Current Events > People only hated the junction system because they didn't understand it!

(+) Yeah! (+)

I remember people saying this shit.

I actually think the junction system is really clever and it's only really bogged down by being paired with the draw system. In many ways, we would see the junction system refined and improved in the Golden Sun series.

Explain this to someone who did not play the game in question

I got hella powerful

I like the junction system, but I think they should have decoupled it from the magic system. It really discourages the use of magic, which is a bummer for a FF game.

Intro2Logic posted...

Explain this to someone who did not play the game in question

In a FF8 fight you can take magic(otherwise known as draw) from enemies. You use the magic you draw from the enemies and equip it to a status attribute, such as magic attack, strength, speed, etc to your characters.

s0nicfan posted...

I actually think the junction system is really clever and it's only really bogged down by being paired with the draw system. In many ways, we would see the junction system refined and improved in the Golden Sun series.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/3/2/AAR6WtAAE6fE.jpg

I understood the junction system well enough to completely break the game, it is a terrible system that actively discourages magic use since those spells are usually better off junctioned to your stats than being cast.

It is an interesting idea to tie stats to something like that. But in practice it wasn't great. Maybe it's the slow process of drawing spells and the fact that they're then consumable. Also that which stats you can actually junction are dependent on which GFs you have. Idk.

https://youtu.be/4AyjKgz9tKg?feature=shared

Sounds like a cool concept that was broken from a lack of playtesting.

Well you gotta admit, having to stall a battle and just draw magic or play a ton of card games is a pretty weird way to grind.

The biggest flaw with it was that enemies scaled to character level. So if you never leveled up but farmed junction materials, you'd just become omnipotent.

Agent_Stroud posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/3/2/AAR6WtAAE6fE.jpg

The Djinn system is everything junction was trying to be. You can use them to cast spells, or you can equip them to change your stats and grant you new moves to use in battle. You could stack the same element to get more powerful in that area, or combine elements to unlock entirely new classes. However, they also had powerful summon-tier moves you'd lose by equipping them, so it was always a balance. Plus they granted world traversal powers as well so they doubled as mobility progression.

i don't get how people couldn't understand it, it's quite simple really, just put the spells where they raise the stats the most that's all there is to it
i will never understand why people thought it was complicated

majin_nemesis posted...

i don't get how people couldn't understand it, it's quite simple really, just put the spells where they raise the stats the most that's all there is to it

It's because people understood it just fine, it was just a bad system.

I never beat FF8 but did make it to disc 3 at least. And I never learned the junction system at all. It was so bad I was dealing only double digit damage and only got as far as I did because you could spam summons apparently on the version I had.

Enclave posted...

It's because people understood it just fine, it was just a bad system.

no i've heard people on the internet throughout the years claiming that the juction system was hard and/or they couldn't understand it, which is weird since it's pretty simple

and there's nothing bad about it,it's pretty cool and fun

majin_nemesis posted...

no i've heard people on the internet throughout the years claiming that the juction system was hard and/or they couldn't understand it, which is weird since it's pretty simple

and there's nothing bad about it,it's pretty cool and fun

It can be both poorly understood and bad when you finally understand it.

The system is simultanously broken and tedious.

Prismsblade posted...

I never beat FF8 but did make it to disc 3 at least. And I never learned the junction system at all. It was so bad I was dealing only double digit damage and only got as far as I did because you could spam summons apparently on the version I had.

The problem with summons is that they tended to be stronger than most things you could do (besides shit like dark side with drain) and doubled as a damage shield

Also they took forever

Then explain to me. Cause I do is go the beach and turn fish into cards, then junction for tons of stats.

majin_nemesis posted...

and there's nothing bad about it,it's pretty cool and fun

No, it's bad. It completely breaks the game and actively discourages magic use.

FF8 was a masterpiece

Enclave posted...

No, it's bad. It completely breaks the game and actively discourages magic use.

other things in other FFs break the game and you don't have a problem with it,also it only breaks the game if you break the game

also it doesn't discourage magic use at all

does having limited ammo in RE or other shooting games discourage you from shooting weapons?

It is so easy to become overpowered in FF8. Once you find the Ultima drawpoint, it is over.

Also, people have this weird OCD thinking where they have to max out magic draws in battle. You can, but why? You already get more powerful. If you draw on e per every random battle, you will get there and not torture yourself.

FF8 is flawed, but the draw system and junction shstem arent the problem

Conjunction junction, whats your

Going in blind, before leaving Balamb everyone had 4k HP because I played cards to get tonberries which could be turned into 10 Death.

Whole game ended up being a joke with zero difficulty. It was hands down one of the worst ideas they've ever implemented.

The concept might have been ok if it was balanced better.

majin_nemesis posted...

other things in other FFs break the game and you don't have a problem with it,also it only breaks the game if you break the game

also it doesn't discourage magic use at all

does having limited ammo in RE or other shooting games discourage you from shooting weapons?

If in games with ammo every shot you took lowered your stats but meanwhile if you never shot your melee attacks did tons of damage? Yes, it would actively discourage you from using ammo, this seems obvious.

Also, no other Final Fantasy let's you break the game as hard as the junction system system does. Not even the blood sword in Final Fantasy II is as busted and it's pretty busted.

Also I get that if I can handicap myself but "The system is great if you don't use it effectively!" is not as good of an argument as you seem to think it is.

it was interesting but poorly balanced and it didn't work well with drawing and magic being consumable

i think the whole system would've been better if you'd gotten progress towards permanently learning spells by killing specific enemies instead of explicitly drawing from them and then being able to cast that spell even if it was junctioned to a stat, even with its power halved or something

ff8 had other questionable design decisions too tho, like enemy level scaling, the weird salary system for money, weapon upgrades being unlocked by missable key items etc

Tyranthraxus posted...

Going in blind, before leaving Balamb everyone had 4k HP because I played cards to get tonberries which could be turned into 10 Death.

Whole game ended up being a joke with zero difficulty. It was hands down one of the worst ideas they've ever implemented.

The concept might have been ok if it was balanced better.

Just a note, it would have been quicker to buy Tents and refine them into Curaga. =)

Enclave posted...

If in games with ammo every shot you took lowered your stats but meanwhile if you never shot your melee attacks did tons of damage? Yes, it would actively discourage you from using ammo, this seems obvious.

it really doesn't a bit of lowered stats mean nothing compared to how useful magic can be, so do you want to keep your stats and possibly lose of lower stats and heal or resurrect characters? or lower vit a bit to use meltdown on the enemies

Also, no other Final Fantasy let's you break the game as hard as the junction system system does. Not even the blood sword in Final Fantasy II is as busted and it's pretty busted.

FF7 materia can break the game a lot

Also I get that if I can handicap myself but "The system is great if you don't use it effectively!" is not as good of an argument as you seem to think it is.

there's using effectively and there's abusing it, you want to spend several hours playing and get the strongest magics and increase the stats has high as they can go and then avoid leveling up to keep the enemies as weak as possible to make the game as easy as possible, when you could play the game a bit more normally which it would give a more balanced gameplay while still using the junction system effectively, without abusing the card game and refine system
which is another good thing about the game you can choose how to play it

and btw junction magic will never break the game as much has avoid leveling up, getting a GF with abilityx4 , getting stat bonus abilities and then leveling up all the way to 100 and get stats close to max without juctioning magic

Tyranthraxus posted...

Going in blind, before leaving Balamb everyone had 4k HP because I played cards to get tonberries which could be turned into 10 Death.

Whole game ended up being a joke with zero difficulty. It was hands down one of the worst ideas they've ever implemented.

The concept might have been ok if it was balanced better.

so you chose to use that and then you complain that is the devs that made then game easy, you could have removed that and made the game harder
why do people need the devs to stop you from using OP strategies when you can chose not to use them?

Yeah, Golden Sun pretty much did what FF8 was trying to do with its combat/progression system. Good point.

Psuedo_Audacity posted...

I like the junction system, but I think they should have decoupled it from the magic system. It really discourages the use of magic, which is a bummer for a FF game.

The junction system is not the problem when it came to discouraging magic use. The fact that the limit breaks are so much stronger makes using magic pointless outside of Meteor Wing which is also a limit break.

VeggetaX posted...

I remember people saying this shit.

I was about to berate you for the topic title lol.

Yeah, it's the other way around. People dislike it because they understand it too well and exploit the fuck out of it.

Ricemills posted...

Yeah, it's the other way around. People dislike it because they understand it too well and exploit the fuck out of it.

Why not both?

People hate it because its overly complicated AND people hate it because they understand exactly what it is.

BurmesePenguin posted...

Why not both?

People hate it because its overly complicated AND people hate it because they understand exactly what it is.

Overly complicated?
Dude, my teenage self playing it in japanese while knowing shit about the language was still able to understand the junction system.
It was simple, instead of equipping gears you equip magic.

VeggetaX posted...

I remember people saying this shit.

I didnt my first playthrough. Almost beat thr game completely ignoring it and could have if I thought to use my hero drinks in the final battle.

Wasn't cause it was too hard to understand my dumb anf young self just couldn't be bothered to learn.

Once I learned it the game became too easy. But as said I almost beat it without so with was basically easy mode after that

Ricemills posted...

Overly complicated?
Dude, my teenage self playing it in japanese while knowing shit about the language was still able to understand the junction system.
It was simple, instead of equipping gears you equip magic.

Okay big man.

BurmesePenguin posted...

Okay big man.

For you.

I think people understood it fine on paper. It's all the little tricks that people didn't necessarily know like refining items or what spells to go for etc.

Didn't a lot of people get stuck drawing crappy spells from random enemies for example?

Punished_Blinx posted...

I think people understood it fine on paper. It's all the little tricks that people didn't necessarily know like refining items or what spells to go for etc.

Didn't a lot of people get stuck drawing crappy spells from random enemies for example?

And not realising the trap of levelling up.

majin_nemesis posted...

it really doesn't a bit of lowered stats mean nothing compared to how useful magic can be,

Besides healing, the only spells in the game worth casting were Meltdown and Aura. Hands down it was the most useless magic in any FF. You have to put an obnoxious set-up on Rinoa with meteor just to have her do slightly less damage than Renzokuken + Lionheart spam.

majin_nemesis posted...

so you chose to use that and then you complain that is the devs that made then game easy, you could have removed that and made the game harder

"Just don't use it" is not the praise you think it is.

s0nicfan posted...

I actually think the junction system is really clever and it's only really bogged down by being paired with the draw system. In many ways, we would see the junction system refined and improved in the Golden Sun series.

Comparing Djinn's to Junctioning is an insult to how good of a system Djinns are.

majin_nemesis posted...

it really doesn't a bit of lowered stats mean nothing compared to how useful magic can be, so do you want to keep your stats and possibly lose of lower stats and heal or resurrect characters? or lower vit a bit to use meltdown on the enemies

No. Magic is just bad to cast. Most limit breaks use physical aside from the girls, who all use magic, and selphie's ones you are shooting for don't use her stats at all.

There are exceptions to the rule, like aura and meltdown, but overall there's literally no point to casting most spells.

Items can cover healing if you really need it, treatment from siren cures status effects, recover from leviathan heals a person to full health so cure spells are useless, and later on there's even a revive command.

Mid game, you can junction elemental attack on everyone's weapons and the scaling of a physical attack with the correct element will do more damage than just casting the spell. Especially on Squall, who can score critical hits every attack.

Defensively, shell and protect are okay, but junctioning shell with 100 will result in you getting like 20% elemental defense, which isn't half of your casts.

The issue is that the only spells worth casting are the weaker ones which can be converted into higher tiers so there's no point in using the lower tiers. Ie, it's worth casting cure spells when you have curaga if you don't feel like getting potions.

having to junction the "item" command was just dumb.

VeggetaX posted...

I remember people saying this shit.

It took me a second playthrough and a Brady guide before I stopped saying that.

I always loved the game, but I did hate how hard I made it for myself the first time out.

Much like Vagrant Story, which became my personal favorite PSX game of all time, after I learned how to properly leverage the crafting system to my advantage.

I remember when they put FF8 the switch, and on twitch, every single channel was drawing magic

All of them

majin_nemesis posted...

does having limited ammo in RE or other shooting games discourage you from shooting weapons?

Yes, actually. I've always heard to conserve your ammo in RE and only use your gun when you really have to. At least in RE4. Didn't play it though.