A place to post news and also give your ideas about the future of the Suikoden series. Please justify all speculations with reasons why you think such an event could happen.
eldrasidar wrote:Honestly, part of what I enjoy the most about Suikoden has been its consistently simple gameplay. Frankly, by this point, they got most of the gameplay elements pretty well established. I feel like they should be focusing on the narrative and plot at this point, more than the gameplay. That's been one of the things that's bothered me about a lot of newer console RPG's, it feels like they spend so much time trying to make something new and different that they forget to develop a good plot or characters, and then because it's some crazy new system that I don't understand, the game loses it's enjoyment factor on three levels.
I agree completely with your opinion. Look what happened to Star Ocean: every game they focused more and more on gameplay elements and less and less on storyline elements and the results were clear: the games got worse and worse.
Maybe we should be discussing more storyline systems like trinity system, social points (similar to persona), branching, etc. Those are what will make a difference. Expending too much money on gameplay aspects wont take anybody anywhere. I would prefer the next suikoden to be more like persona 4 and less like final fantasy XIII.
So any changes on the gameplay aspects shouldnt be time ou money consuming.
@Rezard: But improved gameplay doesn't necessarily mean worse story or vice versa, the same with the graphics. I think Suikoden's gameplay really does need an update, I don't think it is the optimal solution.
About the magic system, I had already opened another thread where I discussed it, so I won't talk about it here.
One of the main problems of Suikoden imo is, that there are too many battles and they are too easy. I would like to have less random encounters (or maybe no random encounters at all) but more difficult ones. I think 98% of the Suikoden battles lack tactics or strategy, most of the time it is simple "auto". Different enemies don't need different strategies, it's always the same, and I think this is a shame.
Also, most of the runes are useless. Maybe they should focus more on the magic aspects and less on physical-attributes-raising runes as they tend to break the game. Also, support runes should be more useful.
Also the Exp system is a bit... well... it has its advantages: Weak characters can be trained in under 10 minutes and then be very effective - this is a really really good thing. Also, you don't need to grind for Exp. But why does nearly every Suikoden have a level cap at 100, but you won't see it most of the time? Some games have tricks to get characters to Lvl 100, but some simply don't have that. I don't really know how to fix that or if it really needs to be fixed, but this was one point a friend whose first Suikoden was Tierkries didn't like. "You fight 3 battles in a dungeon and after that your characters don't get any stronger."
More optional battles would be cool, but I would prefer stronger story-battles and maybe 2-3 optional challenges like "there is amonster in the dungeon under our HQ, defeat it" or so. I don't like the way the FF series go with the story battles becoming ridicolously easy and optional bosses which require hours of tedious grinding (at least FF X was like this and that was the last FF I really played).
I like the idea of social interactions like the Star Ocean series does it, this would fit good in a Suikoden game.
The idea of army funds is good, I had a similar one. You don't really need a seperate army/HQ-budget imo. Every shop which opens gives you a certain amount of money after every battle (or every 10 battles.. or so). But you also need money to upgrade your stores and maybe get even special bonuses like 5%-HQ-discount or selling items for 55% of the original price instead of 50. The more you upgrade your store, the more money you will get. I always hated Suikoden III for not doing something similar, because the HQ was all about trading and Thomas did open the castle so he gets money, but he never gets any^^
And I always thought it is strange that you don't get discounts at the stores "Oh, you're trying to save the country and our lives? Well, thank you. Discount? nononono....". Maybe you could implement some kind of reputation system (a bit like in Xenoblade Chronicles) and get better items at the stores. You start as a no-name guy there and people don't really trust you, but you get reputation by side-missions and maybe trading (trading would get a real meaning then!).
Well, these were some random ideas I had just now. I really think Suikoden needs some updates, but it will be hard to find a balance between keeping the Suikoden charme we all love and making a new game which fits into this time.
there are a lot of things about the suikoden games that are somewhat dated, but i think if you're going to "modernize" the series you do need to keep in mind that it must have simple gameplay. any rpg noob can start playing a suikoden game and have a decent idea of how the combat system works, whereas if you're playing a final fantasy game you need to sit through 2 hours of gameplay tutorials to master it.
"Funds - I always wondered why the budget of an entire army comes from the pocket change of a teenager"
I don't see our character paying for solders, staff, provisions, or castle repairs/expansions (would have made sense to donate to Thomas's castle though!), so this line is incorrect. In fact, in S5 the Prince got paid for leading the army to a successful win - the more casualties, the lower the pay (and couldn't go negative).
If you want everything restored after battle, the battles should be infrequent and really tough. I don't see the point of restoring all abilities/HP/MP for small random battles. In real life you don't automatically recover after defeating one opponent.
ninjaluc79 wrote:
Really? But most mage weapons have exactly 100 ATK by level 16. Assuming we have an 08 MAG character (~200 @ level 60), that's still 300 ATK, at par with the best attackers in the game. Like I said, this is to give them the ability to normally attack outside of battles so they get to do something asides Defend in Auto-Battles. Although Zerase comes into mind as one of the most gamebreaking Suikoden mages ever, that's a different story.
Exactly, they're at par with attackers which kind of ruins the attackers' pride.lol. I think attackers should always have stronger attack and mages have weaker. It's their magic that compensate for it. In SV mages could attack alhough being behind reduces their accuracy.
Anyhoo, we differ opinions here so moving on.. For your idea, how exactly could mages be differentiated from attackers? I mean, in terms of considering magic as their basis for normal attack. By weapon?
I will bring Lordlake's fate... to the entire Suikoden World! weeeeeeh!
Actually some really good, interesting ideas in this thread. I particularly like ninjaluc's revised magic strength formula and the idea of having two sets of cash- essentially, a personal and a business account. I don't think the hero is paying for everything that goes on at the castle- outfitting every nameless redshirt etc.- but it seems a bit odd that you have to earn money personally to buy new armour for every schmuck you pick up off the street. I mean, aren't these shop owners paying rent? Actually, didn't Mamie pay the Flame Champion if you spoke to her periodically?
I also agree that the duels need a definite overhaul. Maybe not a total overhaul, but the suggestions about paying attention to things like body language, stance, etc, instead of just trash talk would be a huge improvement and make way more sense. V had the right idea adding the timer, but it was frankly largely cosmetic- three seconds doesn't sound like a lot of time, but it was always WAY more than I ever needed to choose the correct input. Another problem with the way the duels are handled now- the only way to increase the difficulty of later duels is to have the opponent's trash talk be either totally nonsensical or vague to the point of being completely unhelpful in the decision making process. Essentially, the endgame duels are a matter of luck, rather than deduction. I was trying to come up with my own way of punching up the duels in Suikoden, actually, and the idea I was toying with involved having every "round" of the duels be a two or even three step process. Like, in addition to attack, defend, desperate attack, you could have high, neutral, and low stances, or something. The duels would be longer, more frantic, and dirtier, and there would be pretty much no chance of getting through one totally unharmed, like you usually can in these games. Depending on which enemy you're fighting and what their own style is like, you might have to attack low and defend high, or a high desperate attack might ruin their balance, or any other number of things. Attacks landed at different heights would do different amounts of damage depending on where your enemy was defending, two attacks that meet at the same height would clash, if you defend low against a low desperate attack you would do more damage than if you defend against a high one, or maybe a high desperate attack could even land despite defending low. Basically, the same rock-paper-scissors sort of duel but with every action given a modifier that can either increase, decrease, or negate the damage of any chosen action. Just a messy little idea in my head though, I don't know that I'm expressing my thoughts quite as well as I could.
The idea of restoring HP and/or MP after every battle is interesting enough, but the trade off would obviously have to be fewer battles of dramatically increased difficulty. Actually, even without the HP/MP restoration I think this is a good idea. The Suikoden games are I think particularly easy, but golden-age RPGs (IMO, late SNES-early PSX) have this problem in a big way- too many battles that the player completely sleepwalks through. Has anyone played Radiant Historia for the DS? That's a great example of how "random encounters" (actually not random at all, but what's the proper term for non-mandatory, non-boss battles? "Minor encounters?") ought to play out. They're far less common, and most of them are completely avoidable if you've got the dexterity for it, but every single battle you'll have to fight tooth and nail and use every ability in your arsenal to survive. There's no sitting on a stash of unused MP in this game, every character has an MP stash and they're all going to be using MP in every battle. Later in the game if you aren't taking advantage of the game's preemptive strike feature to get the drop on your enemies it's not unusual to find yourself in a "random encounter" where the enemy get 10 or 15 turns before you even get one. And yet in spite of all this, the battles are amazingly fun and challenging, and I found myself anticipating them rather than simply enduring them in order to get to the good bits. Even the boss battles in Suikoden tend to be easy. We have six party members! Feel free to put the coals to us a little bit, Konami, we can take it!
And as for the idea that the series shouldn't focus on modernizing or updating its gameplay because the focus ought to be on story, I can only say "rubbish". How anyone could possibly believe you can only have one to the detriment of the other is bananas. Remember, we all fell in love with the series because the gameplay has always been excellent. The customization you can put into characters in Suikodens II and III continues to boggle my mind even as my number of playthroughs has entered the double digits. All we're saying is that the system could use a bit of a shot of caffeine, as the systems are starting to show their age a bit. Not for no reason do they change the major battle system in every game- updating and improving the series as it goes along has always been in the Suikoden genome. I'd be delighted to see some experiments taken in the future.
Honestly, I would like to see a funds system similar to Assasins Creed 2, where you were financially rewarded for using personal funds to upgrade the castle. Not only would you get a cut of the profits the businesses inside your castle were making, you would also get access to new weapons and items as the sotres got bigger and better inventories. Also having the choice into which area to invest would allow you to say, get the better weapons before getting the better runes.
You know I wouldn't mind seeing a Suikoden that was slightly closer to its Water Margin roots. So for instance the leader, Song Jiang, never fights. His leadership ability is what keeps his army alive and growing.
So what I would suggest is a game where the organization and treatment of your fellows are what makes you win. So for instance you could have something similar to Deus Ex HR's dialogue "battles". This could even be used in terms of the runes, so for instance the main characters True Runes "curse" could be a paralyzing, crippling or deteriation (not death) of the body. Meaning his survival is dependent on having loyal subjects to protect him and then also the rune.
Its counterpart of course could do the opposite, strengthen the body at the expense of the mind.
KFCrispy wrote:"Funds - I always wondered why the budget of an entire army comes from the pocket change of a teenager"
I don't see our character paying for solders, staff, provisions, or castle repairs/expansions (would have made sense to donate to Thomas's castle though!), so this line is incorrect. In fact, in S5 the Prince got paid for leading the army to a successful win - the more casualties, the lower the pay (and couldn't go negative).
If you want everything restored after battle, the battles should be infrequent and really tough. I don't see the point of restoring all abilities/HP/MP for small random battles. In real life you don't automatically recover after defeating one opponent.
You stop becoming a "Teenager" the second you become the sole leader of the army. Basically all the characters give you 100% of the loot from battles or treasure and it's your job to put those funds back into the war effort. Suikoden V did indeed take it a step further and give the prince the "War Funds" after military actions to represent this more accurately. All they need to do to modernize it a bit is have each "Shop" you allow set up in your base, pay you a hourly/daily fee. There should also be more investment options beyond trading posts.
Antimatzist wrote:@Rezard: But improved gameplay doesn't necessarily mean worse story or vice versa, the same with the graphics. I think Suikoden's gameplay really does need an update, I don't think it is the optimal solution.
The problem is money. Money is limited, but possible game improvements are almost infinity. Everything we propose here will consume the projects funds. There's no free lunch. Every penny invested in graphics is one less penny invested in storyline. If you care too much for gameplay, you will hurt storyline.
The problem with recent jrpg is that they are focusing in wrpg elements (gameplay), rather than jrpg elements(character development and good storyline). This is killing jrpgs. I prefer Suikoden to be more like Persona 4 (focus on storyline) and less like Star Ocean 4(focus on gameplay).
I am not defending an unbalanced game with good storyline and lousy gameplay, but a game with good gameplay and great storyline.
For example it would be much better to create a social system like persona: befriend a certain character and you gain deeper insight in their storyline, you recruit additional character related to this storyline, you bring out his/her hidden potential, you open an side quest related to that character, you alter their ending, etc.
I like the whole idea of befriending your character and having to do a personal quest. It actually reminds me of the "optional" loyalty quests you had to do in Mass Effect 2 . Where you get a decent insight into a character's mind and personality; and you solve his or her personal problems and get a reward in the form of a new special attack or even weapon. I'd like to see Loyalty quests implemented for the SoDs. To be honest, I wouldn't mind if it was mandatory to complete these loyalty quests to get The Good Ending.
Also speaking of Assassins Creed. What I liked about brotherhood was the fact that you can send your assassins out into different parts of the world and they return with money and experience. I wish for Suikoden to have something simlilar. Where you can send out your stars of Destiny to different parts of the world for missions and they can bring back all sorts of goodies and treasures maybe even new Star recruits or extra soldiers for the army battles. I've kinda of felt that in the past games the aside from the SoD's that are prominent to the story line. The rest of the stars of destiny felt like forgettable extras. After I recruited them I tended to the forget they exist (Unless they are really great fighters or mages). and I ignore them for a good majority of the game. It'd be nice to do what Square did for final fantasy VI, where when you tackle one of the two major dungeons (The Final Dungeon, and the Phoenix Dungeon or whatever you call the place where you recover Locke.) You tackle it with three sets of party members. You have each of the party members battle their way through different rooms and help open up new areas. Those were my favorite dungeons come to think of it.
This also brings me to my own desire to see the trinity system once more. Suikoden 3 use of telling the story from the multiple points of view is interesting. I really liked the fact that you got the perspectives of all the opposing factions. In fact I kinda of wish Suikoden 2 explored some Jowy's own story and struggles in attaining power and prestige in the Highland Kingdom as well as seeing some of the personalities of the other antagonist generals. The Thing I'd improve on about the trinity system is make it so that each of the leads explore different areas and dungeons while still keeping their story lines interweaved with each other. Got really boring going to the same place over and over as a different character for Number three.
I also liked the fact that they're wasn't a silent protagonist as a tenkai star in 3. It was okay for Chrono Trigger and Dragon Quest but I felt that Suikoden I,II, and V's use of it felt really out of place. Here you have somebody that's thrust into the role of a great leader and has to deal with the pressures of running an army, and you don't even get to see his own thoughts and reactions to any of it? I know I'm supposed to project myself onto the silent protagonist, But I felt as disconnected with him as I did with the other silent ones. I found myself Identifying more with the three possible Flame Champions and Thomas then either Riou or Tir. If they want you to select your characters responses then maybe then can do something similar with What Bioware has been doing and have you select the Protagonists voiced dialgoue. I loved my own personalized I was essentially able to customize my Shepard's personality. The voice part actually had me identify with him even more.
As for Battle system. I'm a bit iffy on the whole recovery of hp/mp after every battle. I feel that it kinda of removes the tension when adventuring into a dungeon. I'd like to see the elimination of Random Encounters. Be a bit refreshing actually. I agree about the part where when your using a powerful magic spell, It sucks that you can't use it in regular battles when venturing into dungeons because you have to reserve it for a boss instead of the more powerful or mid tier enemies. My own solution would be this: After you exhausted all of your rune's spells there would be a recharge time that would recover the rune's spell. The Recharge time would be say either after a certain number of battles the rune would be made useable again or even a certain amount of in game time the rune would be made useable. The recharge time would depend on how powerful the magic rune in question is.
