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A Thought About Command Runes in Suikoden VI

 
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Hyuga

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PostPosted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 9:20 am    Post subject: A Thought About Command Runes in Suikoden VI Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

This is just a small thought on command runes in Suikoden VI.

For those who don't know, command runes are runes which grant the bearer special attacks. Some of these runes are only usable once per battle and some of them are usable as many times as you want in battle like Kika's falcon rune in Suikoden IV.

Though these runes may seem very useful for fighter type characters, they are not. They are way outclassed by many magic runes and effect runes. The damage potential of these runes is a lot lower than most magic runes and effect runes. Would you equip a character with a gozz rune with 1x damage effect rather than equipping him with a fury rune for 1.5x damage effect for the entire battle? I guess not.

This brings me to my idea that Konami should bring Rhapsodia's command rune feature to Suikoden VI. In Rhapsodia, each command rune has four levels of special attacks, with the highest level doing the greatest damage, and each attack costing 1 MP of the same level of attack.

Now, most fighters are bad mages, which means many of them will only have a few MP. To solve this, Konami should distinguish characters between "fighters" and "mages." Fighters should earn each point of MP through their SKL stat and not by their MAG stat. Mages will acquire their MP the usual way by increasing their MAG. Hybrid characters, on the other hand, should earn each MP by the average of their skill and MAG stat.

The damage done by a special attack should be based on a character's STR stat. The damage formula would be like that of a magic spell, except it would be based on the STR stat, not the MAG stat.

By doing this, each command rune will be equally as useful as a magic rune. It is just like turning the command runes into "magic runes" for fighters. Those characters with permanent command runes (ex. the Narcissists) may no longer be considered useless because of a wasted rune slot.

Any comments?
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Hawk Thanatos

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PostPosted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 10:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

The only problem is for that to work (having it based off SKL or MAG) you couldn't let strength type characters use magic runes like in Tactics, and that would suck. Massive like.

Personally I just think they need to fine tune some of these runes. Like you said, the Falcon Rune is still useful and in SV there were some useful runes too. I think they just need to keep working on it.
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Hyuga

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PostPosted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 10:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

Oh, but sir hawkthanatos, I never said that STR type characters can't use magic runes. I only pointed out that the command runes should be like magic runes, with 4 different attacks.
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Hawk Thanatos

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PostPosted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 11:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

lol No need to be so polite! You'd probably have a bit of a balance issue though if fighter types can use magic runes. It would kinda make using magic type characters pointless since they'd only be able to add a little bit of damage onto rune use but wouldn't have the stamina or strength that fighter types would.

It's worth considering though.
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Kikito

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PostPosted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 2:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

I think your idea would be worth giving a shot, Hyuga. I totally agree with you on that most Command Runes are pretty much useless. Hell, some of them are made even more useless because of adverse effects like Unbalance that they almost always seem to give to the user. Basically, this would mean doing a version of Suikoden Tactic's rune system but with the exception of not limiting who gets to use elemental runes and who doesn't.

However, I have one major concern with a system like this. If fighter type character are allowed the use of a series of runes with equal power to the regular elemental runes then there would be little sense in using pure mages in the game. Fighter characters tend to be more durable(more HP, better armor, etc.) and with access to Command Rune "spells" they would pretty much outclass all mages.

Still, I guess that with a bit of tweaking and balancing things out the guys at Konami could make a pretty interesting system like this one.
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Hyuga

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PostPosted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 9:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

Yes, that's the only problem I have with this idea, lord Kikito and hawkthanatos. Mage type characters would seem useless with the implementation of this system. Maybe giving the command runes a negative status effect to the user or reducing the damage done could solve the problem.
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Kikito

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PostPosted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 10:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

I believe the reason this system worked in Tactics was because there was usually a big battlefield. You see, most Command Runes had very little range, thus making them inferior to the elemental runes in that sense. With elemental runes you could attack enemies many spaces away, and the damage was usually higher than the one done by command runes. I believe that if they tried to establish a battle system like Suikoden III's where unit placement was very important, then this idea involving command runes could very well work out quite nicely. Howver, I believe that system isn't very popular within the Suikoden community so I guess it wouldn't be too well received.

Another option to balance it out, as you mentioned would be adding either temporary negative status effects or just not letting it do as much damage as regular runes would do. I guess there are a couple options for this to work.
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 16, 2006 9:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

Actually, what they need to do is to buff the damage of the magic , reduce the damage of all physical attacks, buff the enemies and weaken those imbalanced support runes.

IMO, there is anything wrong with command runes its just that its effectiveness isn't quite there compared to Magic Runes..and both get overwhelmed by the cheapness of support runes.

Command runes seems to excel at giving burst damage for no permanent cost. Ideally, that means that they should be the most effective at dealing with enemies that need to be downed quickly and cheaply....Namely, enemies in random battles...You have Magic Runes that are suited to down bosses.
However, problem is that command runes tend to be single target and multi-target command runes do a laughable amount of damage. That already lowers its worth when fighting random enemies who usually appears in swarms. Not only that, but command runes usually have a negative status effect attached to them..or some restriction that make them one-use only.

Given that Physical attack power can be boosted by so many support runes. Most players would rather substitute the command rune for the holy trinity of Phy.Attack runes. These offer incredible boosts in normal attack damage that often even surpass what the command rune can do. Think: "TRINIT-ED" normal attack > command rune damage....

In fact, the power of the support runes even blasts the destructive power of magic runes out of the water. Because Magic is a finite resource, it is supposed to be extremely powerful to balance it. BUT the damage output of magic runes is even surpassed by "TRINIT-ED" normal attacks!

Seriously, ever since the introduction of multiple rune slots in Suikoden 2, combat effectiveness has always tilted towards the characters that excel in physical attacks. This is because the support runes tend to provide large boosts in physical attack power (Double Beat, Double Edge, Fury, Warrior etc.) and they literally cost nothing to use. Yes, there are penalties to using those support runes but considering that a "TRINIT-ED" 6 man team can kill even the final boss in a single round of combat...I do not that those runes are a liability.

Suikoden was always been fun due to its story and atmosphere, but the battle system should be improved. Too many easy-to-exploit things make the game incredibly easy and quite unfun.
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