Orbal system in cold steel vs sky/zero/azure

[wei270]

does anyone know why the orbal was changed in cold steel in to some thing that basicly made the orbal lines pointless? does anyone know will falcom change it back to the point system that we has since forever?

[Oguzhan]

I prefer the sky one but I can see why they wanted to simplify it. Also (mind you sky system is like my fav customization in rpg history) while it is really cool to get all those magical abilities and customizing it (I would literally change my set up cause I felt like it) , in the end there were a lot of times where most people end up with the higher tier time magic since you also want to increase your speed and whatnot. Like aside from earth wall and its upgared version how many non time HIGH tier magic did we all use. Like maybe chaos brand and silver thorn but those have synergy with time and are easy to set up but stuff like hight tier fire , water magic are usually left out. Not to mention MP usage since the pm reduction quartz belong to the silver and gold quartz and both of them have synergy with time.
With the cold steel method they were able to give other magic more use.
I mean I guess they could have changed the quartz themselves , like in cold steel there are quartz with + versions which give more bonus but I guess they chose to simplfy it overall.

[Mizufluffy]

I definitely prefer the Sky one. It's probably because I played Cold Steel after the Sky trilogy and the orbment system felt too much simplified for me after getting used to how it was in the Sky. I felt like I was actually able to customize which arts I wanted to use in Sky but in Cold Steel it was more of matter which quartz I was able to find because most of the ones that offered multiple arts were from treasure chests if I remember correctly.

I kinda liked the idea of having one big quartz in the center with its own bonuses and all but some of those were too overpowered when you maxed them out and characters weren't even restricted to one specific type so you could use any of them on any character depending on what you wanted. Like the one that kept recovering your HP & EP when you had it equipped; if you swapped it from party member to another you could heal your party without using any items or arts. I think it also recovered CP at good rate because I kept using S-Crafts at 200 CP a lot later in the game. There were also many other such quartz that were way too good, almost made me wish I hadn't taken some of them to max level.

It's not that I disliked how Cold Steel did things but more like I personally prefer how it was in the Sky games, I felt like those gave more freedom to player. I mean, what is the point of lines in a battle orbment if lines don't even have their own elemental values? As far as I've understood how quartz work in an orbment, quartz itself doesn't contain any arts but it's when they are in an orbment then orbment uses quartz to provide those various effects. That's another reason why I find it strange how in the Cold Steel the quartz itself could contain arts, or even multiple arts.

[myhr2]

While customizing each orbal set-up is super-fun in the old games, the Master Quartz in the Steel games allows for a more tactical assignation of roles in the party, I feel. In the old games, a character's role is mainly decided by his/her orbment and stats, but it's more flexible in ToCS, such as you can go tank, eva-tank, full support, art-spam, condi-dealer, delayer, physical attacker, etc, etc.

For me, while it was really fun to try to find the "perfect" set-up in Sky, party composition was more interesting in Steel.

An even better system would probably be a mix between lines granting new arts and Master Quartz defining your character's role in battle. The different lines in the Steel games seems to be an under-utilized mechanic.

[Hiroshi Mishima]

Originally posted by Mizufluffy:

I mean, what is the point of lines in a battle orbment if lines don't even have their own elemental values? As far as I've understood how quartz work in an orbment, quartz itself doesn't contain any arts but it's when they are in an orbment then orbment uses quartz to provide those various effects. That's another reason why I find it strange how in the Cold Steel the quartz itself could contain arts, or even multiple arts.

Well, in order to use arts all you have to do is satisfy the elemental strength levels. If a particular Quartz has x5 Time (black) just by itself than simply equipping it /anywhere/ is going to unlock several Arts; in Trails of the Sky 1 that'd get you 4 different moves, I believe.

That being said, I haven't gotten to the Cold Steel series yet, but the way it's sounding in this thread it reminds me of Materia in Final Fantasy VII. For that matter, the whole Orbment/Quartz system in general reminds me of Material. I may not like a lot of things about that game, but the music and the Materia system were certainly two aspects I DID like.

Personally, I'm not terribly fond of the way I gotta find just the right placement in order to maximize their efficiency. It isn't that I find it difficult, but it's an extra layer of complexity that, frankly, I'm not terribly interested in. I'm mostly playing this to enjoy the story and having to spend several minutes every time I come across new Quartz to see if I need to radically redo my layout feels tedious. If Cold Steel does it better, than I'm all for it. However, as said, I haven't gotten that far yet.

I mean, some of the more expensive/harder to unlock Arts don't even feel particularly worth it.

[Hagen2900]

If you are playing on for the story/ on Normal there is absolutely no reason to redo your orbment setup regularly except due to your own perfectionism.
Tinkering with the setup for specific fights is one of my favourite passtimes.

[Mizufluffy]

Originally posted by myhr2:

While customizing each orbal set-up is super-fun in the old games, the Master Quartz in the Steel games allows for a more tactical assignation of roles in the party, I feel. In the old games, a character's role is mainly decided by his/her orbment and stats, but it's more flexible in ToCS, such as you can go tank, eva-tank, full support, art-spam, condi-dealer, delayer, physical attacker, etc, etc.

For me, while it was really fun to try to find the "perfect" set-up in Sky, party composition was more interesting in Steel.

An even better system would probably be a mix between lines granting new arts and Master Quartz defining your character's role in battle. The different lines in the Steel games seems to be an under-utilized mechanic.

Yeah, I can actually agree with everything you said, especially about the party roles and mix between lines and master quartz, that'd be really cool as long as the Master Quartzes wouldn't be too good.

For example I think one of them allowed you to recover 25 CP per enemy you kill when it was maxed out. If you could kill at least 4 enemies with S-Craft then you could basically get enough CP for another one. I'd rather have them moderately good from the beginning but not having to level them up than them being weak at first and too powerful later. I'm not even joking when I'm saying that some of the enemies in the last dungeon (on normal difficulty) went down too easily when I equipped one Master Quartz to refill my CP to 200, swapped it to another one for +50% STR buff for a battle and S-Crafted enemy that had like around 40k - 60k hp and then repeated it against same enemies.. Based on the hp those enemies were supposed to be more challenging but it became just too easy to abuse different Master Quartzes than do it properly.

While the idea of those Master Quartzes generally wasn't bad I just feel they could have been optimized better and maybe, just maybe, restricted by center slot color just like middle quartz was restricted in the Trails in the Sky for most of the characters (Estelle was one of the exceptions of not being restricted by the middle quartz but many other characters weren't so fortunate). Even if only certain characters would have been able to equip only certain color Master Quartzes then that still would have allowed some customization because the Master Quartzes were quite different in their purpose and properties from each other. Of course there could have been maybe a character or two who could equip any of them but when everyone can equip everything then I feel like the colors of those Master Quartzes lost some of its value.

[Hagen2900]

Yeah, the master quartz in CS are a major balancing problem. There is so much broken nonsense. Though the balancing in CS is bad anyway.

[wei270]

yeah in CS a lvl up master quarts does give you too much points, but is that the reason why the took it out? when i got in the the orbalment system in cold steel a part of me just died it feel like they were taking out something i felt was very essential back in sky, i mean lets face it tinketing with your own orbal watch was THE BEST THING EVER!

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I like aspects of both battle systems.

Sky: I love the forethought required to balance builds between the stats you want and the quartz you need. Also, quartz having disadvantages made you further more consider your build, and ultimately led to each character being very different from each other. I also prefered how stat increases/decreases were percentage based (+15% attack, -9% defense), as opposed to static stat increases/decreases (+40 attack, or - 5 evade).

Cold Steel: The introduction of Master Quartz was the missing finishing touch to the system, being a quartz that completely changed how a character was played at the base level, be it a redistribution of stat balance or the major gameplay changing effects.

Ideally, I'd prefer a mix of the two: the sepith building mechanic of 'Sky to access arts and quartz with disadvantages, combined with the playstyle changing Master Quartz.

I have heard that the Crossbell games use that ideal blend of the two systems, but given that there is no localization yet, I haven't been able to find out for myself.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Originally posted by myhr2:

While customizing each orbal set-up is super-fun in the old games, the Master Quartz in the Steel games allows for a more tactical assignation of roles in the party, I feel. In the old games, a character's role is mainly decided by his/her orbment and stats, but it's more flexible in ToCS, such as you can go tank, eva-tank, full support, art-spam, condi-dealer, delayer, physical attacker, etc, etc.

For me, while it was really fun to try to find the "perfect" set-up in Sky, party composition was more interesting in Steel.

An even better system would probably be a mix between lines granting new arts and Master Quartz defining your character's role in battle. The different lines in the Steel games seems to be an under-utilized mechanic.

This!

I played CS1 first when it came out on PC in August, then binged the 'Sky trilogy last month, then replayed CS1. I now know why I was bothered by 'Sky's orbment system.

In Trails of Cold Steel, I could have Fie and build her several different ways. Did I want her to be a straight up speedy attacker? Sure, slot in Raven, stack attack quartz and speeds quartz and volia. Did I want her to be spellblade? Load up Pandora or Ciminal and stack golden quartz. Want her to be a tank? You can make her a straight up dodge tank with Falco, Evergreens and evasion quartz, or give her some sustainability with Thor's and life-stealing quartz. There are so many different builds you can play with.

Contrast that with the 'Sky games. On paper, the battle system is amazing: "balancing the arts you want with the stats you need". Cool. Except it doesn't work out that way: I always ended up emphasizing the natural stats of a given character. Take Zin for instance; Zin has no flexibility within his role. He'll always be a heavy melee tank, and there's little you can do to differentiate your Zin from my Zin. He will always be centered around spamming taunt, using distend to heal damage, punching foes for heavy damage and maybe using a dragon kick here and there for groups of enemies.

I'm absolutely fine with a character having elemental slots that prevent them from becoming a healer or a mage, etc. It gives them a distinct identity through gameplay mechanics to latch onto. It's one of the reasons why I loved the idea of FFXII's license board, but in practice I hated it because the characters became clones of each other, with the only distinct difference being that they used different animations when doing the same thing. 'Sky's differentiation of the characters meant that each character felt like they had a different role during gameplay, but I rarely felt like I could differentiate that role. Off of the top of my head: Estelle could be anything; Joshua could be a straight up attacker, an evasion tank, or a spellblade; Schera could be a melee attacker or an arts user, and... um... that's it. I was initially confused with Olivert; he was depicted wielding a gun on his character art, so I thought he could be played as a gunslinger, but in the end the optimal build is to just make him a nuker/caster. Wouldn't it be amazing, if you could actually play Olivert (viably) as a gunslinger? It's things like that that make me feel like the 'Sky battle system missed out.

Now Cold Steel opens up more options by transferring the bulk of a character's stats to the master quartz, which is interchangeable among all your characters. The reason why everybody doesn't become a clone like in FFXII is because of the prevalence of crafts in this game, the retainment of locked elemental quartz slots, and the introduction of the four weapon types (which, I might add, could've been utilized more in the game). Furthermore, because you only got one of each master quartz, you would never have a character with duplicate abilities. Emma and Elliot would always be stuck as arts users thank to their staves (I don't think it's possible to make them viable for just straight up attacking with their staves), but at least you got to differentiate what kind of caster they would be. A buff/debuff supporter? Healer? Nuker/caster/damage dealer? Laura would always be some sort of heavy hitter, but now you could decide whether or not she would be a tank (and what kind of tank: life absorb or damage mitigation?), or a damage dealer (speedy damage, heavy damage, damage with status effects?). Jusis was flexible enough to built as a melee damage dealer, a spellblade, or a caster. A certain dual-gun wielding party member (thanks to his time and water quartz slots) could be built anywhere from a ranger attacker, to a spellblade, to a caster/nuker.

What I'm trying to get at is that the Cold Steel games gave you alot more leeway to customize your character's playstyles, why yet retaining enough limitations to make them distinct. It is in essence, what the 'Sky games wanted to achieve. "balancing the arts you want with the stats you need". The difference is that those stats are located on a single master quartz as opposed to many quartz, which sort of undermines the point of having a few quartz slots with which to fill in for various arts/stat combinations.

Again, ideally I'd prefer a mix of the two: the sepith building mechanic of 'Sky to access arts and quartz with disadvantages, combined with the playstyle changing Master Quartz. Change the master quartz so that instead of coming with inbuilt arts, they come with inbuilt elemental numbers like regular quartz which - when added up - can unlock arts.

[Kyle G]

Totally agree with you guys. Master Quartz was the missing piece to making role management amongst your party truly matter, and more flexible at that. Something Sky tried to do, but wasn't aware how to. Just started my second playthrough of Cold Steel, and my Laura feels totally different as a tanker (with slightly weaker power but more emphasis on status ailments to deal damge), compared to when I built her as a straight up attacker in my previous build. All these wider range of customizations and the discoveries to be had with them make Cold Steel a much funner game, gameplay-wise.

Whereas the replay value of Sky doesn't feel worth it if you want to try somthing different on a second playthrough, since the static stats and orbment lines alone restrict you from changing how you play the characters. If Master Quartz existed, I could make Agate a speedy but slightly weaker attacker with emphasis on status inflctions and a somewhat competent spell spammer. But because of his base and no way to change that base, Agate will always be a somewhat slow but powerful attacker, where his orbal arts game will always be weak in comparison to someone like Olivier. Doesn't exactly sound colorful or fun in comparison to what you can do with Laura, a character with similar base, in Cold Steel.

[Hagen2900]

I really wouldn't like customisation that would allow Agate to be a nuker. Completely out of character. If you want a different party composition chose different characters.

The combination of master quartz with elemental values like Valyrian describes at the bottom of his post is implemented in Zero/Ao. CS is just a regression in every way.

[Mizufluffy]

Originally posted by Hagen2900:

I really wouldn't like customisation that would allow Agate to be a nuker. Completely out of character. If you want a different party composition chose different characters.

The combination of master quartz with elemental values like Valyrian describes at the bottom of his post is implemented in Zero/Ao. CS is just a regression in every way.

And I couldn't even imagine Zin as a nuker, he is supposed to be the unmovable martial artist.

What Valyrian described sounds great as long as it would also take account character's personality. Like Hagen2900 said, Agate is supposed to be the "heavy blade" Agate, not some out of character nuker. As long as character customization wouldn't clash with how the characters are portrayed in the game, like their preferenes, likes and dislikes, I wouldn't be opposed to it. Another example would be Laura. She didn't choose Thors just so she could learn several types of different offensive arts.

[Kyle G]

Yeah but I said somewhat competent, not powerful enough for him to be a priority mage. As in he can support if the enemy has elemental weakness and casts physical barrier, but his arts strength still pale by a wide margin in comparison to his physical strength. I don't know if this makes sense, I'm no good with words, but yeah.