Help Triple Triad: Abolishing rules?

[Blockinlick]

I have read from a few insightful sources on the internet how to abolish rules, but it's not exactly working for me.

Here are two of the best reads

First, if this region doesn't have "Open", go and play a game in a region that has it... like Balamb (for default). Now, go to the region where you want to abolish the rule and save the game near a "playable" person. If you try to play with that person, he/she will ask you to mix rules, select "Yes" and, in the Triple Triad screen, select "Quit". Several things might happen (in no specific order):

1. Open rule spread
2. Random rule abolished
3. Same rule abolished
4. Plus rule abolished
5. Nothing, AND the person won't ask to mix rules again.
6. Nothing, AND the person will ask to mix rules again.

If you get 6, you can ask the person again. If you get 1 or 5, restart the game (L1 + L2 + R1 + R2 + Select + Start). If you get 2, 3 or 4; good! When you abolish a rule, you can return to Balamb, play a game and repeat the entire process again to abolish another rule. By the way, DO NOT mix rules in Balamb (i.e. keep saying "No" until the person stops asking to mix rules), DO NOT get to the screen with the "Play"/"Quit" choices or something bad might happen to the rules of Balamb. After abolishing the desired rules, you can get the 1 message now for an easy game.

It doesn't have to be Balamb or the "Open" rule exclusively. You just have to choose a region that has a rule that the "bad rules" region doesn't have. For example, FH, which has the "Sudden Death" rule. It's just easier with Balamb.

By the way, Same/Plus means that the rules Same and Plus are active in that region. I suggest that you read the in-game tutorial of Triple Triad for more information about these rules.

Don't listen to the 'It is random and keep trying' answer. It is far from random and predictable and/or repeatable. I think I'm going to write a FAQ for it, but as Im a bit nonchalant about it, it may take me some time. This should actually work for any rule change, not just removing random from dollet (I actually removed both elemental and random - once I figured out the pattern, I got both removed within about 10 minutes). Before moving on, I want to note that I am using an original PSX version of the game playing from a PS3.

To do this...

Save your game at one of the save points in Dollet (I used the one in the place where the card queen appears). Before you do anything, see if anyone there will change the rule giving you the result you're trying to achieve (probably not). Anyway, once you fail to get what you want, reset and try that same person again (you will get a different result this time). Now you might be saying 'what's your point - this is random'. I can say 'wrong, it's not'. Try resetting your game and trying again (always use soft reset from the XMB menu on ps3), you can use any person and the result will be the same (do not change screens). Not only the result but the number of times needed to talk to the person to change the rule will not change between resets. How do we use this you ask? I am glad you asked!

The random number seed that everyone talks about? Yeah, it changes every time you move from screen to screen in FFVIII. All that you need to do is make the screen change to get a different result. If you track how many screen changes you used and the resulting rule change, you can actually duplicate the result every time regardless of who you play cards with (when I did it, elem abolishment was on the sixth screen (b/c of where I saved it, it was not possible to get 3 or 4 screens which is where I think random would have been abolished and probably why this is such a pain to get through dumb luck). Always count the place where you saved as screen 1 moving to the next area would be screen 2 and so on. Coincidentally it was exactly 6 screens for me to get to the dollet hotel and play the girl in there, starting from the queen of cards location. You can play anyone without affecting the results in any way. I believe the 'base start seed' (for lack of a better term) is preserved in some way when you save. I speculate that square did this INTENTIONALLY so you CANNOT just reset the game and get a different result. Lots of turn based games do this (Civilization IV for example even gives you the option to turn it off).

As a note, I would recommend starting this in the dollet hotel because there is someone in the room who plays and someone outside. Going outside and back inside will let you hit every number of screens possible (allowing you any result you want). Also note that there is a pattern to the rule changes and you will notice as your number of screens gradually increases, you tend to get the same result (either that or it then becomes required to go thru exponentially more screens to get a different result, I stopped getting different results after screen 10, and I went all the way up to about 30). Anyway, I really doubt you will need that many, unless you want to do some math to figure out how this actually works. I stopped caring after random was abolished.

I guess I will write a FAQ eventually, but you can e-mail me gmail if you really need more information or dont understand this. It is as simple as it sounds though...

Now, I've tried the following in order to abolish these three rules in Centra [So I can play Edea and Cid without them flipping out some luck ass s**t on me]: Random, Plus, and Same [Plus being the one I hate the most]. I keep losing to Cid because he always seems to get a lucky Plus combo going near the end of the card-game, which is REALLY annoying!

Went to FH [Balamb didn't have rules because I haven't messed with the Queen yet]
-Played by their rules [Sudden Death & Elemental]
-Went to Centra
-Saved outside Edeas house
-Challenged Cid
-Agreed to mix rules
-Quit at rules screen
-Got "[The Sudden Death rule has spread throughout this region]"
-Reset my PS2 and repeat
-No matter how many different #'s of screens I try, the result is always "[The Sudden Death rule has spread throughout this region]"

What am I doing wrong?

 

[Yaoi Master Gavin]

Well, first off, Balamb should always have open as their only rule so there shouldn't be a problem there. Second, I'm pretty sure the guy in the second one has it right where the number of screens has something to do with it though I've generally attributed it to doing something different each time to affect the outcome. Try running in a few scenes and then try it again.

Also, you should've gotten the Seifer card at the start, so much easier to get.

 

[Blockinlick]

Well, first off, Balamb should always have open as their only rule so there shouldn't be a problem there. Second, I'm pretty sure the guy in the second one has it right where the number of screens has something to do with it though I've generally attributed it to doing something different each time to affect the outcome. Try running in a few scenes and then try it again.

Also, you should've gotten the Seifer card at the start, so much easier to get.

I don't want to beat him for Seifer... I got Seifer on disc one. I just want to be able to face him and Edea for their other valuable cards.

EDIT,

I got it figured out, thanks to this MUCH more accurate [and sophisticated] explanation.
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/197343-final-fantasy-viii/53611093

To put it very simple

Abolishing Random in Centra
-Save outside Edeas House and hard reset
-Challenge Cid 5 times and say no to mixing rules each time [So hit Square on him, then say no: 5 times]
-Then challenge Cid and accept, then select Quit in the rules screen
Random should be abolished

Abolishing Plus in Centra
Same as above except Challenge/No him 8 times instead of 5

It worked for me...