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I hate stealing mechanics in traditional JRPGs

Love having all my party members twiddling their thumbs defending and healing while one guy fails his steal rolls 10 times in a row

I extra love it if the steal move deals damage so you have to also worry about the target dying from too many failed attempts

I double extra love it when it's a boss battle when on top of everything else the story momentum just grinds to a halt while you fuck with a stupid RNG for 5 minutes

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72 comments

  • I like that bit in FF6 where you have to steal a guard's clothes for part of a quest. No opinion on stealing otherwise, I don't really obsess over getting every item.

  • It's also immersion breaking.

    So the thief character can steal a unique item from the boss, but I can't loot it from the boss's corpse? What?

    • To be fair, I don't think JRPGs concern themselves too much with immersion. The story and the gameplay just exist in completely separate bubbles and most of the creatures you fight make no sense at all . You're just supposed to accept that It Is A Video Game and you do Video Game Stuff in it

      Semi-related tangent, but it amazes me that there's tons of Japanese media where they take all these weird video game systems, tropes and abstractions and make them explicit parts of the setting and narrative. Like these things were invented to help portray Lord of the Rings or Conan the Barbarian-esque adventures in pen-and-paper game form in the 70s

      • make no sense at all

        Is that Wild Arms?

        EDIT:

        Also

        Semi-related tangent, but it amazes me that there's tons of Japanese media where they take all these weird video game systems, tropes and abstractions and make them explicit parts of the setting and narrative. Like these things were invented to help portray Lord of the Rings or Conan the Barbarian-esque adventures in pen-and-paper game form in the 70s

        I tried to watch Delicious in Dungeon because everyone talked it up so much and at one point in E1 the guy in plate armor started rambling about they didn't have enough money for food so maybe they could sell their weapons and armor and buy cheaper weapons and armor along with rations and I just immediately bounced hard off of it because of the "all goods including form fitting plate armor are totally fungible and you can get an equitable deal selling this equipment and also there is a shop that carries and sells swords, but not as good as regular swords, and charges less money for them"

        I felt like I was watching a direct adaptation of Final Fantasy 1 or something.

      • You’re just supposed to accept that It Is A Video Game and you do Video Game Stuff in it

        I kinda think that this a big reason why the "Traditional JRPG" is a more-or-less extinct genre outside of the Persona series, and whatever weird remake, or "narrative experience" experiment SquareEnix is working on right now.

        Most JRPG's never really figured out how to actually get their game-worlds & their gameplay to interact with each other in ways that are actually compelling in any way; and consequently they ended up kind of just stagnating & getting overtaken by more dynamic games.

        Like these things were invented to help portray Lord of the Rings or Conan the Barbarian-esque adventures in pen-and-paper game form in the 70s

        Yes, but you see Conan is not a fucking nerd, and is the furthest possible kind of subject from a Neoliberal Optimization Gremlin; and so his perspective is not relatable, or salient to anybody watching, or working on contemporary fantasy anime.

        As a consequence of this, the modern audiences & creators plunder the systems meant to simulate things he would do or encounter, and then interject their own existing neoliberal value-sets on top of it in order to treat those systems & simulations as the "Actually Real" part; and then write shitty spiritually dead characters designed to thrive within that framework.

  • my hot take is that steal checks should be a timing/rhythm challenge in 90% of video games where they exist and any rolls regarding them should pertain to how tight the timing is

    • I think it depends on the game a lot. If the game has no other mechanics like that, it really shouldn't. If I'm just trying to relax with an oldschool style RPG, I don't want to have to suddenly focus on a timing minigame just for a single ability. Something like Lost Odyssey's ring system could be really good for this though, just holding down a button and then releasing it at the right time.

  • My favorite is the games where if you don't use the stealing mechanic in just that one boss fight at just the right time you lose out on a substantial game element, like some major boon. I always miss that stuff unless I read a guide.

  • Admittedly while I dislike all the steal mechanics you described (especially FOMO and having no damage/target dying) I really like the concept of stealing in games goblin-dont-care

  • Final Fantasy and putting the Genji Gear on bosses the steal chance is like 1% off of.

  • This is partly why FF9 was a terrible installment in the Final Fantasy franchise. Such a garbage thing to centre the game around and with zero innovation in this aspect.

    At least 7 played around with a magic system and the way it interacted internally.

    At least 8 changed the system for summons and stat boosts, despite being flawed.

    Each of those were central to the story and the way the game played. What did 9 do? Uhhh... you have to steal. A lot. Also there's a job system except it's a pseudo-job system which is really anaemic. How thrilling!

  • Tfw you decide to use steal in a mid game boss only to realize that bosses carry unique items only obtainable by stealing and you already missed half the bosses in the game

    btw does the new atlus game has this mechanic?

  • I like them when they act as a bonus way to get extra materials or extra chances to get materials in games that do that. Like you're trying to get 25 griffon ass feathers and each one can drop one feather but also they can be stolen, so you can have extra chances to get them if you're grinding for them.

    But as the only random chance way to get unique items from bosses...yeah that rubs me the wrong way. How are you supposed to even know you have to do that in the first place. It's anti fun

    • I felt like it was put in to force players to buy the $15-20 game guide.

      WTF was Square thinking putting a chest super early in Final Fantasy XII that shuts off a really sweet drop later on, and it's completely randomly placed, no warning. You just have to remember to skip this one chest. The whole series is riddled with random BS like this... even the original Mario RPG had a missable chest if you forget to jump on a Koopa head in one spot... and it's a place you visit multiple times. Bad design imo

  • Not a turn-based JRPG, but Dragon's Dogma 2 I think nailed its steal mechanic. The skill is just a little yoink that can only happen when an enemy is staggered, but gets you an extra drop. The table is slightly different than actual drops, but you aren't getting unique equipment from stealing, but those drops can help with your forging. Having a Thief in your party with Pilfer/Plunder and the grapple hook that can knock down enemies easy does give you more loot. Certain NPCs can also be stolen from once, but there's near 0 risk or test involved, it's just finding out who has what.

    • DD2 has so many interesting things and just a weirdo vision to it but lacks the polish to bring it together properly that someone like Fromsoft or Kojima would give it.

      It feels like Baldurs Gate 3 if it had action combat instead of turnbased. But without the writing, level design and freedom that it deserves. I mean, it has the freedom but it doesn't give you enough creative options for solving quests in off the wall ways outside of a couple of them.

      With that said, the weird way you can piece together the story through 3rd-hand info rather than being spoonfed it sometimes feels like archaeology and I really dig it.

  • I think it was in Final Fantasy 3 that you had to do this massive grind to get your thief level high enough to steal from bosses, and it turns out there's only 1 interesting item in the whole game that you get by stealing

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