Spell System is completely flawed!

I could quote Matsuno's tweet...but if anyone wants to find it they can google it.

shrugs.

I feel you're overly preoccupied with being convinced.
I don't care about convincing anybody about my opinions.They're my opinions and I have a right to have them...
If you have a different opinion that's fine.
I don't come here to convince people about anything.

It's a nearly impossible task anyway.
 
Alright, I think this thread has been derailed enough. Please try and keep the thread on topic. Thanks. :)
 
Hi.
So in this game, due to Charge Times and queue, spells aren't very useful for direct damage. But the buff and debuff spells are very useful. Decoy is very useful and together with Main Gauche, a good shield and Reverse is one of the cheapest tricks in the book.

Also, for some Esper battles where attack command is sealed, Shcok is an awesome spell. Not as powerful as others, but faster to cast and short on recovery time, which makes it the most useful for direct damage.
 
Whatever then...

Maybe some people feel that magic was overpowered in previous FFs so they overcompensated in FFXII...made it too weak.

They ignored blue magic altogether.

No white wind....no mighty guard......no magic you can obtain from foes.

I am a big fan of blue magic..Gau from FFVI is one of my favs and having that kind of ability would have enhanced the game imo.

shrugs....
 
Pumpkin King said:
Then why is this game considered such a masterpiece of combat and strategy when its just hack and slash with very little spell depth or strategy at all?
Click to expand...

I don't really think this game is considered a masterpiece of anything. :lew:

I only used three characters for most of the game and I used Penelo as my mage. I can tell you she did way more damage with magic than she did with attacks. I made sure to get her all of the magic supplemental licenses as well.

As for spells like reflect, I never really use them in any FF game, tbh. I think I used it a few times in this game and it worked fine. Dark and Darkra didn't work all that well but I just didn't bother with them. Towards the end of the game, I had her using the high-level spells and she was easily doing as much damage as Balthier's attacks. So yeah, I never had the problems you're having with magic in the game.

I was shit with quickenings so I never bothered with them. :dave:

ANGRYWOLF said:
I am a big fan of blue magic..Gau from FFVI is one of my favs and having that kind of ability would have enhanced the game imo.
Click to expand...

I quite like blue magic myself. It would have been nice to have it incorporated into this game.
 
You're making a HUGE mistake if you ignore Quickenings.. you can win just about any boss battle with a handful of them... I can't tell you how many bosses I've killed when my characters had less then 100 HP because I used Quickenings..

I have experimented with some of the spells you suggested, such as Protect, Haste, Shell, and Decoy... yeah, it works a bit better and I can run through the monsters a bit faster now... a good suggestion, thanks.

But yeah, overall I think the flaw in the game is that you can just accumulate TONS of different spells and items and abilities... its so excessive.. the license board is freakin huge, I've played the game for months and only unlocked about 85% of the board..

But all these things you can unlock and discover dont really add to the gameplay experience... its just like putting more and more things into a soup, when the soup tastes fine already..

FF 12 is really a game about gaining more and more useless things!!
 
I will agree with you on a lot of the stuff on the license board being useless. :lew:

Out of all the spells you can obtain, I only really used a handful. And I very rarely used technicks (except Libra) because most of them just weren't worth bothering with. A good number of the weapons I didn't bother with either.

I know quickenings were very useful as I got lucky a few times with them early on and defeated a few bosses. Overall though, I was just terrible with timing and button mashing so they would mostly fail. That's why I eventually just stopped using them.
 
Pumpkin King said:
You're making a HUGE mistake if you ignore Quickenings.. you can win just about any boss battle with a handful of them... I can't tell you how many bosses I've killed when my characters had less then 100 HP because I used Quickenings..
Click to expand...

You'll be making an even bigger mistake should you attempt any end game bosses or marks relying solely on Quickenings. The MP is more useful for status and curative spells.


Pumpkin King said:
But yeah, overall I think the flaw in the game is that you can just accumulate TONS of different spells and items and abilities... its so excessive.. the license board is freakin huge, I've played the game for months and only unlocked about 85% of the board..
Click to expand...

I thought it was rather small in comparison to say, FFX's sphere grid. What a grind that thing was.

I agree though, the amount of spells pales in comparison to those of any actual use.

Pumpkin King said:
But all these things you can unlock and discover dont really add to the gameplay experience... its just like putting more and more things into a soup, when the soup tastes fine already..
Click to expand...

In fairness, when you look at it that way, all games have a game mechanic and once you've experienced everything there is to experience with that game mechanic you've essentially played the entire game. Jump on Super Mario and that's the game in a nutshell really. Skin changes are practically the only variety you'll get in a game, seeing as it relies on an engine.
 
I think some people are too caught up on the fact that the magic system isn't like the other FF games. Every FF game has a different system to it, and you have to get used to it. If XII had the materia system coupled with the junction system, everyone would be yelling about it as well.

This game also all these different spells and techniks to use, it's like an MMO style setup, giving the user various ways to play the game. If you don't like the magic, then don't use it, not like it makes it a horrible game in itself. The first time I played it, I only used physical attacks/white magic for most of the game, and the second time I played it I expanded into green magic and some black magic.

I haven't experimented in a lot of the techniks of the game, but I plan too the next time I play it. Using different setups each playthrough adds a challenge to the game and renews is gameplay, at least for me.

It comes down to opinion, and everyone has one. A lot of the people don't and won't listen to others opinions, and think theirs is the only one that matters. No opinion makes XII a bad game.
 
You are gonna solve the game for a 3rd time? Holy lord... that is crazy...

I mean, once you've solved the main quest and all the side quests, you've experienced everything the game has..

I am not going to even bother to do the sidequests... so I can unlock Excalibur, which will give me 5 more points of damage or something per hit, no doubt..

Its a very fun game, but I just bought a Xbox 360 and I think its soon time to shelve this ps2 game for good!
 
Shelve it indeed Pumpkin Rex!

Its a wast of your life and talents..........It not really that great an experience, It takes months of work to achieve the all of the game and for what useless Weapons that give you limited boosts in ATK.

I spent for days trying to obtain the Best Dagger in FFXII.......the Danjuro dropped by the Larva Eater Monster No#342 in the lower levels of Giruvegan........not bad huh I remembered that from......memory......anyway the chances of it dropping the item are Small indeed, 3%-12% of the time in the 1 in 5 chances it may show up after you kill 256
of the freakin bombs that hang around there........Fucking Ridiculous!!!

What stupid odds far an un-important item in a game that is not very good with useless character who are not worth going to such lengths for!

And yes this occurence contributed to forming my already jaded opinion of this game!
 
GalaxyFlare said:
Shelve it indeed Pumpkin Rex!

Its a wast of your life and talents..........It not really that great an experience, It takes months of work to achieve the all of the game and for what useless Weapons that give you limited boosts in ATK.

I spent for days trying to obtain the Best Dagger in FFXII.......the Danjuro dropped by the Larva Eater Monster No#342 in the lower levels of Giruvegan........not bad huh I remembered that from......memory......anyway the chances of it dropping the item are Small indeed, 3%-12% of the time in the 1 in 5 chances it may show up after you kill 256
of the freakin bombs that hang around there........Fucking Ridiculous!!!

What stupid odds far an un-important item in a game that is not very good with useless character who are not worth going to such lengths for!

And yes this occurence contributed to forming my already jaded opinion of this game!
Click to expand...
I like FFXII :[

It all comes down to your playstyle as a few of us have said earlier in the thread. If you're an all-out physical kind of person or just hate using gambits or want the fastest DPS (damage-per-second), you'll probably hate using magic.
 
I like XII's battle system, but i'm somewhat inclined to agree with some of your points, a lot of the magic is completely useless in most cases. I never use Dark, Decoy (most times) and other such things, and I did find all those categories rather bothersome as I like having it on active and I hate trying to remember what goes where, true it doesn't take long to get used to it but simple black/white magic should do, or just simply have it all under 'magic'.

I find that I only really use curative magic in XII unless I can really use it to my advantage anyway, i'm normally more of a mage/spellcaster type player but I don't know what it is about XII, I just lost interest in using offensive magic. :hmmm:
 
For me, it wasn't that I found the magic useless, just confusing. What was wrong with black and white magic instead of all the categories. Time, green, arcane... waste of time. I'd be searching for a spell and forget what category it came under so I wasted time :hmph:
It would have been ok if they'd just kept black and white :mokken:
 
Some of the magic is usefull in certain situations.
Float was good in the narrow corridors of the secret area of the Henne mines because it helped you avoid traps.

The black hole stuff probably had its uses although I never tried for conjunctions...and I wasn't very good making chains:

http://www.gamerhelp.com/ps2/FinalFantasyXII/121781.shtml

still if anyone is interested this faq might help you if you want to play the game again.

I never finished it although I could have.I wanted to get a near perfect game but I had problems with zodiark and quit.

as for techniks, abilities like shear..and there's another I forgot..that reduced the enemies fighting ability and magic, those had their uses as well.
 
Oh, I completely forgot about teckniks (however you spell that...)
For me, they were a waste of time, I never used them. Steal was rarely successful for me, first aid became redundant after level 5 or so, and the others just never really helped me.
That one that can either restore it or reduce your MP to zero infuriated me as well, I'd be building MP back up and one would fail and I'd be like :rage:
 
Oerba Dia Vanille said:
I like XII's battle system, but i'm somewhat inclined to agree with some of your points, a lot of the magic is completely useless in most cases. I never use Dark, Decoy (most times) and other such things, and I did find all those categories rather bothersome as I like having it on active and I hate trying to remember what goes where, true it doesn't take long to get used to it but simple black/white magic should do, or just simply have it all under 'magic'.

I find that I only really use curative magic in XII unless I can really use it to my advantage anyway, i'm normally more of a mage/spellcaster type player but I don't know what it is about XII, I just lost interest in using offensive magic. :hmmm:
Click to expand...

Having tons of useless abilities is a mark of this series. Most battles are always better handled with physical attacks.
 
Just an example of how frustrating this game is:

I was running around Giruvegan for about 3 hours without a chance to save my game.

I accumulated about 1,000 license points and several levels of experience, but could not find the save game crystal.

Suddenly, all my characters started getting hit with DISEASE, actually a status effect I had never encountered before, so I didnt know what to do.

I had no remedies, and I was screwed. Everyone in my party had no hit points, and couldnt be helped with any spells!!!

With all this powerful magic, I couldn't do anything!

Maybe RENEW would have helped, not sure,.. but I didnt have it.

I was holding the FLEE down and running around searching for the exit for about 20 minutes. I don't know how I survived, but Penelo had like 100 HP left when i found the save crystal and everyone else was dead.

I would have thrown the game in the trash if I had died in that spot, i think..

:mrgreen:

Please tell me Im close to solving this game!! It feels like Im close to the end..
 
Now you know you need to have max items for just about everything you might encounter. You needed vacine.

Cleanse magic also removes it I believe.


shrugs.

and no you still have aways to go yet.You still have to go to Pharos.After that you can end the game if you choose not to try to take out zodiark, omega and Yiazamat.

Good luck..
As we don't want a mod to be mad at us for getting off topic..rotfl....
 
I cannot believe there is more to go! Are you serious?

I may just print out a walkthrough and play the game that way..

I have totally burnt out on this game... the epic size of the game has destroyed my soul!!! It never ends!!!
 
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