait.
him renaming squall to squeal just cracked me up, not bad..
Final Fantasy VIII is my favorite "bad" game and I know that's obvious because I have the loner teenager as my picture still but it's weird world and cast of weirdos are still captivating to this day despite its busted mechanics and stupid plot twists.
Gunblade cool.
After watching this a dozen times, I think I'd make each individual enemy type to give you a +X to the max level of a magic, so you'd only have to draw from each enemy a single time
Your content is amazing, your voice is soothing, your logic is impeccable, your delivery is godlike and addictive. Please make more videos.
OHHHHHHH, redraw as in draw as in the Draw system!
Galaxy brained epiphany.
Are y’all’s pictures the same character?
I'm sorry, I can't hate on a JRPG that lets you turn off random battles.
I can. It’s a dumb idea
@@pn2294 it's really, really not. Random battles are badly designed. Giving you an area to explore (as most FF games do) but then forcing more and more battles on you the more you explore, is a self defeating design.
Say you're playing FF7. You find that you're at the exit of an area...but you know you didn't go down some paths. You really love finding new Materia, as these paths could have. So you back track and explore, forcing more battles on you. You fight them, and end up over leveled, now the boss at the end of this place (and current fights) will be a piece of cake, and there for, no fun. Out of boredom and not wanting to get over leveled, you begin running from battles, aka, not playing the game. Which seems like it ruins the point of playing at all.
FF6 is one of my fav games of all time. I love old RPG's. But random battles, as they are in those games, just aren't very well done.
@@Vipes3 it’s almost as though battles are one of the main features of the game./s
Having them be random also tests your management skills.
“Did I overextend Squall? Will we have enough items to make it through the dungeon?” Those sorts of questions.
@@pn2294 Just because something is a main feature, doesn't mean it wasn't done badly. The traditional random battles, are never ending. Which means back tracking and exploring, just become a pain in the ass, instead of fun. Almost always these battles aren't challenging, they're just in the way. Which is fine if you're just going from point A to point B. But again, if exploring, or trying to find the right way to go, you just begin to accidentally grind, which isn't an outcome one may want, and can be very annoying. It's really just a flawed way of doing it. Have the random battles "run out" unless you leave the whole area. Have them appear on the overworld or something. Some flaws just get figured out over time.
So yes, you're right. Battles are a main part of the game. One would hope they are fun, engaging. But having to fight the same enemies again and again, that long ago lost thier threat, all because you missed a chest, is just annoying. Feels like the game is nagging at you.
@@Vipes3 blame the level scaling feature; not random battles
I still love this game, and i would love a modern take on the game. I feel like this game fits the FF7 remake style of combat really well too, so it could be made in the same engine.
I would change the draw system not to be as grindy and that you're drawing atunement to the spell, not storing a stock of uses. This way it's about potency of the spell going up as you draw from things.
Blasting Zone and Rough Divide in real time combat were already shown to look incredible thanks to Dissidia 012
I originally considered going over the idea of interpreting it as "100%" instead of 100 stacks, but script was already getting bloated.
i want a ff7 style action remake too, sounds badass. how would u do this "attunement" thing tho? blizzard turns into blizzara at 100%, then so on? it only affects power? or junction? if power, then wat about characters magic stat?
I love how eloquent and sarcastic you are, calling your viewers out on statistics you see while also establishing not only the point you are making but expounding on it to a degree that shows great thought and understanding.
TL;DR I feel smarter after every video of yours I watch.
well for all its worth I'm thankful you exist in this timeline
I really enjoyed 8. At the time I didn't know enemies scaled to me so it gave a good amount of challenge. Besides healing i rarely use magic anyway so junctioning was something i loved, it allowed me to makes use of spells i never used. I also liked that summons had purpose besides dealing damage, just like ff6... But this is specifically for me and definitely not for everyone. I feel this game works best if you don't know the ins and outs of the hidden mechanics.
It honestly feels like every one of your long-form videos is scratching a bit at The Meaning of Life, and honestly that would be the best format to approach it with, small tid bits of enlightenment here and there sprawled throughout chunks of otherwise mundane existance.
Honestly whenever someone tries to make a big comprehensive meaning of life thing, be it a book, talk show or movie, people seem to not care, perhaps because it's hard to digest so much information at once. Our primitive brains don't like it when they're hit with so much introspection they just go "La-La-La-La"
Found the nerd too weak to grind out 99 Tornado draws on the Island Of Hell.
Alternatively, the guy who doesn't tearfully masturbate into a sock like anyone who defends this garbage fire of a game.
The fact that I cannot grind and that things become impossible if I level up too quick made me set down this game. I'm a big Final Fantasy fan and this one just pissed me off.
who said u cant grind? how do things become impossible?i grinded my main party to 100 on my first run. game was far from imposible.
I often grind out level 100 before the sEEd exams. Game is incredibly easy I have no clue what you're talking about
@@teh0wnz0r76 I think the point being made is that level grinding is disadvantageous and while the rest is a bit hyperbolic, I do agree that normal battles being stretched out to minutes a piece unless you spam limit breaks or insta kill with degenerator when my party should be strong enough to achieve the same result without that stuff is beyond frustrating. Idk if you’re familiar but it’s like grinding in duel links. The mechanics are fun at first but eventually you get so frustrated that you try to engineer the game to the point to where you no longer interact with it.
@@TSfish94 bruh my 1st playthru i grinded to 100 n used GFs, magic etc. it was far from optimal. but guess wat? it was also far from impossible. it was fun.
these ppl wanna grind to 100 to steamroll games. any hint of a challenge they fold, any need to think or strategize, they fold.
this is a dead meme n im tired o hearin about it after all these years. ppl refuse to take personal responsibility, learn, n adjust. its sad n pathetic
the game becomes far from impossible lol. much harder sure but when me and my friend played it for the first time we leveled to 100 on disc one because we found an enmey that would give between 650 and 850 exp every fight so we just put in the time thinking it was making us stronger which of course it didn't. we still managed to beat the game without too much of a hassle and we were like 11 years old and did not have access to the internet
Golden Sun took a different approach that dodged so many of these issues. Standard magic bar, but you can find and bind an array of elemental critters to your characters. Stats go up and higher end spells become accessible, and the type of spells you can use change by mixing elements. You can also unbind them mid-fight for an effect, and en-masse use them for a powerful summon attack, leaving them unusable for a few turns. Gave a nice risky ebb and flow to tougher fights, balancing mana use on attacks and healing between summon bombs that could leave even the tankier fighters open to a bosses ire.
glad Im not the only one who thought of Golden Sun while learning what this Draw system is
I always felt that spoonies 10 minute footage of drawing far better explained the pain of this system.
The footage is of him drawing a single spell from a bug while getting teabagged by the bug and it takes him near the full 10 minutes to do so.
That's what he meant by "literally 10 minutes"
@@iBloodxHunter Just doesn't convey the same pain as : ruclips.net/video/CiToL55zwRI/видео.html
@@agenticex that's why you mess with settings. Literally this could have been cut in half with settings alone and the -remakes- -have- -a- -fast- -forward.- -Why- -is- -he- -not- -holding- -R2?- -Fucking- -memes.-
okay, I took notes this time. Eli, feel free to favorite this comment so as to staple it at the top. Here's the system for anybody who needs help:
1:First if you acquire a spell it stays in the menu. Spells are rechargable, not disposable?
2:Junctioned magic is less particular about which spell is best for which attribute.
3:There is a way to restock junctioned spells in combat
4:A spell has a different maximum stockpile and draws per turn, based on power
5:You restock your spells when you rest or save
6:One attribute-junctioned spell is as good as its maximum number.
7:Limit break status allows drawing of a junctioned, depleted spell from any monster.
Basically, the new system lets you cast junctioned magic mostly without worry about dwindling stats and incentives the player to use the draw command much, much more often to restock spells. It also encourages players to junction their FAVORITE spells, the ones they want to use all the time.
I got it. FF8 should become dark souls.
This made my day lmao
thanks for this plague
I'm glad you're alright. Sorry to get parasocial, but I relate to you a lot. Know what it's like to have an attack when your body's already malfunctioning. Keep an eye on your heart rate.
lol cringe
@@SuperMizuki111 Let them be. I've seen way worse comments around here.
FF8 remains one of my favorite RPG's ever. Understanding the bizarre junction system allows you to break the game is so many awesome ways. I think people who look for ways through invisible walls and screwing with rudimentary NPC's are just into FF8 for the joy of ruining it in the most fun ways possible.
When he kept challenging the girl and then backing out I thought my tv was having a stroke
Over the years, I've seen you in odd places I don't expect sometimes. I see you sharing similar viewpoints. Now, you have also just revisited a game I revisited and made the same conclusion (albeit you are touching upon another person's conclusion), that the draw/level/junction system was stupid in FF8. I think you'd be a nice guy to grab a beer with.
In the remaster I was really hoping they'd change it. Solid idea, poor implementation where it teaches you leveling up is bad, using magic makes you weaker until you draw it again, don't get into random fights unless you card all the enemies, and also sit there while drooling on yourself as you draw an enemy for 30+ turns to get a stack of 99 of something for all your party members so you're optimized. It's counter-intuitive.
The draw system itself really goes back to your Breath of the Wild video when it comes to japanese developers basically ignoring anything regarding QoL and time-wasting mechanics. After the boring task of drawing itself, every time I got a new stack of 99 of something I needed to see if what I drew makes better numbers on my stats except in regards of equipping certain things to status/element that a foe is weak against... Which usually only NEEDS to be done towards bosses..... Of which the first time you face them you usually have no F$#*&ing clue what they will be weak against unless you looked it up or fought them in the prior save because it often made 0 sense whom or what something was going to be weak/strong against besides the obvious fire monster means ice weapons or whatever.
Even at x3 speed and using the max health/atb thing in the remaster (usually I'm opposed to this but the draw system feels like such a chore otherwise), it still feels like it takes too long. I have no idea how I did any of this shit when I was younger when it took THAT much longer. To top it all off there was so many people that would defend FF8 to death saying "Oh I guess you're just too stupid to understand the very sophisticated and superior junction system." No, it's because I understand the junction/draw system that I think it's stupid.
18:29 "once you come to a final solution", woah hold up, wait a minute there Plague
My idea to fix the draw system was to
- Make the magic you draw like materia that you can slot into your stats and it would increase that stat based on a spell. (not the quantity)
- These "materias" could be crafted together to make more powerful spells so there is a reason to keep drawing more of the weaker ones (10 fires = 1 Fira)
-These can break after a certain amount of uses but with items you find from monsters or crafted from cards they can be repaired when taken to shops (or a GF ability)
- if your materia breaks, you keep the stat bonus till the end of battle but the materia breaks afterwards and gives a lower stat bonus.
I think this system makes it so you arn't drawing for every spell all day but also still looking for some spells to craft into better ones, which also keeps weaker spells useful later in the game including spells you don't usually use. You also arn't going to be punished every time for casting spells, but when you do run out, its not immediately back to the grind because they can be repaired.
Enemies should also have a chance to drop spells as well as there should be more draw points through out the world so that drawing from monsters isn't so over used.
ALSO on a side note, I think the GFs should have more of a theme to their abilities because they feel pretty random (Shiva could have a White mage theme and give a higher stat bonus and higher heals from cures or atleast more damage from Blizzard spells because its Shiva??)
18:38 I know the answer to that. FF8's development was a very troubled one.
The main problem was that the writers spent months, and then over a year furiously running in circles trying to figure out what the hell their game was actually going to be about. Eventually, someone higher up (almost certainly Sakaguchi) dragged them out kicking and screaming, and forced them to write something safe and appealing just so the rest of their very expensive production staff could get to work.
This resulted in the original main character (Laguna) being replaced with a safe and appealing main character (Squall). However, Laguna would not be forgotten; the game was running on such a thin margin that they repurposed Laguna's finished story segments by surgically grafting them onto Squall's via some of the most insane asspull nonsense in any game imaginable.
Only in an era where Neon Genesis Evangelion, would such a feat be acceptable...speaking of which, that reminds me of the real victim of Final Fantasy 8's wastages: Xenogears.
See, FF8 had gone so far over budget that Squaresoft cannabalized Xenogears midway through its production, and Xenogears was by no means meant to be a small game. This wasn't the first time Squaresoft had pulled such a stunt either; Secret of Mana had half of its large budget chopped off and handed off to Final Fantasy 6. (for completely different reasons centered around the abandoned CD-hardware expansion for the SNES)
If Final Fantasy 13 didn't exist, FF8 would absolutely be the single greatest example of a polished turd in Squeenix's library.
When I was a kid, me and one of my brothers made copies of our TT cards we had in our games irl, so we could play each other.
... And so in the twilight hours of twentieth year, Plague Father sayeth onto the shapless masses - "In this way, thou shalt learn nothing, yet gain everything." - >)X^D
You aren't allowed to die plague. Your dark work is not yet complete. should contrast 8, with 9; because I never appreciated it's crushing depression till I was older.
Hit me with that mad man's knowledge, Plague.
Part of the fun of FFVIII was its imperfection, I played through it 3 times and each time I had a different experience. By the end I had broken the game, and using the spell Aura made limit breaks even more broken.
Oh shit, a plague video on my Favorite FF game? The FF that everyone always forgets about?
Hell yeah! I don’t even care if he dislikes it.
something about this one feels like an action button review video.
so is more of a Start than a Solution, but the way they referenced the mechanic in FF15 is a good building base: "Drawing" & "Junction" are entirely an off battle thing, scattered all over the world you find Crystal that contain chunks of magic and you could use those magic chunks to either make casting Spells or shove them onto your weapons for extra buffs.
This makes me use my thinky brain. Interesting ideas and they gave me more unrelated ideas.
Glad to hear you better Plague
Regardless of it's other flaws, I felt like the draw system doesn't mix well with the standard level up system at all. Like you said, staying low level and using a series of playing cards and refine abilities is technically the best way to play in terms of strength. To me the draw and refining systems all felt like they could've been there in replacement of a level up system completely. It felt like that's roughly what they wanted to me at least. Considering typical player expectations for a level up system though, it's easy to screw yourself thinking you're getting stronger if you aren't very familiar with the junction system yet. With how much ap gains and stocking magic plays a role into getting stronger, you'd think they'd just make those things the only real means of character growth like how in ff2 you use any action to make it better (be it a stat, a weapon, or a spell) and how in ff10 you just gain AP for sphere levels which allow you to pick and choose stats and abilities along certain paths. In these two games it's more than obvious that this is how you get stronger, so there is no grinding trap to fall into in the first place. On the other hand in ff7, level ups are a significant part of how to become stronger as you'd normally expect, while the materia system is a fun add-on that opens up each character's options with very transparent benefits and drawbacks/limitations that adds another dimension to armor and weapon usefulness. It takes away nothing and adds everything. Having more options is a more indirect way of showing progress that never butts heads with the classic level up system. In ff8 leveling up is just a scam you have to watch out for, and there's no real way to reverse it's affects either. It entices you based off of common expectation but also the promise of gaining better spells, when in reality just about anything else is better than levelling up to draw better spells. Tonberry with the level up ability makes this less of a problem, but if anything it's just padding. Even though higher level monsters of the same kind will give you better spells, they could've just made it so monsters have a set list of spells to draw from, alongside set stats and attacks the way any other jrpg would have their random encounters. I think this would've made balancing character progression and overall difficulty WAY easier to do. Raising your strength by 100 when you and your enemies are lv50 is substantial, but doesn't necessarily make everything piss easy in an instant, but doing so at lv10 definitely does. They could make later enemies and bosses get way harder to reflect a steep increase in player power, but that would leave anyone less knowledgeable about the system (or those scammed by the fake level up system) in a pretty shitty position, which is probably why they made the game so damn easy now that I think about it. I haven't had these problems when I play since I usually try not to grind too much in other jrpgs anyways, but I absolutely can see how they could rear their ugly heads for other people. If the game wanted to break the mold and be be revolutionary it should've stuck to it's word and not half-ass it.
My suggestion would be grouping up all the Spells into just a few Elements. 8 tops. Fire, Ice, Thunder, Bio, Earth, Wind, Light, Dark. All spells, including stats and healing, come from one or a mix of these categories. Stop would be Ice. Haste would be Thunder. Blind would be Dark. Meteor would be Fire + Ice + Light. When you Draw, you Draw one of these elements from an enemy, not just the base spell. To learn a Spell, you have to Draw from an enemy that knows the Spells while junctioned with the proper elements. Every player can junction 1 Element at the start, and another Element from their GF. And then they can learn to junction a third one from some plot events/items that show their character growth. Kinda like learning Limits.
I think this would greatly diminish the Hoarding factor because you'd be constantly running into enemies that have the Spells you have junctioned, as most enemies will have at least 2 elements you could draw from them, with bosses maybe having 4-8 elements to draw..
Junction would function on 3 Thresholds. All elements would have a Cap of maybe 40 or 50. And would grant a buff to 1-3 stats when junctioned and gain resistance to the element. If a character has over 50% of the Element cap, the character would fully nullify damage from that element, and at 90%+ the character would just absorb damage from that element. So you don't lose stats by using spells. Only damage immunity. Also, to have immunity to Spells that have multiple elements like Meteor, the player would have to have junctioned ALL elements, not just one. The in-battle menu would only display the Magic the character can use with their junctioned Spells. The character/junction menu would however remember and display all Spells you have learned. Kinda like your idea. I'd also suggest making the Junction work on certain "checks" rather
This would hopefully make the Draw/Junction system function more like "Jobs" work in Final Fantasy Tactics and other games in the series.
Also, I would improve the Draw action to make it more useful. When you use Draw you would get: the 5-10 uses of the Drawn element, +Increased Magic Defense for the turn, + increase a "limit break gauge". In this case the "Limit Breaks" the character uses would have different effects depending on what magic the character would have junctioned. Enemies would also have a certain number of "Element" uses. It would be much higher than the player's in most cases, but draining all "Element" from an enemy could be made viable in some fights.
This would make it more like the Default system from the Bravely Default games, which I found pretty fun
Drawing has one option but it'd be crazy long to implement. Every enemy also junctions, and as such has attributes buffed/nerfed(bear with me) based on their spells equipped. A scan spell reveals which spells they have and/or what it's altering. Thus draw not only grants magic, but also acts as a status affecting ability.
Here's the rub, the spells you junction are the only spells you can cast. More slots are available allowing for more options. The biggest change is this: the fewer spells you have equipped, the higher the buff.
As such drawing becomes not only a way to gain magic, it becomes a way to manage an enemy's stats. If you draw all but one, they get much stronger, but drawing everything out of them "breaks" the stat and makes them far weaker than they were at the start of the fight.
My solution is to cap the amount of spells you can keep (for use as magic and junction) to your level. This will incentivize leveling up despite enemies also leveling up. Also, keep the spell stocks for the junction separate from the stock for using magic. Maybe the junction spells convert into a spell stone or something that can only be used for junction and given to another character only for junctioning. That way, there is no temptation not to use the junctioned spells for magic because you can't use junctioned spells for magic. You have to restock spells for magic in a separate stock and there's no other way to use it than as magic
Came for an FF8 video, stayed for Yu-Gi-Oh Dracula.
Im surprised you were confused by the opening of FF8. The opening is just a flashback. Spoonyone even made the same comment.
How do we fix FF8 magic system?
Eli: Dark Souls
The easiest fix (to implement in or mod or something) I can think of, would be to cap the stockable amount to the level of the character. So if the character is level 10, you can only stock 10 of them. which would solve the grind in the beginning of the game and the overleveling. of course your solution might be more balanced but more difficult to implement in the existing code base. Balancing stronger with weaker spells (similiar to your approach) could be done with a modifer. weaker spell level*1.5, stronger spell level*0.5.
I’ve never thought of linking a cap to the character level before, but it seems like a pretty strong idea! I think that in addition to this, you could do away with tiered spells entirely (which I know would be HIGHLY controversial for FF, but I think it could work if you could, i dunno, have the spell tier tied to a different thing, like spending multiple “charges” of the spell, or just being determined by your Magic stat). I worry that severely limiting the stock could limit the Junction system’s appeal, but I guess it could also be reworked.
i don't think being able to carry 100 of every spell is particularly balanced, but a lower variant, i feel like replacing it with a slot system like how KH has items is how i would do it, letting you still carry multiples of the same spell but sacrificing room for a more varied set
@@wohdinhel i like that idea actually, fira could use 2 casts of fire, and firaga could use 3 casts would avoid the problem of weaker variants being useless
@@dmas7749 sure, I was just thinking practically in terms of effort for modding and the result it would give. If we just draw those ideas on paper then of course we can get into more detail to properly balance this new theoretical system
my thoughts on fixing the draw and junction system are pretty simple
1. dont junction spells. Instead, junction items specifically for it. You can easily repurpose the items already in the game meant for refining them into spells, like dino bones.
2. have GFs learn spells that characters get to use by beeing junctioned to them, cast normally with MP.
3. keep draw mostly as is, minus the spell stocking obviously, just as a means to cast spells for no MP cost.
Personally, my solution is to change the magic system more than the draw system. Because, ultimately, that's where the flaw of FF8's interlocking systems reside. Drawing is fine, the refining system is fine, but as long as magic is stock-based and limited then you have no reason to cast it. You have no reason to interact with draw exempting stocking up. You have no reason to interact with GFs besides stacking them onto your anointed few. Etc. My solution is to simply make magic unique. Instead of drawing stocks of magic, you simply draw THAT particular spell. You want fire? Better go hug a Bomb. Need Bio? Find a slime. Etc. Rare magic, as a result, is RARE. You can simply no longer refine items into magic.
You then append mana points to the game, spells cost MP instead of stocks, but retain the junctioning and GF systems. GFs additionally limit what kinds of magic you can junction. Wanna use those Tornados to buff your HP to 9999? Better have Pandemona. Ultima to your ATK? Eden. Etc etc. This requires you to spread GFs out, but also requires you to think about which characters get which magic. Magic is now a percentage scale, and that scaling is limited by GF level. A level 100 Pandemona gives you a substantially higher effect than level 1. This encourages you to level up, as your stats won't scale out of control for your level, and also encourages you to level up your GFs so you get a more pronounced effect.
In place of items being refined into magic, GFs can be simply given the option to learn how to junction for all stats. Thus allowing you to use elements for all stats.
My solution would be basically the same, but instead of limiting specific spells to GFs, lock away the ability to cast junctioned spells.
Yep. You want a competent healer? Well, better not junction Curaga to that character's HP, you'll need it for other stuff.
Your analogy to Draw magic reminded of a certain girl becoming OP through unusually gaming methods
Most solutions I can think of would be to lean more towards castlevania's methods regarding a similar system. Once you have a spell you can cast it so long as you have the points for it with the weaker ones being both cheaper and easier to acquire. However I'd first alter the draw system to basically act as a mid-combat ether with a chance of acquiring a spell. Ethers would still be useful in that they allow you to restore mana without eating turns in combat. Copies of a spell could then be spent to either increase the potency of the spell itself, or with a lot of them you could convert the spell into the next tier of spell of it's type. This kind of gets the best of both worlds but might add to the tedious nature of drawing for cards if the chances weren't pseudo random and/or were too harsh. On the other hand it would make sitting there to draw for hours an option rather than required. 50% chance for a tier one spell is a good starting point with some modifiers if the creature actually casts the spell itself.
Uh oh, he IS talking to me
The system is super easy to fix:
-Get rid of stocks. They are gonna be replaced with "mana balls" of differet collors for example green mana allows the use healing spells, red for fire spells, etc. Mana balls dissapear at the end of the battle and each type has a maximum of 10.
-Depending on the enemies you get certain types of mana balls. Which mean a fire type monster with some healing spells might give you 3 or 2 red and 1 green mana ball; or something like that.
Wouldn`t this give you only ineffective magic against most enemies? yes, it would.
-Thats way the draw comand has 2 options when selected: draw and convert. Draw for gaining mana and Convert for changing the mana balls you currently have into other types at different exchange rates.
-I don`t get exactly how obtaining skills work but probably will remain mostly unchanged. The only difference is if you want to equip an ability to get their stat buff you can`t use it in battle.
-Items and triple triad cards instead of giving stocks for abilities, it just gives exp for a specific ability if that ability gets to a 100exp you learned it in your current GF.
-GF have their specific list of skills. Skill are learned by the item method or by just using a skill but in this method you just the next evolution of the skill that is available in the GF.
Man, now I wanna replay Ff8 what a great game
I don't know what's more difficult, fixing this game's broken gameplay or is nonsensical story.
If it was tied to a simple minigame or something that gave you more based on how well you do, it would make it a lot less tedious. Maybe even something close to the Renzokuken minigame that gets progressively faster as you draw more. If you got good at this, you could potentially max your spell count on each draw. You could also raise the limit on how many spells you can carry but keep the limit on how many you can junction, allowing the use of those spells without affecting the stats. As for the leveling system, ask the player at the end of each battle, if they would rather gain a number of uses of a certain spell instead of XP, (or add another GF ability that does this)
Limiting the draw down to 10-20 is a good idea and one I sorted wished was a thing ever since I first played VIII, not sure about restocking at every save point.
As a way to encourage players to cast, Id say still keep the max spells you can draw at 100, but Your only allowed to junction at most 20 to a given character, as a second point, anybody with cast junctioned to them would have access to the entire pool of non junctioned spells, so you dont have to lower your stats when casting.
As a final option, Have a shop, where you can buy spells (save maybe the rarest and most powerful versions) so you can just cheaply pay a few gil to stock up rather than spending ages drawing from monsters.
I've played this game several times. Never fucked with the cards aside from a few games for fun. I loved the junction system to bring up stats, allocating elemental/status defenses with physical attacks that could blind or silence.
I got excited finding a new spell to draw. Made sure I had my GF with the skill to convert to higher spells. I just hated when they took off your junction set up at parts.
Drawing isn't so bad once you can blind or silence, make sure your settings are set to remember your last command and hold X.
The characters, music, GF summons and visual design is what I play the game for though.
It's counterintuitive but I don't mind it, honestly. Unless the player wants to min-max the heck out of everything it nearly never becomes a real problem.
Of course, that doesn't erase its flaws but it's not really that horrible of a system, especially when you can dump Ultimas on enemies like there's no tomorrow.
In a way, the world leveling with the player is a detriment to the feeling of being overpowered but the main difference is that the player gets many more options in how dealing with enemies by going from 2 to 3 teammates, having more GFs, the junctions, items and the spells.
Then again, I might be biased on this one and giving it a bit too much leeway.
1 - you don't draw casts of magic, you draw some fraction of the ability to use the magic out of a specific enemy - each enemy gets *1* spell that they countribute to in that way.
2 - you have to find a few different sources of magic in order to gain access to the spell -- say 4 out of 12 total per spell
3 - Once you unlock the ability to use the spell, you can junction it freely -- the whole 'finite number of casts' thing is gone and instead you just get a flat number of casts between tents/inns/etc
4 - drawing from an enemy whose spell you already have restores a small amount of that enemy's spell.
5 - After you have unlocked the spell, drawing the spell from more of the unique sources amps the spell in some way -- damage going up to 50 percent higher, up to double the casts stored, up to 50% higher impact to the stat junctioning for that spell.
6 - card refine is one or two of those sources per spell
7 - draw points are one or two of those sources per spell
8 - Two to three of those levels are actually obtained by unlocking 'school' upgrades from GFs -- Ifrit has school abilities for fire, Shiva for Ice, Quetzacoatl for Wind, Diablos for Gravity, Cerberus for Time magic, etc.
9 - as suggested in the video, your total of any given spell is capped according to its potency
So let's say starting out the game you fight buel. You draw fire from the buel to get your fire level to 1/12 -- still need to get it to 4/12 to make it the basic spell. You also draw from Ifrit to get to 2/12, you find draw points at the Garden and in Balamb and now you can use and junction fire at its most basic level. You unlock card refine and now you can refine your Buel cards into another fire level. By the end of disc 1, you can (if you go out of your way) get all basic elemental spells capped and find up to the first 4 parts of second tier spells. By the end of disc 2, you have the same pattern with mid level spells capping and upper level spells unlocking. End of disc 3 obviously you have more or less full access to everything as you did in the original.
Seems like an easy fix to actually make draw more engaging and not something you just do on bosses in case they have a GF that you need.
99? You can stock to 100 last time I played. Ah, you caught it. I have no complaints then.
I'm pretty partial to the Skill Crack command from the Devil Survivor games as a 'draw power from monsters' mechanic- each party member has a chance to pick a skill off a monster and if that character kills the monster, they get to copy that skill either to slot on the spot or it's added to their skill list for later. You can even Crack enemy skills you can't use yet for when your stats are better later.
I just put ultima on str. made squall really strong. have him be in low hp so I can spam renzokuken forever. ff8 exp in a nutshell and then some card games.
Well, happy Thanksgiving Plague.
Glad you're feeling better.
Yu-Gi-Oh! Dracula! That's the best thing I have ever heard.
A plague video is a nice side dish to go with thanksgiving dinner.
Hey Plague! Always love your vids, and you drop some deep heavy wisdom nuggets for my hungry gullet. Hope you're doing well keep on keeping on brotherman.
6:00 Ok, I see you had the same advertising spam.
Your the best.
2:36 not the only thing he's killed now...
Good work Plague
While I think FFVIII is one of the better games in the franchise and is highly underrated for many reasons I do have to agree with the general points you make. Personally I enjoy the junction system because I enjoy meta gaming and breaking a game's systems but that doesn't make the general execution of the game and its systems any less flawed. The draw/junction system suffers from the same issues the whole game suffers from in that its too obtuse. Someone who takes the extra time to really delve into it will find some depth of playing around with the systems just like someone who delves into the story really deeply will find that it's not as nonsense as it comes off but being "good if you really dig into it" doesn't make up for a bad first impression. The average player isn't going to play through the game 5 times, learning all the quickest ways to get the best magic available at each point and how to really use the system to take advantage of status and elemental junctions and they're also not going to psychoanalyze every line of dialog to make sense of the story; and the game shouldn't require that level of analysis to be good or enjoyable. Its there for those who enjoy it but there is a reason why it is the most divisive game in the series and why it has the worst reception out of them all. People love it or hate it and there really isn't much in-between. Enjoyed your thoughts on ways to improve the system and would be curious to see what could be done with it if someone ever tried to revisit the concept. Especially the idea of magic restocking on its own in safe areas. I always enjoyed the system for what it is but now I'm really curious how much better it could feel if done again with some of these ideas implemented.