I should go back and finish that PS4 version of Final Fantasy XII, I really like that game a whole hell of a lot. And my Vita version of FFX.
Whenever talk about the Gambit system happens, having to buy gambits always comes up (that and whether automating combat was a good idea or not). You guys talked about having to buy gambits just as you were talking about how it was kinda crazy for Square to implement such a complex system in one of their most popular games. And then one of those weird late night (it's almost 4AM) thoughts struck me - what if they have people buy gambits because the system demands a lot of someone who isn't expecting to have to figure out programming concepts? If someone approaches the gambit system and has a billion options to pick from, they're way more likely to just close it out and try to stick with the system they've already figured out (attack-attack-heal-buff-and so on). But if there's a tiny gate in front of those options and you have to play the game a bit before unlocking them, then those people are more likely to just mess with the handful of options they've got at the very beginning before eventually figuring out why these things are useful, and then eventually going to the shop to buy a handful more to play with, eventually (hopefully) leading to an endgame party with all the gambits and like fifty if-then statements.
If they're extremely cheap, then anyone who has figured out a tactic and wants to implement a gambit for it isn't going to have a problem buying what they need (or drumming up the funds they need, if they're fresh out of cash). They could have gated them by level, but that would just be annoying and grindy. They could have implemented another menu so that you could just buy them anywhere with cash or some other form of currency, but that's yet another options menu in a game that's already drowning in menus that you can (and need) to access at anytime.
...you guys might touch on this later in the podcast, I haven't actually finished listening to it yet, but I'll do that later. I just wanted to post that thought before it escaped me.
(Aside: I've done some toying around with Python and Powershell but don't have much programming experience beyond that. How big do if-then/if-else statements tend to get? Having fifty of them seems unwieldy, it seems like you'd rather build some functions at the top of your program and keep your if-else statements more compact or... something, I don't know, just rambling now).
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