Argument split from gameplay/combat hopes thread

[hleV]

That was in reference to the other materia listed. I already presented you my position regarding Transform and don't want to repeat myself. Exit would be redundant because you could just run away. Mime... just doesn't work. It would be abused outside of gameplay, too (cutscenes, movies, etc.) to easily get rid of anything that stands in your way.

 

[Ⓐaron]

Exit would be redundant because you could just run away.

Depends how quick the monsters we're talking about are.

Mime... just doesn't work. It would be abused outside of gameplay, too (cutscenes, movies, etc.) to easily get rid of anything that stands in your way.

So what, it doesn't work to have one character mime a spell another casts without MP costs? Because that reasoning... doesn't make any sense to me.

 

[hleV]

The existence of such incredibly overpowered materia doesn't explain its lack of usage anywhere else but gameplay. You can stick being blinded by your love for the available materia in OG. I will instead stick with ability to tell what makes sense and what doesn't.

 

[Ⓐaron]

Maybe the game authors just thought it would have sounded dumb to drop battle mechanics into the story too often.

Also, just because you say something makes no sense doesn't make it so, especially since I have provided counter-arguments for why something along those lines could exist in FFVII's world.

 

[Starling]

No way?! If you think I'm THAT stupid that you have to tell me this, one would figure you would just stop replying.

I was just being clear and concise, no need to be sarcastic about it.

The Man has already made my point regarding the rest of what you've said in that post so it'd be redundant of me to repeat it.

Except that she quoted a very specific part of the text I wrote. Anyway, I stand by my words. It does not make sense in a realistic portrayal of FF7 world. There's no such thing ever shown outside of pure gameplay, so the conclusion is obvious, unless you reaaally wanna go there and argue "it simply wasn't shown" only to prove a point you cling to so desparately, instead of being real and accepting what's way more likely.

I quoted the entire post you're referring to, breaking it up to address each paragraph individually. A lot of the stuff you can do with materia has been shown to be things your opponents are capable of. Just because we don't see materia used often outside of battle doesn't make it a gameplay exclusive thing that has nothing to do with how the setting functions. Meteor and Holy get cast in the OG and are seen in cutscenes. Crisis Core shows us Genesis throwing fire and whatever he did with his sword before the fight started. It also shows Zack encountering summons and Sephiroth cutting down Ifrit. To boot, the game shows us FF7 is a world where people can fly with one wing, presumably in a way that has something to do with magic. CC has a bunch of materia that does stuff that falls under the category you seem to find too unrealistic to include and made it work just fine.

ACC shows us what appear to be quake (also seen with Angeal in CC) and matra magic, as well as a combination of Flare, Ultima, etc for the explosion Loz and Yazoo caused when trying to kill Cloud near the end of ACC. A lot of the materia you deem "illogical" have passive effects you can't accurately say whether have been seen or not.

Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep uses real-time combat. The ability system has stuff like elemental resistances, extra attacks and the ability to survive an attack that would normally kill you with 1hp, all of which you can toggle on or off. The materia system in the OG basically allows you to do the same thing with passive effects such as added cut, elemental, etc, while being structured in a way where you can't have everything at once and can experiment with combinations.

 

[Claymore]

The existence of such incredibly overpowered materia doesn't explain its lack of usage anywhere else but gameplay. You can stick being blinded by your love for the available materia in OG. I will instead stick with ability to tell what makes sense and what doesn't.

You mean like Shinra wanting to use the Huge Materia in the actual story to try and stop Meteor?
Or Holy?

Edit:

Snap. Starling's got it all mapped out...

 

[Tetsujin]

The existence of such incredibly overpowered materia doesn't explain its lack of usage anywhere else but gameplay.

Barely any materia gets used outside of gameplay, that doesn't really mean anything.

 

[hleV]

Barely any materia gets used outside of gameplay, that doesn't really mean anything.

Less useful materia not appearing outside of gameplay can be explained by it being... less useful. OP materia as that would destroy everything and we would hardly have FF7 and Compilation as it is if that stuff actually existed/behaved the same way outside of gameplay.

You mean like Shinra wanting to use the Huge Materia in the actual story to try and stop Meteor?
Or Holy?

I honestly don't get the point you're trying to make. Huge materia? Meteor? Holy? What about them?

 

[Ⓐaron]

OP materia like... running away or duplicating the last action of a party member? The latter is only even useful if there actually is another party member whose actions one can duplicate.

Besides, maybe that materia is rare in FFVII's setting. We have no way of knowing how common such things are, but presumably the more powerful something is, the more in demand it would be, and thus the harder it would be to obtain.

 

[Claymore]

I honestly don't get the point you're trying to make. Huge materia? Meteor? Holy? What about them?

These are examples of overpowered Materia you stated weren't used anywhere else but within the gameplay.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Exit would be redundant because you could just run away.

Exit was used in the plot in scenes from FFIV and FFVI.

Mime... just doesn't work. It would be abused outside of gameplay, too (cutscenes, movies, etc.) to easily get rid of anything that stands in your way.

The point is made that some materia are very rare, so not just everyone has one. It's also clear that AVALANCHE had a lot of unique and powerful materia that put them on a superhuman level.

 

[Starling]

OP materia like... running away or duplicating the last action of a party member? The latter is only even useful if there actually is another party member whose actions one can duplicate.

Slight amendment on the mime materia. You can mime yourself for reduced mp costs and infinite limit breaks, though I'm not sure if that was intended. It's still useless without already having a strong spell or attack to copy though.

 

[hleV]

OP materia like... running away or duplicating the last action of a party member? The latter is only even useful if there actually is another party member whose actions one can duplicate.

OP materia like Enemy Skill, Mime (alone in the party, limit break, mime, profit), Destruct, Full Cure, Final Attack, W-Summon. Let alone loads of other nonsensical materia (most Command materia is for gameplay reasons so you can do certain actions which could be available without materia if the game had real-time action combat... W-Item? You need materia to use 2 items? Really?). You're just fooling yourselfes if you think all the materia in-game is legit. If I had to guess, only magic and summon materia (and perhaps some of Support materia) could be considered legit, though summons attacks would go differently if it was made for a photorealistic game and not just to look cool.

 

[Ⓐaron]

Slight amendment on the mime materia. You can mime yourself for reduced mp costs and infinite limit breaks, though I'm not sure if that was intended. It's still useless without already having a strong spell or attack to copy though.

Oh, right. Still, don't most people only have two materia slots barring weapon or armour additions (which are probably also hard to obtain in VII's setting)? So yeah, only useful if you can get some OP action to mime in the first place

OP materia like Enemy Skill, Mime (alone in the party, limit break, mime, profit), Destruct, Full Cure, Final Attack, W-Summon. Let alone loads of other nonsensical materia (most Command materia is for gameplay reasons so you can do certain actions which could be available without materia if the game had real-time action combat... W-Item? You need materia to use 2 items? Really?). You're just fooling yourselfes if you think all the materia in-game is legit.

And as I said, there's no telling how rare some of this stuff is in FFVII's world is because it's never stated. It's not like materia grows on trees. Presumably a fully levelled W-Summon materia would fetch a huge price on the open market. So yeah, there are perfectly justifiable reasons for why we wouldn't see these outside of gameplay that make perfect sense in VII's world.

Let's also not forget that limit breaks only happen every once in awhile, and there's no telling whether everyone in VII's setting even gets limit breaks. Relying on those for the mime materia would be a presumptively foolish combat strategy, unless a person had another killer move to replace the limit break in cases where it weren't available.

 

[Starling]

OP materia like Enemy Skill, Mime (alone in the party, limit break, mime, profit), Destruct, Full Cure, Final Attack, W-Summon. Let alone loads of other nonsensical materia (most Command materia is for gameplay reasons so you can do certain actions which could be available without materia if the game had real-time action combat... W-Item? You need materia to use 2 items? Really?). You're just fooling yourselfes if you think all the materia in-game is legit.

Enemy Skill is the epitome of what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. You have to let the magic hit you and survive before you can actually use it. I don't really see what the issue with Destruct and Full Cure are. As for Final Attack, it's not absurd to think there's a materia that automatically activates a spell when particular conditions are met, such as being incapacitated. W-summon is fine too. As for w-item, it magically duplicates the item you used.

Again, gameplay and story segregation means even with materia set up to grant abilities they don't want you to have permanent access to doesn't mean they should remove your ability to use them. It's pretty comparable to abilities I've seen present in real-time combat, but as I've said, the materia system is set up in the ideal way to set up abilities for combat in FF7. You have to remember that this is a game, not real life and as such there will be things only possible in games for the sake of gameplay that is actually fun to use.

 

[JBedford]

W-Item allows you to use two different items, and it doesn't duplicate anything because it still costs two items. Well, it can duplicate items but that's not the Materia, that's a glitch. It makes as much sense as the MP costing Quick Pockets in FFX that lets you use an item, but faster. Because magic.

I'm not going to justify Materia making sense. I will say that in some games I do consider how stuff seen in gameplay makes sense outside of battle. But the things that really disconnect me from the world are when things like Zell's My Final Heaven, Squall's Blasting Zone, and Supernova happen. Those animations make no sense. Dolphin Blow is fine though.

I understand why people may want consistent-realism between battles and story, but it's just not something I care about. I woudln't sacrifice things that add to gameplay just because it doesn't make sense outside of it. Turn-based/ATB and action are just different kinds of gameplay. And for this remake, for me, keeping the core gameplay mechanics is as important to me as keeping the core storyline.

 

[Ryushikaze]

This entire argument is very silly because we've had mimes, magic counters, etc. in scenarios that were just as gritty and serious as FF7s, and we've had stranger mechanical elements in other successful Square action RPGs.

 

[leadmyskeptic]

Man, this Lev guy sucks. I'm sorry, it's not just a difference of opinion, he just sucks. Although he did finally hammer home my suspicion that this is not about logic, or a new game INHERENTLY not working because it uses an old-school turn based system. It's instead merely a question of whether you dig that style of gameplay or not, period. Hlev does not, and never did. A lot of the rest of us found it enjoyable, being huge fans of FF7, a game that was built around turn-based gameplay. I'm sure there are others that merely found it tolerable, because they loved the story/setting so much, but they appear to be in the minority. But at least its finally clear that this is preference we're talking about, ya'll, NOT inherent quality.

Anyway, even those it's going to be quite a while before we actually see anything, I wonder how long before we at least get a verbal confirmation as to some of the gameplay style...

P.S. I'm new to this forum, after lurking on it and other sites like FF7 citadel going back...shit, I dunno, probably more or less since it existed...but I dig it alot. Except for that one guy

 

[Lex]

^I'm glad you enjoy the forums, and welcome

I feel the need to point out though that this kind of thing:

Man, this Lev guy sucks. I'm sorry, it's not just a difference of opinion, he just sucks.

Is a violation of the rules. Personal attacks aren't tolerated here. Either debate in a civilised manner, or don't debate.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Man, this Lev guy sucks. I'm sorry, it's not just a difference of opinion, he just sucks.

Yeah, this kind of thing is downright unacceptable. As popular or unpopular as an opinion is, keep your arguments and comments specifically about the how's and why you disagree with them. Keep your arguments based on evidence like they've been doing so far. This is a place for discussion and no one should feel unwelcome or attacked for discussing their views.

Let this be a general warning to everyone. Don't let your passion for something get out of hand by taking things personally and lashing out over it. If you think someone's behaviour is somehow unacceptable, please report the post(s) and let us handle it.



X

 

[hleV]

They should've used Counter materia to protect Aerith from Sephiroth.

On a serious note, surely somewhere deep inside you realize that most Command and Support materia is there to provide characters with more abilities (unrelated to magic) other than simple attacks. They're abilities that characters are normally capable of, but in a gameplay of that kind, they're presented in the way of materia.

 

[ForceStealer]

They should've used Counter materia to protect Aerith from Sephiroth.

On a serious note, surely somewhere deep inside you realize that most Command and Support materia is there to provide characters with more abilities (unrelated to magic) other than simple attacks. They're abilities that characters are normally capable of, but in a gameplay of that kind, they're presented in the way of materia.

I can only assume by this realism you're so enthralled with you realize that you would have to spend 99% of the game missing. As there's no way Barret's gatling gun or Cloud's giant sword wouldn't kill any living with one hit.

 

[hleV]

I didn't get it. You mean that in order to make the gameplay enjoyable, enemies would have to be very good at dodging, as otherwise, going by "realism I'm so enthralled with", they would be one-shot material?

How about enemies being able to block, have armor that you have to crack through, have weak spots? They don't have to make the very same monsters. Introduce less but more interesting, larger scale opponents. Not that I would mind seemingly one-shot material monsters surviving Buster Sword slashes. I'm not for all-realism, I'm for closer to it as long as you can still make good gameplay with it.

 

[Wolf_]

They do. Proud clod. Then there's those leaf things with super high evasion. Until we get actual info from the man himself all this is is hopes and guessing.

 

[Starling]

They should've used Counter materia to protect Aerith from Sephiroth.

On a serious note, surely somewhere deep inside you realize that most Command and Support materia is there to provide characters with more abilities (unrelated to magic) other than simple attacks. They're abilities that characters are normally capable of, but in a gameplay of that kind, they're presented in the way of materia.

I never denied they filled that purpose. I'm pretty sure I even mentioned why that doesn't mean it should be removed. I figure in-universe materia that grants people abilities they might be able to do without it enhance the person's ability to do so, possibly in ways they wouldn't be able to pull off or increase their efficiency with it. For example someone with a crap throwing arm could use a throw materia to have better aim or to get what they're throwing to reach a greater distance.