Gameplay idea for 6.

[Barnabas]

I've been playing a bit of Skyrim lately and thought, that it would be cool if the next Suikoden was similar in game-play.
I think the color scheme would need to be a little brighter/crisper. And of course per Suikoden you would, need to have protected borders and impassable rivers. The rivers could be easily achieved by saying that a certain region has had heavy rains and so the rivers are up.
And the battle system would be open to however the player wants to play. So you could fight each battle/fight in realtime or switch to turn based on the fly (but not mid battle). In this game style you would be able to fight as any person in you party (party of 6). But then you would have the ability to switch to a turn based system for bosses and mini bosses. But if you prefer you can play the whole game either way.
And then have the large scale battles also go back and forth between the large scale and up-close and personal like Kessen or Dynasty Warriors, to strategy type of system that requires planning ahead of time.


I haven't read the forums so I'm not sure if this is where this goes or if anyone has said anything similar.
I was just sitting at my desk and decided I wanted to post this somewhere.

[freshmetal]

I don't think Suikoden is suited for Skyrim's sandbox style gameplay. Skyrim is great for exploration as a loner with very little story involvement, which goes against Suikoden's large parties and deep politically driven stories.

One thing that I WOULD love to see included in a Suikoden title that is in the Elder Scrolls games is a larger book system. In each Suikoden, the player finds about 10 "old books" with basic info about the world, but they're too short and too few. In Skyrim on the other hand, there are dozens and dozens of books to find, and some are fairly long reads. Why can't Suikoden do something like this? Surely the Suikoden world is large enough and with a deep enough history to do something similar.

[Lemmy Claypool]

Welcome to the forum Barnabas. I moved your thread into a more fitting forum.

[Neclord X]

Do not fix what is not broken because probably you just will end spoiling it, just see what happened to all the "big rpgs series" (FF and Dragon Quest for example)

At this point I only expect/desire two things about Suikoden 6, and the first one is "stay classy" Suikoden series doesn't need changes, just more of the same but looking nicier.

BTW the other thing I expect/desire is lots of Suikoden world info, like Suikoden 2+gaiden level of information. Since GSIV info about the world is given with a dropper, and that only works with series with lot of releases and extra material.

[JanusThePaladin]

No offense Barnabus, but the idea of changing the Gameplay of Suikoden from JRPG to anything upsets me more than i can bare

[Antimatzist]

Do not fix what is not broken because probably you just will end spoiling it, just see what happened to all the "big rpgs series" (FF and Dragon Quest for example)

Bad examples imo. FF games were constantly changing over time and experimenting, and DQ has barely changed over time, but the fans hate every little change that occurs.

Suikoden could need some fresh wind, but the basic formulas should be there. When playing Xenoblade, I thought how well this would go with a Suikoden - it could workd, but in the end it surely wouldn't.

[Xelinis]

I started a similar, but more general purpose thread a little while back: http://www.suikosource.com/phpBB3/viewt ... 36&t=12665

[Neclord X]

Bad examples imo. FF games were constantly changing over time and experimenting, and DQ has barely changed over time, but the fans hate every little change that occurs.

FF were almost the same until FFXI, then the weird experiments started.

[killerslime]

You haven't played Final Fantasy 2 have you? Thats when the experiments started.

[Antimatzist]

Bad examples imo. FF games were constantly changing over time and experimenting, and DQ has barely changed over time, but the fans hate every little change that occurs.

FF were almost the same until FFXI, then the weird experiments started.

FF I: Standard J-RPG of the time.
FF II: Totally new, ever seen level-up mechanics.
FF III: first time job-class
FF IV: ATB-Battles instead of turn based.
FF V: job-clas returns, but in a different way.
FF VI: the biggest cast of any FF so far. Esper system.
FF VII: Materia system.
FF VIII: Draw system, G.F.-system.
FF IX: Well, another totally different system with hidden level-up mechanics.
FF X: Different battle system, sphere-grid, summons...

Of course they have a lot in common, but the setting and a lot of game-play mechanics are different in every game. I'd say FF XII is, except for the attle system, more like the early FFs than the games VI-X.

[LanceHeart]

Let me tackle the FF changes, in some slight contrast to what Antimatzist revealed.

FFI: Revolutionary RPG in that it allowed you to SEE your team with immense mobility and status effects. Dragon Quest, Wizardry and other JRPGs were firmly set in the first-person battle world. Also one of the first to implement a horizontal version of the "enemy rows" mechanic.
FFII: Level-up mechanic that would later be popular in tons of MMORPGs (skill/weapon/magic specific). Also introduced the non-tiered Magic Points (MP) system. Introduced "guest" plot characters. Had an actual, sorta-linear plot.
FFIII: Job system.
FFIV: Non-visible ATB. Five character party. First time you could exploit favored hands, with an appropriate amount of right-handed, left-handed and ambidextrous people. First game to auto-target non-dead enemies if your initial target dies.
FFV: Job system expanded to allow mastery, first time the ATB is visible.
FFVI: First time pincer attacks happen, effectively requiring that you beat one half of your enemies if you want to escape a random encounter. Esper system for summons, enhanced level-up stat gain and learning magic. Critical status limit breaks introduced.
FFVII: Materia system. Limit Breaks.
FFVIII: Junction, Draw and Guardian Force system.
FFIX: Trance mode.
FFX: Sphere grid, CTB, Eidolons.
FFXI: It's an MMORPG, go figure.
FFXII: ATB sorta returns in a real-time fashion as Active Dimension Battle. Gambit system. Quickenings.
FFXIII: Segmented ATB. Paradigm Shifts.

The only times Squaresoft/Square Enix didn't go out of their way to meaningfully change their battle system were whenever sequels came out. Even then, they still changed things.

Now, bringing this back to Suikoden: The series has taken to changing things around the battle system, but rarely the system itself. Suikoden 3 is by far the most dramatic departure in the entire series and not everyone loves it. Changing the game from turn based battle to semi-sandbox would require a major retooling mid-battle and balancing would be nigh-impossible...

[Antimatzist]

Now, bringing this back to Suikoden: The series has taken to changing things around the battle system, but rarely the system itself. Suikoden 3 is by far the most dramatic departure in the entire series and not everyone loves it. Changing the game from turn based battle to semi-sandbox would require a major retooling mid-battle and balancing would be nigh-impossible...

I think one major point is that the Suikoden series needs something to counter this:
95% of battles are too easily won by Auto.

The Auto-feature is awesome. But should not be used in nearly every fight. Also, one problem (imo) is that there are just too many fighters to keep them unique. S IV maybe was an extreme with 80% 1H-Swordfighters, but every game has this more or less. Most other RPGs just let you have a handful of characters and all of them have a special role and skills and are unique. You have a fighter, a healer, an offensive magician, a support-guy... But in Suikoden, you have 40 fighters and 40 magicians. It would somehow help to distinguish the characters more, maybe with one unique skill/technique for a character, but I guess that's somehow hard.

[LanceHeart]

The Skill introduced in Suikoden III was a way to counter the immense amounts of clones, especially when it became fully evolved in Suikoden V. Problem with that system is mostly how broken you become if you knew which ones to concentrate on during your normal play without grinding.

As for Suikoden being traditionally Auto-prone, that's more or less true. Using Auto with a level appropriate team in a dungeon is very difficult since enemies take two turns to defeat on average, allowing them to chip away at your HP with each battle before you reach the boss. While that's remedied by having a ton of healing items, it's still indicative that you can't just blaze through each game.

[Xelinis]

The Skill introduced in Suikoden III was a way to counter the immense amounts of clones, especially when it became fully evolved in Suikoden V.

I honestly thought that the skill system in V was horribly broken, just generally clunky and unbalanced. Suikoden III's skill system was near perfection.

[Antimatzist]

@Skill System: Yeah, I think V wasn't nearly as good as III which was great, or Tactics, which was similar. But the thing is that even the skill system doesn't make the characters much different imo, in the end, they are still very similar.

@Auto-Battles: I think they should reduce the encounter rate, but make each battle more difficult/longer/more tactical. I don't know how, though.