Incline JRPG rebalance and difficulty mods/hacks - in-depth discussion

[Damned Registrations]

...I've noticed some interesting looking randomizer mods such as Lunarian Shuffle and Free Enterprise. They are outside the scope of this thread, but feel free to discuss them.

I actually highly recommend these in general for people who've played the original games or enjoy roguelikes. I've played the FF4 Free Eterprise one perhaps a dozen times, and perhaps 3/4ths of a playthrough of one for FF5.

-They're highly customizable, letting you select which things are randomized, how random they are (i.e. do you want excalibur showing up in the first dungeon or not; I recommend not) and let you toggle a bunch of other features like bug fixes, removed content, and other balance or gameplay elements people have come up with over the years, including alternate victory conditions or means of recruiting characters.

-In the case of FF4 and FF5, the bosses are randomized. This means they'll have stats appropriate to their location, but the moveset appropriate to their name and appearance. This can make for some wild boss fights when you take enemies with overtuned spells and undertuned stats and give them good stats. Lots of formerly trivial fights become potentially very difficult.

-Generally speaking, these are designed to be played with random encounters disabled, and they remove the story cutscenes as well. This means you get straight up gameplay, and an entire playthrough might take somewhere in the range of 1-5 hours.

-By randomizing the locations of 'key items' (things central to the plot, such as a key to a dungeon, a vehicle, or a crystal that triggers a cutscene in a particular castle once you've had it, etc.) the game essentially becomes an open world exploration game. Rather than simply proceeding in linear fashion, you will hop from place to place, looking for good party members and equipment to become stronger, easy bosses to take out early, strong bosses to come back for later, and if you're interested in trying to win the game as fast as possible there is a ton of strategy that goes into deciding which areas to visit in which order, skipping locations, and so forth. If you're not familiar with the games, it also makes for an interesting exploration game as you won't remember which area you're supposed to take the harp to unlock a new boss fight and whatever rewards that fight might entail. Don't shuffle the key items in with regular ones; these should be shuffled amongst themselves + summon locations.

-Caveat: Not all randomizers are good. Plenty of them just lazily shuffle all enemy stats or equipment stats or locations, leading to dumb gameplay where you just go shopping for 5 minutes until you find an endgame weapon or spell for 3 gold and then steamroll the game. FF1 has a randomizer of that variety. Avoid.

On paper, especially the way you describe, randomizers completely fix almost all the issues I have with the classic JRPGs (and a few with search action games for that matter). That said, I've never actually given any a go. Any you'd recommend in particular?

The FF4 one is pretty good and easy enough to get into. Outside of that, I'd generally recommend ones where you're already familiar with the base game; due to the nature of a randomizer, progression can often be very wonky and counter intuitive. If you don't know that the dark crystal unlocks a cutscene where you gain access to the space ship at a random town, you can find the thing and be wandering around forever not realizing how to progress. Free Enterprise (the FF4 randomizer) has a bunch of tutorial tips and even hints on where to go replacing dialogue for a lot of NPCs, so it's easier to find your way. It also adds in descriptions for equipment so you know which items give special bonuses like defense against a type of monster or status, though that can be deceptive since dragons aren't always dragons and so forth.

You can fiddle with all the parameters before generating a run here. A bunch of it has explanations if you click on it but not all. There's presets you can choose too.
https://ff4fe.com/make

Here's one I made up that is probably decent for a newcomer that still wants some challenge.
https://ff4fe.com/get?id=bBAUAAAAAAAAAAGBQDgjA-wAAAAAAAFCAoTIBIACAANAA.69RQQQH9W9

You'll need a rom to run through the generator. I forget where I got mine from and don't have access to it right now, but it shouldn't be hard to find the right file, a lot of the sites let you download all the versions at once.

Edit: Derped and forgot to enable random items in chests the first time. Fixed.

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

To me the concept of "forgetting" to draw a GF does not compute.

-Pretty much always, you should have the draw command equipped on at least one character (preferably two minimum) and at least check the magic inventory of every new enemy type you meet, not only looking for high value magic to draw (don't need to draw 100 of everything, but certain magics at least some draw-whoring is wise), and furthermore to check for magic to Draw-cast, which is essentially a free magic cast so lots of potential for extended strategy there.
-The above is multiplied considerably for bosses, which almost always have high value magic (often the first time you're seeing it, so you don't have it in your inventory already for use), and of course the all-important GFs to stock.
-Sure maybe vanilla I can somehow see "forgetting" to draw a GF, I think I may have done it is a kid in vanilla, but in requiem the above is yet more important still, the difficulty is high so you want to have as robust a set of options available to you, therefore having at least one draw equipped for draw-cast opportunities is a no-brainer to expand your moveset in any given battle.

In other words, sub-optimal play identified

To highlight what I am saying here, Cerberus boss is the first time you encounter the triple spell, you can grind the shit out of cards (I think), and maybe one hidden draw point or something somewhere, but otherwise no triples up to this point. This is generally how it goes for most magic - first seen on a boss, then becomes more common to find or refine thereafter. Triple is a very high value magic. Grabbing a few stocks is important, but not only that, draw-casting it is also super helpful to then x3 cast shell/protect/cure/reflect/esuna or whatever. Draw is absolutely a game changer for the fight. This isn't always the case, but oftentimes it is, and again, should always be on at least one character and to at least browse the enemies magic inventory. Then browse again later in the game when the level scaling kicks in and their magic inventory grows.
I only unequip draw if a boss killed me and I have already learnt they have no magic of strategic value. Then I will swap the ability for item or some other command that may be more beneficial, but it's pretty rare. Draw on at least one character is a mainstay for 99% of the game, and one of the very first thing you should do, especially in a boss battle, is take a look at what magics the enemies have.

Side note that another beautiful aspect of increasing the difficulty is that it curbs the much complained about draw-stocking (rightly so). As mentioned, the most valuable magic you can obtain in great quantities is typically first encountered on bosses. Vanilla most bosses you could sit there and draw 100 of each if you really wanted to get ahead of the (weak) difficulty curve. However in requiem bosses are hard, you can get some strategic draws in, but in most cases you have to be very selective of how much magics you wish to draw-stock from bosses. Eliminating the threat is top priority, lest you be eliminated. This is a very cool dynamic. Can't get too greedy and must identify the correct opportunities to get a draw in. Some bosses are so tough that you may have very little opportunity to stock at all, and yet you still want draw for draw-cast nonetheless.

I don't disagree with the charge of "sub-optimal gameplay". However, as a recurring player I'll accept some QoL freebies as long as they don't meaningfully impact the gameplay. The problem with drawing from bosses is that you can't usually do it outright, as setting up defenses takes priority, and by the time I'm in the thick of battle I'll ocassionally forget all about it. Draw-casting is something I've used(even in my no stock-drawing run, as it's a good mechanic) in some bosses, but not in others.

I have to the same attitude towards any "missable". I'm glad that modders allow me the freedom of not having to care about missing anything permanently. It's not that I'm against missables in principle, but if I know I'm not going to play the same game again for at least a couple of years, I'll gladly accept the courtesy.

Like I've stated previously, I wish it'd be a setting, that would've been ideal.

 

[Ash]

FOMO faggotry lol.

Missable I am the opposite. I miss the content, then I damn well missed it, that is my punishment for sucking or not looking hard enough, not noticing an obscure detail, forgetting about something, not trying a sensible alternative action and so forth.

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

That said, the mod takes some liberties with the script. I hadn't played the game in 20 years, so I can't really remember what things were changed exactly (there are a few jokes and easter eggs, but really out of the way, they didn't bother me). I know Ash is critical of the mod and vouches for GalenMyra's HardType instead, but so far I haven't seen a direct comparison between the two.

Oh, take my criticism with a grain of salt in regards to New Threat. It doesn't have much weight as I didn't get far. But like you said, script liberties. Immersion-breaking and lame ones. This combined with the fact that the game was unstable (crashing on PC version with 7th heaven, crucially bad thing to happen in this particular game with great distance between save points), and the fact that Hardtype is perfectly faithful while deepening the gameplay in an intelligent way, no dumb script changes, I said fuck it, amateur modders gonna mod, I will stick with hardtype. Also some of the convenience features didn't sit right by me, but I may have been overzealous there. But the fact of the matter is I didn't get far and so my perspective lacks weight.

I feel like I have clarified this before but in a different thread.

Also you say it is cool the mod lets you make Barret a tank and Tifa a mage...but the base game already did that. Sure, the stat gains let you create an OPTIMAL archetype, but then you are stuck with that too and have to commit. I like the strategy and freedom of this particular game (and 8) of adjusting my party's strengths and weaknesses to any given boss fight or location/set of random encounters. Sometimes I will make Tifa a mage, other times I will make her a fighter. Depends what the difficulty (and story - forcing character swaps in your party) demands, or simply because I don't care who gets what - I am not building a character, but a materia entity (well, not quite true, weapon types unique to a character often play a big role e.g back-row weapons. Also number and linkage of materia slots which can vary based on character. Also limit break types slightly factor). Stats are largely dictated by materia modifiers than anything else, though I pretty much always aim for 1 fighter, 1 mage, 1 hybrid/specialist, but again this often changes when a particular bossfight or location demanding adaptation comes along. Always customizing on the fly to optimize to the challenges that present themselves. Good shit that hardtype makes this all accentuated, and a very similar case in FF8 requiem. Constant customization and strategy with a meaningful degree of personalization/freedom involved too. GOOD SHIT.

This is a big reason also why good knowledge of the game is required for hardtypes - I know the enemy types, the bosses, their strengths and weakness, so I can pre-emptively strategize my builds beforehand, rather than always only being reactive after a battle. But the mod is hard and makes some AI changes here and there, or maybe I underestimate a buffed enemy/boss, so adaptation after the fact is still necessary in some cases. My knowledge isn't even that extensive though. A number of playthroughs over the years, yes, and some reading, as well as common weakness shared across reappearing enemy times across all the FF games e.g Bomb is weak to ice. I certainly don't know every enemy weakness or boss AI routine flaw however, not even close. Nor do I want to, as that would likely spoil it. Knowledge is half the battle? Eh, more like three quarters. Nah, lets stick with half.

I played New Threat 1.5 without anything else and I don't remember crashes. It was my first time playing FF7 in 20 years and renewed my love for the game, which I thought had been merely a childish infatuation. I'm aware that there's a version 2.0 that deviates from some core principles of 1.5, rather than being a straight improvent, and I can't comment on that.

I liked the character specialization because in the vanilla game there's very little to differentiate the characters apart from their Limit Breaks, and some are clearly better than others. Characters with weaker LBs ended up sitting on the bench, which is a shame. By being able to customize characters, I made each of them useful in specific ways.

As for story changes, jokes, etc. my philosophy is always: play the original first. In 90% of cases I'd avoid like the plague those mods that change such things , but that's because I know what the typical modder is like. There's no reason it can't be done in an interesting way, in principle. Like I said before, I hadn't played the original in a long time, so nothing in particular bothered me(I actually found the jokes funny, and they were only easter eggs). As for the story, I couldn't even tell anything had changed, but I surely enjoyed the story a lot more than I had expected, and I think I understood it better. It was a surprise to me how much I was able to enjoy FF7's story and characters as an adult.

I've played HardType only a little bit less than a year ago(I was too burned out on JRPG style gameplay), but my impression was very good (I used nearly all the potions in the first boss). If/when I play the game again, I'll probably go with it.

 

[Ash]

"I liked the character specialization because in the vanilla game there's very little to differentiate the characters apart"

Yup. Mostly blank slates (it's more than just limit breaks though) largely to be defined interchangeably specifically as the player chooses. I define their stats and commands right down to individual magic spells, it's pretty robust.

It is also probably the only game I use characters I think are "cool" as opposed to ones that are best for gameplay, as indeed, not a huge difference between them (it's understated though, there are a selection of differences). This is perfect, so I never have to use Cait Sith. The damn thing is worse than Quina.

It was my first time playing FF7 in 20 years and renewed my love for the game, which I thought had been merely a childish infatuation

It is really sad the narrative has steered that way, as these games are among the finest art the Japanese ever produced and leaps and bounds above the competition in a lot of ways (e.g Uematsu consistently producing masterworks on an individual track basis, but also soundtracks that are up to 5 (!) hours long. Merely one example of many I could give.

So how did this narrative come to be? The games are a little on the easier side in terms of combat, respectable still if no grinding, but definitely not hardcore in terms of challenge. But it's not about gameplay. It's almost never about gameplay with "gamers". Yes of course, it's the writing. Definitely flawed, some of it bad translation some of it not, it's NOT intellectual writing (closest it comes to that is FF9), however it is still VERY intelligent in terms of storytelling and entertainer's talent - sense of adventure, heroes journey, excitement, pacing, depiction of drama tragedy and romance, cool sci-fi/fantasy themes and concepts. It is a total rollercoaster with spectacular execution and, depending on which game in the series - 90s ones of course should be the focus - absolutely damn fine work across multiple games in succession. The only ones that could possibly decry it are pseudo-intellectual storyfaggots, which infest the gaming sphere.

Should they be exempt from criticism? Never. But again, leaps and bounds ahead of the competition in many ways and are games that still stand tall today...especially with romhacks. It's kind of sad how their reputation as been sullied by insecure soy boy faggots as well as those that never played them (or inability to even comprehend them) talking bullshit. Meanwhile total trite like Chrono Shitter that isn't even 20% the game, ambition and production values, is pretty much a very obvious sellout game from the same devs (it is Final Fantasy with none if the depth and nuance, and so unengaging that the cuphead journo guy would be able to beat it) is constantly harped on as this golden paragon of JRPG, you have to be out of your fucking mind. Retard gamers.