Battle System in Suikoden VI: Change it or Keep it?

[Ryusei]

[Sailor Sexy]

But Konami DOES give you a solution to easy random battles. It's called the Champion Rune. I don't know about you, but I got mine fairly early on, so once you have that equipped on someone, you don't have to worry about weak enemies anymore. I guess I've just never seen a problem with random battles and grinding cash, but not everyone is me.
_________________


~Uguu!~

[Tullaryx]

I'm with the sexy Seaman in regards to the random battles in the Suikoden games. I, myself, rarely had a problem with the huge amount of random battles in the games since I exploited that part of the battle system to grind out a ton of levels, SP and potch close to a town and city. It made for a tedious couple days, but in the end it made the game go much faster as I was able to bulldoze my way through the tougher monsters and bosses.

I think the only time the massive numbers of random battle occurrence ever got to me was when I was in a dungeon and knew I had to make judicious use of the healer in the party and/or combinations of orbs which gave back health during the battles themselves. I don't think I've ever used the Champion Rune once in any of the games.
_________________

[Aurelien]

[Ryusei]

[Fudozukushi]

[Aurelien]

[Ryusei]

[Ujitsuna]

Visible monsters don't really tend to work that well in RPGs in my opinion, and judging by the fact that practically all RPGs lately have just had random encounters, they probably prefer it as well. Seeing enemies on the screen puts extra load on the CPU and makes it harder to level up or even find enemies in certain situations. It also can in some cases make it too easy to avoid battles and end up with players that are too weak, or people completing the game with minimal effort.

I suppose rune combos make for an interesting aspect in the game, one combination could completely fall flat, while another, such as the fury rune + double-strike rune + boost rune combo can be overpowered and make them game very easy. Suikoden's battle system is already quite easy to overcome, no matter what level of player you are, it's fairly comfortable to ease through a boss battle that you can't get past normally without a little preparation, such as going to the armour shop and best fitting everyone, or just giving someone that certain rune your party needs to tip the battle in their favour.

[Futch]

With the power of the PS3 or whatever, I would kill for a Suikoden with a battle system a la Star Ocean. Six dudes wreaking havoc against 10 monsters at the same time would be pretty damn awesome.

I'm not saying to copy paste the entire process, but the idea of having a button, or using different combinations with the controller, to make special attacks would be awesome to me.

Something like Street Fighter meets Star Ocean with the hectic character number of Suikoden games. I think that the consoles from the next generation could really handle that. I'm not saying you would have to pull a Super Combo to slash an enemy but a little more of interactivity would be nice.

About those useless runes you speak off... come on, Konami, just eliminate them! No one really cares for status ailments anymore, they are a pain, they are boring, and they are pretty much never useful. They only prove a challenge/are fun when the player is at the receiving end of the attack; Who hasn't yelled after being petrified by that freaking Marlboro? The only thing I find funny is to poison a foe; but that's just a personal taste.

About those random battles; If I called the shots I would put a mini map on the upper side corner (Just like in Suikoden 3) and a big map one could acces from the menu or something. This map would be pretty detailed, signaling specific sectors in which you find each kind of enemy (I really hate lurking to find some specific villian); this information would be obtained after "clearing" a zone. To clear a zone one would have to do specific things, like finishing an enemy without being touched, with a single blow or whatever.

After clearing the zone the player would have the option of turning on or off the random encounters as he prefers (In wild arms 4 they do this quite nicely, just press R2 (?) and you are done)

Perhaps I'm asking for too much, but today I doubt something can be done that could change the entire way games are played. I think that easter eggs and little details are what make the battle system better. Just to give a lame example, In breath of Fire 3 as the game goes by the animation of main character's attack command changes to reflect how he "got better" at fighting. It's something completely irrelevant but hey, I found it pretty neat.

Vote Futch for Suikoden battle system engineer
_________________
DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

[Twenty One Pandas]

I think I'm generally fine with the current battle system. It's quick, easy, no character is enough of a detriment to necessarily exclude them from the party and there are are a limited number of truly overpowering characters. I think the main problem is just that the battle system hasn't been given enough of the best setting to showcase itself - and I think that setting is when there are multiple parties.

The parties splitting up more would add more challenge by itself in forcing you to use sub-optimal characters and to balance those parties out with characters to make them work well enough. Suikoden III was pretty good in this way but the battle system was too clunky and restrictive to have the essence of quick and easy that I enjoy in I, II and V.

Something else that I'd suggest is more mini-bosses and on top of that strong visible respawning area bosses (like III) that you should only be able to beat with some difficulty if you trained your characters and would be quite difficult to beat if otherwise. It would encourage but not force you to utilize and train your party more.

Also to that extent, I'd like there to be actual worthwhile ways in which to train your party. How about equipment that can only be obtained or equipped when certain conditions are met like: character must have healed other characters 200 total times and a full set of that equipment might heal every character for double Marina's healing in SV (with separate pieces healing lesser amounts). How about stronger skills that can only be obtained through mini-games or sidequests with a certain character, how increasing things like probability of combo attacks up to a cap based on how many combo attacks you've done before (i.e. in order to get up to 50% chance of 4 combo attacks with a character that has a maximum of 8 combo attacks, you'll have to have done 200 combo attacks previously), etc. etc.

Actually what I'd like to suggest is just having more things to do with things that you can achieve in battle and after battle drops and skill points. Like being able to donate your battle drops to your army so that if you donate 100 windspun armors, certain units will become much faster and more evasive and other effects with other numbers of donated units. Or every character having a sidequest (with tangible benefits for that character if completed) that can only be triggered after you've had that character in your party for long enough or fulfilled battle requirements. Or being able to use skill points on minigames with characters with minigames to unlock harder more rewarding versions of the minigames, using skill points on your engineer to unlock more mechanical creations (maybe a training robot that gets as strong as that nu from chrono trigger), on your librarian to get upgrades to your library, etc. just more things to do.

The greatest potential with suikoden is definitely the large 108 member cast, make more opportunity and rewards for getting these guys and using them - individual subquests to give them character (not counting recruitment), upgrades based on their personality to battles, war battles, castle appearance, etc. for perks and functionality - and the simple and easy battle system can be retained for those who want to play through while also satisfying those who want a longer experience with rewards for their efforts.

[mrbxp]

I'd like to have these features:
+ More difficult enemies to fight ( optional bosses and rare equipments dropped from them or recipts - how to make these equipments ).
+ More tactics ( formation ) and each tactic have its Tactic Art and BP. BP can increase by attacking enemies, when BP reachs 100 ( or something else ), the party have a combination attack ( tactic art ). It looks like Valkyrie Profile but I think it would be wonderful.
+ More mysterious places to discover by asking information from many people in the game. Each place has its optional boss.
+ I love the tactic battle with more kangaroos.
+ A Battle in Cookery ( Suikoden 2) - Why not ?
+ Finally, Of course, 6 characters in the battle and maybe 3 different supporter - I think so.

[suikoaddict]

i like the idea of mrbxp but i will add something i want more 1on1 battle+more style.

[Aurelien]

I've mentioned it in the past that I personally would prefer to keep the level of difficulty and battle system for the non-boss fights. And I've mentioned that I also like to have much more difficulty when it comes to boss fights. However, I haven't mentioned what suggestions I have to make the boss fights to be more challenging. So here comes my suggestions on how to make the boss fights more challenging.

Make a new battle system for boss fights
So far in Suikoden games, we have one-on-one duel, party battle, and major battle. So why not add a Boss-fight Battle as well? The battle system can be something like Shadow Hearts II's Ring system. That way players would have to "pay attention" into the battle instead of just "use strongest Rune and let the boss die". However, battle system alone cannot make the boss fights to be more challenging. So therefore ...

Make the bosses to be stronger
This can be done in numerous ways:

1. Give much more HP to the boss.
This would obviously make the battle last longer since you can't just unleash rune spells to kill the boss in 1-2 turns anymore.

2. Make sure to mainly (preferably always) have more than 1 enemy in a boss-fight.
This would make the fight more balanced in a sense that we're no longer just "ganging up" the boss in a 6 vs 1 fight.

3. When having more than 1 enemies in a boss fight, make sure that the less-strong-bosses are not weakling.
When I refer to this, I'm mainly referring to the "soldiers" that usually accompany the bosses. Instead of the pretty much normal soldiers, why not have the "elite/stronger" soldiers that can actually trouble us?
For example: Gorudo fight at Matilda. Wouldn't it make sense if Gorudo had the strongest 5 White Matilda Knights with him to kill Riou and Jowy instead of just bringing 5 whatever White Matilda Knights that will die with a single spell?

4. Whenever possible, outnumber our party.
Pretty much self-explanatory. We need to fight more than 6 enemies. Preferably, give them different elemental affinities so that even a Level 4 Rage Rune spell not ended up killing all of them in 1 shot.

5. Make status attack to be more important.
When I played Suikoden V, I only almost got Game Over screen once. When was that? When the party got ambushed by MillionEyes monsters who kept on stunning all of my characters every single turn (killed 4 of my characters too from full HP) until I got lucky enough to run-away when one was not stunned. This showed that status attack can change the outcome of the battle. However, there aren't enough of this being used in Suikoden game (making Turtle Rune to be pretty much useless) and therefore difficulty drops. In many other RPGs, status attack has been quite important. We try to keep our mages not-silenced, we try to keep our melee not-blinded, we keep everyone not paralyzed, not petrified, etc. But no such neccessity in Suikoden games because it just doesn't matter that much.
_________________



~City-States of Jowston and Tinto Republic~
06.06.2004 - 20.01.2008

[Sparhawk]

I actualy don't have too big of a problem with the battle system. It lets me level up my charracters fairly quickly cuase of the encounter rate. I know that with games like World of Warcraft, I sit forever waitng for monsters to respawn so I can kill them and get more experience.


Or with Final Fantasy 7, It took forever for me to level Yuffie up after I didn't use her that often.
_________________