Current Events > Did you like the Junction System from FFVIII?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Do you?

It had some terrible ideas, such as "Item" being a junction ability, and "draw" being optimized by clamping down a button on the controller and doing something else for an hour while drawing spells 2 or 3 at a time.

Questionmarktarius posted...

"draw" being optimized by clamping down a button on the controller and doing something else for an hour while drawing spells 2 or 3 at a time.

You're supposed to play the card game and win cards and then transform the cards into items which then you can transform into spells.

combined with the idiotic level scaling, it allowed you to break the game as soon as you set foot outside of balamb garden

a neat idea with terrible execution

Also the enemies level up with you.

TF is up with that?

Kaiganeer posted...

combined with the idiotic level scaling, it allowed you to break the game as soon as you set foot outside of balamb garden

a neat idea with terrible execution

Just because you can break the game doesnt mean you should. Most normal people are trying to min max that hard

Questionmarktarius posted...

It had some terrible ideas, such as "Item" being a junction ability, and "draw" being optimized by clamping down a button on the controller and doing something else for an hour while drawing spells 2 or 3 at a time.

Agreed. I would be okay with Junctioning if they fixed the Draw mechanic that was so fucking tedious.

No. I recently tried out FF8, and did not like it due to the junction system as well as other design choices they made.

I kinda liked the ability to tinker with my stats, so I could control the difficulty.

Yeah it's pretty great

Enemies leveling with you isn't a problem if you're transforming the best available cards to spells you can equip to. You're gonna be so powerful.

I like the idea of it but the execution is shakey

VeggetaX posted...

You're gonna be so powerful.

You already will be, if you clamped that button down while out running errands or something.

VeggetaX posted...

You're supposed to play the card game and win cards and then transform the cards into items which then you can transform into spells.

Except first time players are going to be told by the game Draw magic, now junction it!, so it gives players the rational that they should be drawing spells to 99. Youd need to have already played the game before or read a guide in order to know the optimal way of playing.

The_Popo posted...

Youd need to have already played the game before or read a guide in order to know the optimal way of playing.

I still say the optimal way is to let the game play itself, while you take a nap.

No, I hate it.

Interesting concept, terrible execution

I really liked it, more than the sphere grid system from FFX for sure

VeggetaX posted...

You're supposed to play the card game and win cards and then transform the cards into items which then you can transform into spells.

People always say this, but I somehow doubt the developers were intending this.

If you do the card game you can get tornados and shit really early and become OP. You can also transform tents into Curagas and multiply your HP to absurd levels.

I like very little about FFVIII.

And I love all the FFs in a 2 game radius. It's weird how bad it was when it's surrounded by 4 classics.

And I played it when ps1 was my newest system. And I've tried it for 10+ hours 4-5 times since. At most Ill get like s 3-4 hours session where Im like "maybe this isn't terrible?". But then that leaves and I stop playing again.

It's the DMC2 of the ps1 entries.

DeadBankerDream posted...

People always say this, but I somehow doubt the developers were intending this.

I'm sure they were. They just didn't walk you through it. Think of it as kinda sequence breaking.

No it makes for fundamentally unenjoyable and grindy gameplay.

Did you like the Junction System from FFVIII?

God no. It discouraged me from using magic spells that gave the best stat boosts. And it was boring af stocking up on them to begin with.

It's like, yeah, I could trek back to specific locations on the world map to restock those spells.
Then you take a second to actually think about what I just described and realize that's the opposite of fun...

I liked FF8 for a number of reasons, but the Junction system was not one of them.
I ended up spending most battles spamming Limit Breaks anyway. The only time I didn't was when I played the game with cheats on (unlimited spells).
Fuck, part of the reason FF9 got praised was the new system had it's own quirks, but it was not anywhere near as annoying as FF8's.

I like in a "it definitely has potential but they didnt execute it well" kind of way >_> It a anti-incentive to use magic spells and you can kinda of break the game in half with crazy combos, as well as enemies getting scaled to your level. If they somehow fixed those 3 things, I think it would be a really cool system

ClockworkHare posted...

God no. It discouraged me from using magic spells that gave the best stat boosts. And it was boring af stocking up on them to begin with.

Yup. Literally everything was set up to benefit from playing in the most boring way possible. I literally tried to enforce my own retraints last time just to make it fun. Like, only being able to draw once with each character per fight. But it just felt forced and still wasn't enjoyable

I never understood why people treat it as a negative that you can break the game. If it's a bad thing to you, then ... don't. You can set your stats wherever you want, you're making the choice to do something that lessens your experience.

Hot doodoo

Yes, it was fun.

Anony1125 posted...

I never understood why people treat it as a negative that you can break the game. If it's a bad thing to you, then ... don't. You can set your stats wherever you want, you're making the choice to do something that lessens your experience.

idk it's like walking into a room and the game dumps a huuuuuge pile of coke on the table and says "you should only snort a little bit, but you do whatever you want with it." So obviously you end up snorting it all and going ballistic. Like yeah it is your fault, but come on bro >_> The game tempted me with that shit lol

Interesting idea, not great execution, mainly because of the draw system. They should've just had draw create a magicite/materia/crystal or something that you could junction to stats and cast spells using MP without weaking those stats

fuck no

Anony1125 posted...

I never understood why people treat it as a negative that you can break the game. If it's a bad thing to you, then ... don't. You can set your stats wherever you want, you're making the choice to do something that lessens your experience.

What lessens your experience with a game is when you have to try to set your own rules and become the developer because the actual developers were terrible. What makes you think the fanbase should be and can be a better developer than the actual developers? You shouldn't have to spend half the game trying to figure out the perfect balance yourself because the developers messed it up so bad. It's not easy to completely understanding how to control balance yourself. Why do you think developers fumble it all the time? You literally expect fans to be able to immediately do something a big team of developers couldn't get right.

I actually thought like you did, until I actually tried to figure out balances myself and still couldn't make it fun. Which, maybe so much of tge rest the game is also bad that even if that was balanced, it wouldn't save the game anyway.

Your attitude is letting developers off the hook to not try and instead push it on the fans. Like they have been with game testing lately. So, now we gotta pay $70 to figure out difficulty balance for them too and help properly develope the game we paid for?

I remember playing OG FF8 as a 16 year old when I should have been practicing for my exams.

I didnt break the game or understand how easy it was to game the junction and level systems so just played it normally.

I seem to recall really enjoying it at the time. So much I maxed the clock out at 99:99.

Lost_All_Senses posted...

What lessens your experience with a game is when you have to try to set your own rules and become the developer because the actual developers were terrible. What makes you think the fanbase should be and can be a better developer than the actual developers? You shouldn't have to spend half the game trying to figure out the perfect balance yourself because the developers messed it up so bad. It's not easy to completely understanding how to control balance yourself. Why do you think developers fumble it all the time? You literally expect fans to be able to immediately do something a big team of developers couldn't get right.

I actually thought like you did, until I actually tried to figure out balances myself and still couldn't make it fun. Which, maybe so much of tge rest the game is also bad that even if that was balanced, it wouldn't save the game anyway.

Your attitude is letting developers off the hook to not try and instead push it on the fans. Like they have been with game testing lately. So, now we gotta pay $70 to figure out difficulty balance for them too and help properly develope the game we paid for?

Give up. I doubt many people played the game back in the 90s and broke it without needing guides etc. Pretty much any FF game can be broken if you know the right builds and strats. FF8 is no different. If you dont play it blind and decide to go right for a do this to break FF8 before the end of disk 1!!! guide then you cant blame anyone but yourself.

Yeah, bc it was super easy to break the game and get insanely OP really early

It was ok. I still enjoy it but lets not act like the game was hard to begin with.

So make magic quantities you equip to stats to increase them. Its just not fun. Its very easy though.

Youre attacking, watching a long ass summon or spamming limit breaks. This game wasnt fun....

SHRlKE posted...

Give up. I doubt many people played the game back in the 90s and broke it without needing guides etc. Pretty much any FF game can be broken if you know the right builds and strats. FF8 is no different. If you dont play it blind and decide to go right for a do this to break FF8 before the end of disk 1!!! guide then you cant blame anyone but yourself.

Lol. You're completely wrong. I broke it immediately when playing it and I play everything blind. Now you're just making stuff up to try and win the argument lol. If you can do it in all FFs yet the conversation about it always revolved around FFVIII, why do you think that is? Is it perhaps because it's super easy to do without any guide? It's ok if you like a badly made game. No one is saying you can't enjoy it for what it is. But you're obviously in denial of how the game actually is. The game is hard NOT to break. That's the problem. You're completely ignoring the games reputation because you don't like what it implies. You're not gonna convince people I had to look up a guide. Because they had a similar experience. The proof is in their experience, so I don't even gotta try to make up stuff to pursue them.

I love the concept, but it was not well executed.

Lost_All_Senses posted...

Lol. You're completely wrong. I broke it immediately when playing it and I play everything blind. Now you're just making stuff up to try and win the argument lol. If you can do it in all FFs yet the conversation about it always revolved around FFVIII, why do you think that is? Is it perhaps because it's super easy to do without any guide? It's ok if you like a badly made game. No one is saying you can't enjoy it for what it is. But you're obviously in denial of how the game actually is. The game is hard NOT to break. That's the problem. You're completely ignoring the games reputation because you don't like what it implies. You're not gonna convince people I had to look up a guide. Because they had a similar experience. The proof is in their experience, so I don't even gotta try to make up stuff to pursue them.

You seem to care way more about this than I do so you do you bro. Im not bothered about getting into a multi page argument over it.

If you managed to break it without knowing anything about the game beforehand then kudos to you. If youre just pretending you did for the sake of it then lol. Nice one friend.

Suggesting Im just saying this because I dont like what it implies really makes me sound like I care about FF8 a lot more than I actually do. Its my least favourite of the PSX FF games. If it came to pass it was wiped out of history tomorrow then I could care less tbh.

I sort of enjoyed it, yeah. I just didn't like using magic I had junctioned, or drawing the magic out ad nauseum to boost stats.

SHRlKE posted...

You seem to care way more about this than I do so you do you bro. Im not bothered about getting into a multi page argument over it.

If you managed to break it without knowing anything about the game beforehand then kudos to you. If youre just pretending you did for the sake of it then lol. Nice one friend.

Suggesting Im just saying this because I dont like what it implies really makes me sound like I care about FF8 a lot more than I actually do. Its my least favourite of the PSX FF games. If it came to pass it was wiped out of history tomorrow then I could care less tbh.

Lol. Convenient time to stop caring about the conversation. Gotta still make shit up on the way out by implying Im making stuff my experience. Which is just you doing something and then accusing the other guy is doing it >_>. You're the only one making shit up about my experiences . And remember you're bored of this conversation and opted out of needing to respond.

On its own it's not awful as a concept, but every system in the game makes the complete picture extremely tedious, backwards, and bizarre

Lost_All_Senses posted...

Lol. Convenient time to stop caring about the conversation. Gotta still make shit up on the way out by implying Im making stuff my experience. Which is just you doing something and then accusing the other guy is doing it >_>. You're the only one making shit up about my experiences . And remember you're bored of this conversation and opted out of needing to respond.

Ill respond how and when I chose to. I never made anything up about about your experiences. Stop playing the victim when its not necessary. Re-read my posts and stop taking things so personally.

SHRlKE posted...

I never made anything up about about your experiences.

SHRlKE posted...

If youre just pretending you did for the sake of it then lol. Nice one friend.

Neh. You just heavily implied I was making up my experiences.

"Anyone who doesn't have the experiences I imagine up for them are probably pretending. No way I could just be wrong."

See, that's me pretending. Except all I did was pretend an imaginary statement of something others can actually see just happened. Im not imaginative enough to make the stuff up completely from scratch :(.

Anyway. Im done.

I want to say no, but since whenever I play FFVIII I don't fight Ifrit until I have 100 blizzaras on Squall's attack I can't really talk.

I liked it on a basic level. I never "exploited" it, only because I was unaware of how broken the cards were.

Lost_All_Senses posted...

Neh. You just heavily implied I was making up my experiences.

"Anyone who doesn't have the experiences I imagine up for them are probably pretending. No way I could just be wrong."

See, that's me pretending. Except all I did was pretend an imaginary statement of something others can actually see just happened. Im not imaginative enough to make the stuff up completely from scratch :(.

Anyway. Im done.

I really didnt. You seem to have a bit of a victim complex going on bro.