Author Topic: Anti-Powergaming Mod Ideas?  (Read 2161 times)

MysticLord

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Anti-Powergaming Mod Ideas?
« on: 2021-04-12 12:24:46 »
I'm slightly obsessive-compulsive, and I find that the drive to powergame is insatiable. With this in mind, how could one mod FF 7, 8, and 9 to remove the incentives to powergame? My thoughts on each are below.

Obviously these games have a lot of other problems that need fixing, but these are just the ones relevant to powergaming.



FF7

Problems:
1. Need to grind for sources in the Sunken Gelinka.
2. Need to grind for Vincent's kills.
3. Need to grind AP for Barret's ultimate weapon.

Solutions:
1A. Remove stat boost items from non-super-boss item drops, and provide a lot as a reward for their completion.
1B. Add stat boost items as rewards for stuff that's actually fun, like snowboarding.

2A. Reduce Vincent's kill counter to a single 8-bit byte.
2B. Give Vincent's ultimate weapon some other method to power up.

3A. Put a limit on how much you can power up Barret's ultimate weapon with materia AP.
3B. Change how it powers up.



FF8

Problems:
1. Need to LLG and use Card to help max stats while gaining levels.
2. Need to grind for gil or devour to max stats.
3. Can't get some stuff (Odin, Tonberry) until late in game to complete point 1.

Solutions:
1. Remove stat growth gf skills.
2. Put stat boost items needed to max everyone's stats behind incrementally tougher superbosses, and provide devour as a reward for defeating one of the first superbosses for those with less skill. And by that I mean you get 100 of all of them for defeating one superboss.
3. Point number 1 fixes this, but making Zantetsuken percentage based damage instead of instant death is a good half-measure.



FF9

Problems:
1. Need to run a LLG to optimize stats.
2. Need to somehow get under the time limit for Excalibur 2.
3. Can't miss anything.

Solutions:
1A. Slightly rework gear so you have several options at each upgrade checkpoint, which provide varying stat boosts. The sum of stat boosts should all be equal, and they should not change as you upgrade. We don't need to worry about enemies using gear, so you could make something like FFT or FF12 for armor, and let anyone equip anything (though that doesn't mean they'll be optimal IRT skills. Stat boosts to each would be (in the meta sense) alloted to each armor class in a point-buy system.

Mage armors: more Str, some Spr and Spd, least Mag
Warrior armors: same as mage, but switch Str and Mag
Utility armors: generally balanced.

1B. Remove gear stat boosts entirely and use only character levels to determine stats.

2A. Use something other than time to get Excalibur 2. I'm fond of superbosses.

2B. Do something entirely different with Steiner's weapons so you don't need a super weapon.

3. Ensure that nothing is permanently missible, but erect barriers to this. These can be theft/rewards from tough enemies, exorbitant gil costs for those who can't jump rope, puzzles, and challenging side quests.



All

Problems:
1. Powergaming isn't actually that useful.
2. Powergaming is boring and repetitive.

Solutions:
1. Make maximal powergaming something that is actually useful rather than pathological, by increasing the difficulty and adding unlocks which boost the final bosses powers after you beat optional superbosses, like in Star Ocean 2.
2. Create optional non-missible content periodically that challenges the player proportional to it's rewards.