Game dumbed Down a little to much

[Asiaine]

This game had/has a lot of promise, and was so close to being truly enjoyable (for those who like strategic depth). If they made a few tweaks:

-- Variety of equipment (3 items at same level, but with different stats, so equipment is situational). Rather than pure linear progression.
-- Better materia customization (right now it's extremely trivial. They could borrow from FFVII and make it truly an art in itself).
-- Non-deterministic AI. It's not only boring, but rather silly, that we know the moves boss' will do before they do it. At the very least, make hard mode non-deterministic.
-- Battle Tactics. More advanced tactics (FFXI as an example since many know about it): Skill Chains, Magic Bursts, SATA.

If they added Skill Chains, MB, SATA, FFVII style Materia, better variety of equipment, and random AI in Hard/Extreme mode dungeons/bosses, I would be very happy indeed. And there is nothing stopping them from doing it. The 'casuals' (those who do not want to spend time learning/mastering a game) would enjoy all story progress without the need for advanced tactics/equipment. The 'dedicated' (those who want to learn and master a game, regardless of # of hours they have) would enjoy the need for advanced tactics in hard/extreme mode battles.

[Mardel]

-- Battle Tactics. More advanced tactics (FFXI as an example since many know about it): Skill Chains, Magic Bursts, SATA.

If they added Skill Chains, MB, SATA

No, please no. I don't want to skill chain -.-;
Those 11 days are over, and I'm glad SC is over. Just imagine trying to save a skill (lowering your overall dps), dodging post heart in Titan EX, and all that for a shiny animation which will be lackluster damage. Heck even ff11 people didn't save tp for SC for a lot of content. Plus with the way our TP works this couldn't happen the way it did then, and if you want it to work differently then you are just asking for another form of LB. Now, if we had a way to make it so each group role in a party had their own special bar to build. That would be cool, then fights could be tuned a bit harder for this extra bonus.

SA is useless because we already have bonus from attacking from behind... called combos.
TA would be bad due to game design considering they would definitely give a new tank job a way to generate threat just as fast as WAR/PLD because otherwise "it would give reason to exclude them from fights." (which happens already ranged/melee - but you know this excuse would be used)


Now, new materia variety sure. I even mentioned before in another post about "melding soul stone" with materia that augments our abilities. "Cheaper medica 2", "Faster Cure 2", "Potent Cure 3" things like that.

[Asiaine]

No, please no. I don't want to skill chain -.-;

I'm using that as an example of a tactic since a lot of people are familiar with it. There are of course other different tactics that can be invented or borrowed from other games. There is of course no need to have that specific one. Just 'something' that makes the game more engaging and that you have to pay attention to others.

[Asiaine]

Now, if we had a way to make it so each group role in a party had their own special bar to build. That would be cool, then fights could be tuned a bit harder for this extra bonus.

Having your own bar would not be really that much extra strategy... it would be: Business as usual, oh, new flashy button, hit it! Something I (and i'm sure some others) would like is far more in-depth battle tactics. Obviously there will be others who don't. And that is the crux of the problem here.

[NefGP]

THEY TERK ER DPS!!!

Oh noes, god forbid we have a system in place that rewards synergy and working in concert with your party members. 1.0 actually had a newer version of the SC system called Battle Regimens, but it got scrapped due to all kinds of technical bugs. I for one would love to see it come back to add an extra layer of strategy. I also really miss being able to break/disable body parts on NMs to cripple them, like breaking Ifrit's Horns to weaken him in Extreme Mode (1.23) or Chimera's tail to block his old poison attack.