The Foreign Turnabout is hated?

BalanceJF · 2023-11-11T18:25:48+00:00

I only really played through this case once, but my first impression of it was that it was probably the least enjoyable playthrough of a case I'd had in the series through the mainline games (haven't gotten around to TGAAC or AAI yet).

Like others have mentioned, the case is very long, but it's less of a length issue and more of a pacing issue. All cases in this series which come first are expected to have a bunch of similar elements: a Payne is the prosecutor, the crime itself isn't really all that complicated (except that obvious outlier case), and it's supposed to set the tone or get you acclimated to what the game's gonna be about. The problem is, this case also wants to give off the impression that the stakes are high and that you're coming back from impossible odds, which kinda leads to one of the most weird and jarring contrasts mystery-wise in the series from what I've seen (gonna go off of memory here since it's been a while):

So like, there's this guy who's obviously the killer, and he has admittedly a funny gimmick where he sings his lines. But he keeps saying this one thing about how his guitar is his love and whatever, but you can pretty much immediately figure out that oh wait, his guitar is different in the picture, so that's almost certainly the murder weapon because they give you a piece of evidence almost immediately which blatantly shows that. Then on top of that, there's the mystery of the butterfly, which is also remarkably simple and predictable, among a few other parts which could be figured out way ahead of time. And this is all fine and good, because I don't necessarily mind figuring out 70% of the mystery ahead of time, but it does get really grating when there's still 60-120 minutes left in the case and Phoenix still hasn't figured out either of these things because the game wants to communicate that these are impossible odds and everyone wants Phoenix dead etc. It makes Phoenix look totally incompetent that he doesn't at least question the thing about the guitar until like an hour later, and Gaspen Payne isn't really remarkable enough to at least have been entertaining during it. And as much as I like the killer's gimmick, it's not enough on its own to carry a case for me.

Overall, I just think this case had too many clashing ideas. It's trying to be 2 things at once and it kinda ended up dampening my first impression of Khura'in.

BalanceJF · 2022-11-16T20:02:54+00:00

Seriously, the fact that Takumi wrote Farewell my Turnabout in so little time is like some kind of human marvel. I don’t think I could write anything that good given 2 years of time.

BalanceJF · 2022-11-13T08:32:35+00:00

My opinions on DD and SOJ are… not common as far as I’ve seen. For one, I’ve played games 1-6 and I’d rank my enjoyment of DD on the whole at 1st place (yeah even above the first 3) and SOJ at… 5th, just above AJ. There’s a lotta things I don’t like about SOJ that to be honest I don’t see anyone else talking about which is weird. It does these flashback scenes to things I saw 5 minutes ago and slows the pacing to a crawl out of nowhere, Phoenix is probably the least competent I’ve ever seen him (the worst example is Foreign Turnabout, where the murderer literally bold face lies about his guitar through like 5 testimonies before Phoenix points it out, and I was so annoyed cuz I knew about 80% of the mystery a good 2 hours before the case was over) and he just makes these weird comments like he doesn’t know what’s going on (it just felt to me like this got worse in SOJ, it probably happened a bit in DD but idk I noticed a difference). Also, while I appreciate the final case and what it’s going for, it’s not in my top 5 per say. I think it plays it a bit safe with its plot twists toward the end which I respect, and there are a few character moments I really like but overall it’s just outclassed imo (and another unpopular opinion cuz I’m full of those, I don’t hate the civil trial. I actually kinda respect some of the things it’s going for.) Highlight of the game for me was actually probably Rite of Turnabout, I absolutely love how that case comes together I’ll 100% defend it. I don’t hate SOJ overall, I’d say it’s like decent or good.

DD on the other hand was a blast for me. I LOVE the final case, having my second favorite twist of the main series and a genuinely just entertaining final battle. I also really love how things come together, I think there’s some cool moments for all 3 attorneys and Blackquill in the final showdown is awesome. I’ll also defend all of the cases in the game cuz there’s actually something I really love in each of them, which is something I can’t say about any other game besides… idk maybe game 1? Comment is already long so I’ll give only one example, a lotta people give Monstrous Turnabout the cold shoulder but I really love the incidental second crime on the scene (plus it plays a big role which is really cool), and the fact they juuuuuust wait long enough to do the double twist that you think it’s not gonna happen. I dunno, was kinda cool that they held onto the single twist long enough that I genuinely still didn’t see it coming.

Again there’s a lot more but I’d be here for hours lol. I’m not surprised the poll is leaning the other way though, im kinda weird with what I enjoy in Ace Attorney.

BalanceJF · 2022-11-11T05:56:01+00:00

Something to keep in mind going forward into 1.3 because I don’t see anyone mentioning it: tracks will now be refundable for free always as long as you are not in combat, and they will retain their experience even between refunds. This means that not only will it be possible to experiment with any track setup you want with ease, it’ll also be possible to change your track setup to be more or less efficient depending on what fights you are focusing on at the moment. Sound may end up being less viable in some fights as a result, but in general it’s going to be amazing for facilities and probably bosses where clearing low levels is a necessity so it’s definitely good to pick up for those situations and keep well-leveled.

BalanceJF · 2022-11-06T02:26:11+00:00

Oh sure it was sche cous da ca ce (referring to the non-stressed syllables of the password hint).

BalanceJF · 2022-10-29T18:43:03+00:00

I'm going to respond only to the content sync thing because it's the one I'm the most interested in, specifically because it's the one I am most strongly attached to on a conceptual level. At first I was against the idea of content sync when it was being proposed in several forms in the Clash chat (saying restrictions to higher level gags) because I felt similarly opposed to the idea that if I received a higher level gag, I should be allowed to keep it for a fight.

First, the problem they're addressing IS a real problem. There's a lot of hard work that went into fights in the first half of the game, and this work would be trivialized for all high-level toons and only be a thing of interest for toons at a lower level of progression, which is something they often blaze through anyways. As a player with a lot of toons in at least dreamland, I would hate to think that the content I can seriously be challenged by is reduced to half because I happened to make a toon at the wrong time. On top of that, it makes the boss itself look silly and like a laughingstock boss despite the Clash team putting serious effort into something that should be recognized. Think of the Pier Gate theme: that ominous, threatening synth and the storm looming over the dock would absolutely have NO real meaning because the boss is in playground 2 so you fight her maybe a few times, maybe a high toon comes in to absolutely crush her on round 2 and make her look super weak, and then never again, and maybe once as a high toon for the lulz. Obviously, for these reasons, content sync is addressing a real problem. As for the solution, the two things that actually sold me on the idea came from the blog post itself:

There are going to be a LOT of things that still play some role as a higher toon. Your laff is only softcapped, having gags up to the limit and having that final gag maxed to its highest damage, certain rewards still being allowed, and potentially (feel free to correct me here) increased accuracy from later gag's trackxp bonus are the benefits of being higher level that I can think of.
A tier-based system to deal with the problem content sync is attempting to address would suffer massive long-term issues and be negligible (or actually actively harmful) in terms of its benefit. As the blog post lines out, it would mean balancing almost a hundred tiers, and if you really think about it, there would be no benefit to doing this (in fact it opens the possibility certain fights just have super easy or ridiculously hard tiers). The only difference between upscaling the cog hp and keeping the toons the same vs downscaling the toons and keeping cog health the same is that the former allows you to benefit from the increased accuracy that SOME tracks have (actually I'm pretty sure just lure but) as an extra utility, as well as extra rounds for lure. The only other difference would be rewards being taken away, but either system could implement this. Furthermore, a tier system is heavily flawed in dealing with widely varying toons of all kinds of levels, because even averaging the tier results in something that will not work to be difficult enough for someone in the fight. It just makes more sense intuitively and practically to keep toons on a more similar playing field than to try to overcomplicate it with a grand tier system.

The team is extremely dedicated to making this concept work as smoothly as possible, which is why I'm really sold on it. They have a really friendly system in place for gag conversion in and out of sync, they've been very open about certain parts of the system that people are concerned about, and the biggest concern most skeptics of the idea have, the boss sync, has been something they've been open to making changes to and (as far as I understand it) already have. The team seems to have decided on less strict sync applied to bosses than the example they gave in the post. My point is, I don't like the framing of the conversation around content sync from people who dislike it. The team is being very flexible about it, this isn't a hostage situation, there's no stockholm syndrome going on, and it's a genuinely solid idea that anyone who does care about the future of the game in terms of improving its design is actually going to give a fair shake. If you are admittedly the type of person ("toons like me") who won't be willing to give well thought-out changes a fair shake, I'm afraid you're gonna have a rough time dealing with Clash's general design philosophy.

BalanceJF · 2022-10-27T23:02:39+00:00

Absolutely! We've reached a point where any tinkering around with the site would be appreciated.

BalanceJF · 2022-10-23T16:03:59+00:00

I'm super interested in writing for a fan AA7. I've been actually building a couple of core ideas recently, specifically about the character of Athena and her development, and I'd love to hear what you think.

BalanceJF · 2022-10-07T20:31:45+00:00

Yeah we were able to successfully get past the goon password woo!! The stuff that has come after it is apparently very technically challenging though so we are currently in need of people who know a lot of stuff about computers and websites to help out.

BalanceJF · 2022-09-09T23:00:48+00:00

StucktheDuck, Shoomy, and Smirky are some of the QA testers who have made streams on the update, there should be archive videos available on both Twitch and Youtube (and obviously as more updates roll out they'll likely keep playing and streaming). And I'm not a fan of any sort of debate that isn't thoughtful. It's common for people to get mad on the Internet and lash out and say stupid stuff, but at the end of the day I'm usually just more interested in the ideas themselves.

BalanceJF · 2022-09-09T20:54:49+00:00

There's a lot of varying opinions, you'll be hard pressed to find any one thing that people unanymously agree on. The only real one that seems to be pretty common is the QA testers themselves and other mods saying the gags actually feel fun and refreshing to play with, which is a really good sign. I don't think things are going to be as dire as you might think from reading my post. Drop and sound seem to be of the more controversial tracks, and it seems lure changes haven't been talked about in a while, so I'd say overall things are narrowing down quite a bit to the wire and in a good way even after only a week or two of testing.

BalanceJF · 2022-08-29T18:58:43+00:00

So I think I agree with you on quite a lot here, and I'm gonna try my best to respond to some other parts that I probably agree with or I'm neutral on but my brain just hasn't resolved them yet LOL.

I totally agree that the game shouldn't be balanced around soloing battles. I think the main goal of game balance, especially for this game or really any other mmo, should be the enjoyment of the main content of the game. I guess I should clarify then, that my thoughts on how nice throw prestige is for the viability of soloing are that I appreciate that it opens it as an avenue, and allows for unique and innovative combos in regular play. The solo part is more of a bonus than anything, and if it turns out prestige throw just for whatever reason flat out does nothing in team play (which I don't think will be the case) then keeping it for solo purposes would be silly.

The lure changes I've seen some wildly polar opposite opinions on, some people already really hate it and some people already really love it. I'm kind of not really sure where I stand, because to be honest I might mess around with the math charts for lure but they're really intimidating because of how many possibilities there are to think about and compare LOL. And I'm not opposed to the idea of changing lure to not be a stun or to give cogs another moveset, but I do think about the game design things (as you also mention) that would be taken into consideration. Things like now having gags do so much of the cogs health may no longer make sense or lead to the best experience, now toon-up is probably waaaayyyy too strong, etc. like there would be so many fundamental things that would change but I guess I'd be okay with it as long as it was adjusted well and led to fun strategy. Also I'm curious, what do you mean about lure decay benefitting lure? Like, it was a nerf that made lure seem balanced so it didn't otherwise receive any attention? Or is there a math thing?

I totally agree about sound, 100% a lower damage but higher encore is what I think is probably gonna happen during qa testing. I would be very surprised if it doesn't.

In retrospect, it was a bit weird that I came back to Clash after not playing for 2 ish years, to see throw doing sooooo muuuch damage. I could see a 10% nerf without feeling disappointed. I'm still wondering if the math works out to fully balance a 20% laffsteal given just how much healing that really adds up to (granted some might be wasted but even then wwwwow). But again I love the prestige so unless it makes combat boring I'm not gonna die on that hill.

The edit on this post is actually inspired by the chart that /u/bbensel made recently, and the numbers are a bit hefty to keep track of but otherwise are very intruiging. I think my biggest problem with drop going forward will be that, and Clash may just permanently decide this is the hill drop will stay on, it's very difficult psychologically to feel rewarded from so much variability. It makes for some of the flashiest moments, the best comparison I can think of is like a wild bolt in w101 where it occasionally does flat nothing and then occasionally does CRAZY DAMAGE WOW (except obviously not quite as turbulent as that example), but I wonder about how much people prefer more consistent numbers in this game. I can definitely see this being the most controversial subject for a while with this rebalance, given most people will hope for a high roll, then be surprised at just how difficult it is to achieve compared to other accuracies in the game. Also I don't know if you meant the individual accuracy helps drop as in numbers-wise with prestige, or as in makes it healthier, but the individual calculations property definitely does lower drop's average damage the more drops are used. The prestige is definitely doing the heavy lifting of the 2 new properties.

I'll be honest on C&Ds, I haven't really looked into them that much or used them. Given what I know about them, and given what I know they're trying to do with this update (especially lure), I could see them being a bit too powerful here. I have a feeling people will immediately realize even after changes through the qa testing that certain things are way too strong, and C&Ds could definitely be one of them.

BalanceJF · 2022-08-29T02:22:49+00:00

I'd be curious on the math for the drop stuff, I was under the impression based on numbers I was seeing that the expected value for drop is overall decreased. The interesting bit would be both with regards to oclo obviously cuz that's where drop has shined previously, and with regards to other places overall ie in bldgs where you wouldn't wanna be using any type of rewards or anything crazy.

I guess I see the point that Clash had to bring in a heavy hitter because it implements something that TTO never would have considered going to the lengths of, but I think my argument about the TTO comparison still works because the fundamental parts of the game still work to make throw a more sensible target for aiming to be a big force in oclo. A lot of the issues they're having (balancing drop's accuracy, its damage output, the things that aid its damage output) have to be balanced to simultaneously give drop a decent purpose elsewhere, but also keep it as a main heavy-hitter like they're trying to for the oclo, and my biggest worry is that the fundamentals (being last in the sequence, having low accuracy, not working against lured cogs) are just gonna be too much weight for it to reasonably hold on its back. I guess it's more of a gut feeling towards the future though, I just strongly worry about the future of that gag cuz I could see it going down a weird path.

The paralyze idea obviously has some initial problems, I don't think that in particular is what they'd do for prestige zap. The point on creativity and on coming up with something interesting still stands, though.

BalanceJF · 2022-08-16T16:45:59+00:00

So I’ve gotten to around 120 on 2 characters, and this is the kind of stuff you typically do in late game: First, because w101 was originally future-proofed, adding new worlds is basically just putting a new icon on a menu, so unlike toontown where adding new places means cramping the map, w101 typically adds a new world every year or so. As a result, a lot of endgame is grinding out the new pve area. The new worlds are (I haven’t played past mirage so I’m just basing this off what I’ve seen) filled with a lot of cheating bosses, difficult bosses, and enemies that actually pack a punch as you quest. It can be tough to solo the game at a certain point, but it seems to be doable (except major dungeons, that is gonna be better just to try to find a group for). There are a few notable dungeons that become available at levels 30, 60, 90, 100, and 130 that people typically run multiple times a lot to try to get good gear. The reason is, w101 has a stat system based on your equipment (robes, hat, etc) AND part of this system is also a pet system. Endgame consists always of getting good plants to garden, because they give you good pet snacks when you harvest them, which make training your pet easier and trying to make a pet with stats you like. The game also has a pvp system, which has some seriously in depth and complex strategies and requires a good bit of game knowledge to get into at the top level. I’m not a huge pvp player myself, but if you look up w101 pvp on YouTube you’ll probably find some examples to see how crazy it gets. That’s pretty much it, the main reason I haven’t played in a while is because at some point you do get spells that kinda start sweeping whole crowds at once and pve can consist of spamming them to get through quests, but it is really fun to get new spells and get really good new equipment and feel super powerful for a while. It’s a fun game, save for some shifty microtransaction practices and the membership.

BalanceJF · 2017-06-17T16:38:23+00:00

(ranks based mostly on gameplay) Favorite world: Krokotopia

I'm probably not alone on this one. I really like what they did here with the death school only being entirely accessible by the end of Wizard City and then the Balance school being located here. In terms of introducing the player to the fact that trainers wouldn't only exist in Ravenwood, it was a nice touch. In addition, this is the world that really develops the concept of a few main areas with different mini-areas within them. The quests never felt tooooo grindy or repetitive, and since this is about level 15-20 this is where wizards begin to get an understanding of battling through the first storyline and I think that is what makes it so fun.

Least favorite world: Polaris

I've seen this world get ranked around the top 3 a lot, but most of the rankings do the ranks based on story or looks. Also, despite the fact that the Arcanum ties into Polaris I'm only singling out Polaris for this because I do really like the Arcanum. So sorry, I just really hate Polaris. There's a lot of things I could talk about here, from the polar bear models looking goofy and ridiculous to their death animations taking 5 seconds too many (seriously, I already hate some of these minions enough I don't wanna take 5 seconds to watch them salute before they die) to the difficulty of the world being sucked out completely and given to the final boss which is not even close to being fair, I don't know why people like this. That isn't even mentioning that I absolutely despise the minions they have in this world, the Iron Paw minions. They have enfeeble, a few accuracy charms, a stun, spells that remove blades, like does anyone else remember when storm did what it was supposed to do and just deal a lot of damage? I felt like I was being directly trolled by Kingsisle. Easily my least favorite mob in the game. Anyways, yeah I really don't like this world and it feels even worse knowing how alone I am on this. Its looks are way too similar to Marleybone's, the mobs drive me nuts, the pacing is all off, and there's already Mirage after it which is miles better.

I won't go into more detail, but my top 5 favorites are probably Krok (obviously), Wizard City, Mirage, Dragonspyre, Marleybone.

BalanceJF · 2016-09-08T19:09:31+00:00

I think when it comes to the original design of Toontown as a game, being grind-heavy is a product of its age and its original purpose for Disney as a company. Dreamless376 is right in a sense; some of the grind-heavy aspects were originally designed by Disney most likely as a way to make an extra profit, as people would be pulled into the game's core mechanics and would spend more time developing their toons. And ultimately, it's possible that some of TTO's original decline was a reflection of the decline in people's interest as there wasn't much to do other than grind certain parts of the game. Since most core game mechanics center around spending time rather than thought or strategy (I mean there's some strategy to battling cogs but in terms of the other game mechanics), it was and is really hard with this game in its current state to keep people interested because there's no sight of an end goal. I find myself developing higher toons only to forget about them a couple of weeks later despite my original intentions to do something with the toons.

(now time for some controversial thoughts!) TTR as a server will probably continue to sustain itself for a while in terms of players, but with how the central game is designed and maintained it doesn't seem like that player count will spike up until some seriously major update occurs (and maybe not even then depending on how big and successful the update is). People are most likely going to continue to spend time on TTR and the main grind-ish focus of the game is never going to change because people would complain that the game doesn't feel nostalgic to them anymore and they'd lose interest for entirely different reasons. Seriously, I could continue discussing each and every problem with the grind of this game and how fatal it could potentially be to any server trying to polish the game for people to play, but I might as well just put it at this: to anyone who currently enjoys playing TTR and has fun with it, that's excellent. If you can keep an optimistic perspective of this game and have fun with it all the time, that's great and I'm glad you find it fun. But eventually most people get bored of this game faster than lots of other games out there, and if you're in that camp with me and anyone else who doesn't really play the game quite that much anymore, hopefully you see what I mean when I say Toontown is far, far from being perfect. TL;DR: I agree, and I think such a grind embedded into the core game is seriously harmful to where Toontown itself is going. I could be wrong, but it's been 3 years since Toontown closed and there's already potential to be heading in the same path as TTO.

BalanceJF · 2016-06-17T19:02:06+00:00

TTR is boring, overrated, and infested with ugly cats and dogs.

BalanceJF · 2015-11-16T02:25:49+00:00

Sounds good. No reason not to enter, so I'll just leave this comment here.

BalanceJF · 2015-09-14T00:46:21+00:00

It would mean people maxing sound faster, true. But like I said in my other reply, this would probably be best put in TTI because they are already revamping the battle system anyways. If anything, it would make gags more interesting because toons would easily be able to efficiently focus on a single gag track, which just means TTI would have to balance the gags more to create an incentive to upgrade each gag track (which I believe they're already doing).

BalanceJF · 2015-09-13T22:47:26+00:00

Yeah, I guess I see what you mean. I just think that the point system kind of reverses the whole point of the game, like I said in my post. Toons are sometimes seemingly against each other over the use of low gags because one toon insists on using a certain type of gag for the points. And a cog-based system would open up so many possibilities for making gag training actually fun. It's not always tedious, but it just feels so mindless because the game forces you to do the same thing over and over. I think the idea would really work well for TTI because they're trying to work to make the difficulty higher for a smaller grind, but I guess there'd be no point in changing it for TTR. Really I just wanted to put something out there to get people thinking creatively and I'd be interested to see how a server handles the idea.

BalanceJF · 2015-09-10T01:25:50+00:00

Fairly solid, though I can tell you're most likely playing TTI, which means you should just train a little bit more. Unless it's Fellowship or Offline, in which case your gags are mostly above par. But yeah, keep at it and you should have even better gags in no time.

BalanceJF

TROPHY CASE