More illustrated fights?

[Jynx]

It's not that they threw out a few things, they threw out the entire game engine. 1.0 was made using the Crystal Tools engine, a great engine... for making cutscenes. The only thing 2.0 reused was graphics assets, and even then they were still pared down in quality to accommodate a wider range of systems, not just the PS3. My laptop could just run 1.0, 2.0 it's barely breaking a sweat the differences are that huge. People seem to like to gloss over this particular detail of 1.0.

You act like systems like.

• Fracturing monster body parts to disable skills
• Monster behavioral AI (Agressive, Curious, Sound agro, Magic agro, Defensive)
• Momentum with movement animations (This was scrapped for a reason unrelated to system resources mainly to stop people from crying about movement being slowed when changing direction like in the real world)

were removed for system requirements, the only thing 1.0 had that made computers kneel in pain was a insanely bad optimization because the game was pushed out the door before they could get to cutting high poly models down to proper size for use (Ala the infamous pot with as many polygons as character models)


Everything else was a mechanical choice it had nothing to do with their terribly slow UI and server code. These systems didn't need to be removed but were for the sake of accomidating not only to the lowest common denominator CPU wise but player wise as well.

[Saccharin]

I know other games have done this so it can be done. Only in a few rare instances (kill this monster before he calls for reinforcements!) does it actually show, but I'd love to see more intelligent combat, or at least more illustrated.

Like if your character gets petrified, why do they not turn into stone and burst out of it when the effect expires? Why do characters like the Dullahan not block our moves with their giant swords? Why can't Stereopes pull out a few arrows before he one-shots us?

inb4 ps3/server limitations

Seriously thought it would give so much more vibrance to the world..to see snow wolves traveling in packs or wild chocobos ganging up to flog you.

Some of the levequests they call reinforcements but the problem arises when your class has nothing to stop them like a stun or slow. If you have special abilities, especially hard hitters, then the job/class has to have ways to counter or negate it. You would end up with rows of buttons with very specialised uses. MMO game development is tending away from a button for every situation.

New effects are great but you have to develop them for every race and each sex. For one type of attack it's just too resource intensive.

You parry with swords not block. If a mob can parry more than usual that means melée would be disadvantaged since you can't parry a fireball.

While pulling out an arrow would be cool the base skeleton is probably very simple compare to character models they wouldn't have the dexterity, so a new complex model would have to be created.

[Saccharin]

Pretty much this.

The game used to have unique monster animations and behaviors along with varied move lists that they would choose from, sadly they threw things like this and many of the other good systems out along with the few not so good ones when they made the change to the 2.x series.

It's not that they threw out a few things, they threw out the entire game engine. 1.0 was made using the Crystal Tools engine, a great engine... for making cutscenes. The only thing 2.0 reused was graphics assets, and even then they were still pared down in quality to accommodate a wider range of systems, not just the PS3. My laptop could just run 1.0, 2.0 it's barely breaking a sweat the differences are that huge. People seem to like to gloss over this particular detail of 1.0.

By all accounts 1.x was all flash and little substance but what people also forget it that there's two programs running too: the game client and most importantly the server code. From Yoshi P's 1.x post-mortem the server code was very bad too so all these little additional things put huge strain on the servers too.