Final Fantasy Hacktics

I'm making a separate thread for my Job Discussions now because, despite my best efforts to scrounge every character I could while still maintaining highly detailed notes, I hit the character limit.  The Damned will surely mock me now.

For those not in-the-know, this thread is for discussion of the various Jobs that will appear in Final Fantasy Tactics: Redesign (http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=6794.0) I intend to list many "returning" Special Jobs and Monsters in addition to the Generic Jobs once I've sorted those out, hence why I decided to make a second thread instead of hijacking some other post in my main thread.  For a quick overview, each Generic Job has a specific role and/or focus it conforms to in terms of stats, skills, etc., so redundant skills are minimized and very niche and situational Jobs like Necromancer are disfavored.  I still have 3 empty Job slots though for anyone who would like to submit some sort of idea now that the breakdowns for most of the Jobs I've already planned have been revealed.

Opening Notes

Unless otherwise specified, any formula involving WP and/or with "Weapon Range" set also has "Weapon Strike" set, meaning it strikes twice with Two Swords.

Classes follow a 2 Reaction, 2 Support Skill setup as closely as possible.  Reactions and Supports that a typical Final Fantasy Tactics may regard as "weak" on the Vanilla game are intentionally placed on early Jobs to encourage use and explore their new potential from skillset and mechanical changes.  Currently unused Reactions and Supports are:



For those looking to actually compute out stats, remember that Growths are:

HP - 10
MP - 10
PA - 50
MA - 50
SP - 255

Squire
Basic, technically mixed class with low stats but an unrivaled equipment pool. Contains basic combat skills and a variety of Fury, Will, and CT augmenting perservering skills focused around the user, making it a great buffing skillset.



Empty Job Slot 1
Currently Unused.  Feel free to suggest something!

Empty Job Slot 2
Currently Unused.  Feel free to suggest something!



Ranger (Archer)
Mixed class with no slant, using Bows and Crossbows with Shields. This class is swift, its most defining skills being magic-based elemental weapon strikes and the powerful Oil Bomb.



Monk
Physical based class with affinity to fisticuffs. It focuses on physical Wind and Earth skills, mixing damage and healing to be an all-around solid unit despite its inability to equip any form of headgear.



Priest (White Mage)
Magical based class focused on healing and buffing, touting decent health and the second highest mana pool. Its skill pool is the only one to contain such a wide spread of healing and supporting skills, and Holy Element allows their effectiveness to be further boosted.



Wizard (Black Mage)
Magical based class focused on raw, single-target damage. Modifications to the Will mechanic make tiered spells unnecessary, so this version contains a unique spell of each of the six offensive elements (Fire, Ice, Lightning, Earth, Wind, Dark) along with the Non-Elemental Flare Spell.



Dimensionalist (Time Mage)
Magical based class focused on distorting turn order and movement ability. It also contains weak, Non-Elemental damage spells that cover a large area the highest Speed of the Spellcasters, making its skillset one of two that is great for anti-sandbagging.



Summoner
Magical based class focused on both support and damage that covers obscene ranges, often the entire screen, and spanning most Elements.  Actual output is some of the lowest of any skillset, as its main draw is culminative damage/healing/buffing over an extreme area instead of large damage on one or two targets.



Thief
Physical based class that fights with either a pair of Daggers or a Crossbow and Shield. Focus is using swiftness to debuff the enemy via a combination of gear theft and status, as well as using the Mug command to help keep the team coffers buffered.



Empty Job Slot 3
Currently Unused.  Feel free to suggest something!

Oracle
Magical based class with some physical competence. Highest HP among casters, to the point it can function as a tanking, frontline mage.  Uses single-target status magic to debuff enemies in a menagerie of ways before taking them on toe-to-toe.



Dragoon (Lancer)
Physical based class that focuses on armor and high speed over power. Carries a large number of defensive weapon-based techniques as well as the health-sapping Lancet skill, making it a great choice for a proper tank unit.



Samurai
Mixed class with no slant, containing some of the highest physical and magical output among generic classes at the cost of most other stats. Skillset is based on the A2 Parivir, wielding physical-based weapon skills across most of the games elements, dealing above-normal damage and often carrying status.



Ninja
Physical based class that can carry magic well with the help of Spell Edges. Uses Will-based "magic" sourcing physical power and self-buffs that better help killing opponents. Unique in that combining it with Equip Heavy Blade and Monkeygrip allows it to use double Katana, a scary trait given Katana's high base WP, powerful beneficial effects, and solid evasion.



Knight
Physical based class with high power and HP, but low mobility and speed. Can also make an effective tank, though its skillset consists only of weapon-based debuffs that shatter positive status or gear as well as the Shatter Leg skill, allowing it to keep enemies in range and debuff them to helpless levels and outlast them via superior HP.



Animalist (Blue Mage)
Mixed class with a slant to magic power. Able to equip an odd menagerie of weapons in Swords, Sticks, and Guns, it can only learn skills by being on the wrong end of them.  One skill can be learned from each of the 16 primary monster breeds, giving it the largest primary skillset of any unit in the game.



Mime
Your typical FFT Mime with shuffled innates and slightly different stats.

Reserving this post.

Reserving this one too.

Geez Meteor has a wide range. Then again, it is Meteor.

I feel better about deciding to give Haste and Slow AoEs of 2 as well, though I must admit I'm rather surprised you gave Dimensionalists any offense at all beyond Gravity. I'm guessing Comet uses the Meteorain animation?

Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on March 06, 2011, 07:46:08 pm
The Damned will surely mock me now.

[Insert hypocritical mocking with much finger-pointing here.]

Thought about it, killed Meteor and Comet, since Gravity does the job I wanted them to do plenty well enough on its own.  Nom nom nom, free ability slots.  Also reduced Gravity to 25% damage.  Comet did use the Meteorain animation though, yes.

Today's update is the rather offbeat Ninja class.  Don't miss it, because we're almost done with the generic stuff!  At least, until someone gives me some usable Job suggestions at least.  Once Mime and Animalist are done, I'll likely take a day to juggle some R/S around and fill in the gaps with ones I've been withholding, etc., then move on to either Special Jobs or Monster Jobs.  Not sure which yet.

What is there that needs to be done with regards to Mime, exactly? Are you actually going to give it RSMs to learn? (I've considered doing as such, though mostly for the OP RSMs I'm not sure that I want to get of just yet.)

As for Ninja, it's probably the first class so far that I've felt rather "meh" about (though I now kind of feel that way about Time Mage with it losing both Comet and Meteor). I really don't like Payback, especially on a class that can kill itself AND has revival.

(Speaking of which, won't the canceling of reraise not take place if it kills the target? I forget what happens with Self-Destruct moves and their status infliction. I guess you could just change the order, though....)

Beyond that, I'm noticing all the Knockback you're planning on giving to things. That hasn't proven problematic with your rather severe reduction of movement ala ASM'd?

Mostly editing innates and the stuff it can Mime.  Don't intend to give it much else unless I have leftover unassorted stuff to give out.

Time Mage will get another skill when I think of something suitable to give it.  Maybe I'll give it back Reflect unless I think of something better.  It's primarily a buff/debuff class that secondaries in sandbag nuking.  They have less skills than Priest/Oracle, but Haste/Slow/Stop/Float/Quick are all pretty high up in terms of power compared to most other buffs/debuffs.  I was honestly rather unhappy with Comet and Meteor anyway, and you pointing out how redundant they were with Gravity despite me somehow missing that fact made me decide to just off them.

Ninja's revival and self-killing aren't really related, it can't revive itself after all.  It's meant to be a sort-of Monk foil using Fire/Ice/Lightning/Dark instead of Earth/Wind.  The Lifebreak skill is compatible with Two Swords, but it has the lowest HP value... between that and the /2 divisor on higher health classes, you still can't oneshot anything.  It's more just meant to be something an HP-spec'd Ninja can actually use for damage over a PA, MA, or SP spec'd one.  If you're worried about Phoenix Down looping, you're often better off just using Suicidal Lunge again since most enemies have more health than your Lifebreak will do anyway.  Regardless, though, I do admit it's probably the class I put the least amount of design effort into so far because I had to ad-hoc its skillset from losing all my notes, so Suicidal Lunge at least may get dropped for something else, which should fix any balance problems the set would have.

As for all the Knockback, I may be overdoing it a little, but most Knockback skills are intentionally weak-end and nearly always evadable to stop people trying to spam it and lock things down.  I may need to take it off Throw, but Throw itself is honestly very weak damage-wise now.  I may just remove the PA component entirely to weaken it more and make Knocking things around its main feature.

Also considering just outright letting every class use Shields.  Almost every class that can use a one-handed weapon can already besides Summoner, Dimensionalist, Ninja so I'm honestly seeing no reason not to just let everyone have them to add more value to Battle Skill / Plunder Feats / Concentrate and a few other things I'm adding.  Undecided, but honestly, giving a Summoner or a Dimensionalist a Shield won't end the world, and lolNinjasWithShields, so...

Fair enough points to all of those things. (May I ask what happened to your notes? I vaguely recall you mentioning something relating to them recently, but I'm still rather constantly addled as of late.)

With regards to Ninja, I meant more that the skillset has revive AND the suicidal attacks, meaning you don't really sacrifice not having revival because the skillset has it in addition to the things you wanted to attack. I'm aware they can't revive themselves. (Hmm...maybe I should make Reraise unable to target self now that I think about it....)

As for Shields, it's difficult to say without knowing what your Shields look like. I'd vote against it, personally, but you know your system and equipment far better than I do, so....

Quote from: The Damned on March 08, 2011, 02:48:19 am
Fair enough points to all of those things. (May I ask what happened to your notes? I vaguely recall you mentioning something relating to them recently, but I'm still rather constantly addled as of late.)

My computer blue screened while I was writing up my original post the first time, causing me to lose 8 hours of work, mostly in regards to Jobs.  This means I lost my only saved drafts of Dragoon/Samurai/Ninja with non Jump/Iaido/Throw skillsets, among a few other things.  It was mostly restored, but I cannot remember what my Ninja did for the life of me so I had to basically make this set from scratch when posting it.

Quote from: The Damned on March 08, 2011, 02:48:19 amWith regards to Ninja, I meant more that the skillset has revive AND the suicidal attacks, meaning you don't really sacrifice not having revival because the skillset has it in addition to the things you wanted to attack. I'm aware they can't revive themselves. (Hmm...maybe I should make Reraise unable to target self now that I think about it....)

It's also the weakest Revival at 21% besides Phoenix Down, and due to being Will + PA based has a fairly low hit rate compared to the Monk's Revive (though the Ninja's entire skillset besides Shadow Cloak is boosted by Barehanded), and lack of compatibility with Elements means it's not getting boosted that way.  The Suicidal Lunge also takes 40 MP, so you can't get many uses out of it unless you spec MP or run Blood Price with a more competent skill than Phoenix Down reviving you (most likely Priest's Raise, which also has a somewhat inhibitive MP cost and a CT), etc.  Sure, this set gives you a bunch of offense and a revival skill, but that's it.  No Buff/Debuff/Heal/etc, just some mostly weak-but-Protect-ignoring offense skills, a kamizake technique, and the second-weakest revival skill in the game.  Regardless, Suicidal Lunge and/or Smelling Salt can easily be removed when I think of something better to put there or someone else gives me a usable suggestion for them.  Ninja's definitely the class most likely to see revision beyond hit rate or Y fiddling, regardless, even if I honestly somewhat like the flair this class came out having despite how ad hoc it is.

This discussion bit on MP reminds me though, Mana Efficiency is possibly going down to 25% reduction.  I'm not sure yet.  I need to cross-check a lot of my MP totals again, and possibly do some across-the-board MP cost buffing.

Quote from: The Damned on March 08, 2011, 02:48:19 amAs for Shields, it's difficult to say without knowing what your Shields look like. I'd vote against it, personally, but you know your system and equipment far better than I do, so....

Crystal Shield is something like 29%/20% and you'll be able to dual wield a number of them on Thief/Ninja.  (Not sure if all or just some.)  Mantles also cap at around 15%-20%ish (can't recall, too lazy to check), so even with Abandon, your best evasion stack is 30 / 29 / 29 / 15 for physical attacks (only doable on Thief/Ninja, and assumes I let Crystal Shield be Dual Wielded, and will only apply at 50% worth if you're smart and attack from the side), and you... don't exactly have a weapon to kill things with.  Shield evasion and evasion in general is far lower than in Vanilla due to there being more sources for it from Shields/W-Ev/Mantles on basically everything now.

I decided to update with both Animalist and Mime today, since neither class holds a lot of substance.  (Animalist because I need to re-re-re-re-re-make the monsters to make its skills, Mime because it's... Mime.)  Don't miss it!

Tomorrow I'll likely shuffle around and fill out the R/S a bunch and potentially post previews of the sprites I'll be using and my WIP custom palettes for them, then move on to either returning Specials or Monsters, not sure which.

Yeah, Blue Mages are kind of a Catch-22 when it comes to wanting to do things in an orderly manner. I keep trying to think of a better name than Animalist, but so far I'm not liking anything I've thought of.

With regards to monster selection when it comes to Uribo-replacement, yeah, I've been pretty stumped by that as well, though I don't have your problem in wanting another Fire-based attack. Off the top of my head, I can't really think of another Fire-based monster between you keeping Bombs, Dragons and Hydras all around. Closest things I could think of be maybe Flans, who are arguably too similar to Bombs, and maybe Tonberry, though the latter is reaching merely because of their little lanterns. I'm not even sure if there's a Flan sprite, though.

As far as skills go, looks like a pretty nice, similar spread, though Self-Destruct being there makes me wary. (Although I just realized something else....)

I'm curious as to whether you had Holy on that ability list before that topic came up in ASM'd. I vaguely recall you've disliked Holy before that, hence my uncertainty.

Speaking of uncertainty, I'm not sure how I feel about Mime having absolutely no C-EV or immunities. It seems rather...odd, but we'll see how it works out. (For a moment there, I misread that you wanted Mimic to not be automatic as well and instead be a menu option. Not sure where I conjured that from.)

yeah i've been looking for a flan sprite for my own patch the last couple of days and it doesnt look like anyone finished one.

Let me rephrase. There was the one that was imported from FFTA and was yellow and looked like crap, but was functional. No one has finished a good one as far as i could find.

Well, Self Destruct isn't doing Lifebreak damage, but rather mid-to-high end Fire damage across the area.  So it's affected by your standard defensive skills and such.  I may also possibly flag it as Critical only and make it the Bomb's Desperation Skill, I'm unsure.  (Every breed is getting a Desperation Skill now, some of which are Blue Magic as you can see.)

I'm adding Tonberries, but not as a normal monster.  I need a normal, recruitable Fire-monster to round out some element distribution nonsense, since I don't think I can bullshit flaming pigs unless someone wants to light the Uribo sprite on fire.  The Uribo itself will likely stay as something not part of the primary monster set if that doesn't happen, though.  Flan could maybe work, but ugh FFTA.  And what RandMuadDib said, no good sprite for it currently.

That slot has flopped between Holy and a skill called Cleave a couple times, since the Minotaur have Holy for a similar reason to why they do in ASM'd as I didn't want the skill gone entirely, and wasn't entirely in favor of making it an AI-only skill on Zalmo and a few other units.  I detest it on Priest because Priest has no business using that kind of spell.  Minotaur are very aggressive, and Blue Magic by definition is a slapdash of crap piled together, so it worked out this way as they needed a non-self-area magic skill.

Mime has no immunities because there's no reasons status based teams should automatically have to go "fuck" when there's Mimes across the board.  Mimes have no C-Ev because they're honestly pretty beefy and are a well of free actions between Metronome Arts and Double Magic + 255 MP multiplier.  Hell, I'm pretty sure you can pull off triple casts of spells such as Cure if you do it correctly using that.  They don't have teh leet uber PA or MA, but turns are more valuable than ever because you need more than one to kill things... and Mime gives you free turns in spades.  It has a skill curve to use correctly, but them's the breaks.  Mime's always been that way besides possibly in super-recent renditions of 1.3 where they have over 9000 Move... and earlier on when they got status immunities, because that's also not a feature from Vanilla.

Yes, I'm well-aware that the status immunity wasn't part of Vanilla. We don't exactly want to start using Vanilla as the measuring stick for things, though, even as much as we all enjoyed it.

Again, reasonable and interesting assessments all. Provided I stay for the rest of the night (once I finished reading what I'm reading at present), I'll inform you if I think up any reasonable monsters that can be a three-of.

To clear up confusion, though, Self-Destruct DOES kill you still, but it does fixed damage now that isn't the stupid Shock one?

Just saying as much, in case you were thinking I removed a buff they had in Vanilla for some reason or something.  I don't use it for a yardstick, but I don't really use 1.3 as one either.

Alright, any ideas for useful monsters or jobs to fill the holes in the Job Wheel are always appreciated.  I'm thinking one of the remaining 3 human jobs will likely be some sort of mana-battery, since there is no dedicated outlet to MP recovery, just a few assorted skills.

Self-Destruct does MA based damage at this time, actually.  Like all Fire skills, its a high-risk, high-power move... except the high-power is a bit spread over an area instead of concentrated on one unlucky fucker and the high-risk is death on self.

Edit: I forgot to mention when I updated the post, but all units can now use Shields, Dimensionalists and Wizards can use Poles, and I think I gave one extra class that I can't recall access to Spellswords.  May give Dragoon access to Swords and Spellswords as well.

(Damn it. I meant to respond to this last night before I fell asleep.)

I wasn't bringing up the Mime thing because they weren't the same as Vanilla or the same as 1.3. It was more of "hmm, that's odd. I wonder how that will end up working out" thing, especially since it's not like Mime needs to be immune to everything under the sun like 1.3; mine certainly isn't (and never will become as such--in fact, it might lose some immunities).

As for the jobs you still "need" to fill in, would being a mana-battery be a strict necessity? I mean, it seem like a kind of narrow niche, especially since I'm assuming that you're keeping Ether and Hi-Ether around.

At present, I have no further comments about Self-Destruct and allowing everyone to use Shields. They're both sensible paths, so we'll see how they turn out. Dragoons having Swords and Spellswords seem fine. I think mine can use Swords (though it doesn't matter since at present they're forced to use Jump again...sigh).

Before I forget again, though, I must admit I do find it odd that both Thief and Ninja have Dual Wield innately. I suppose it's better than alternative of giving Thief innate Concentrate like in 1.3., but....

Animist, Shaman, Naturalist, Loremaster, Technician, Wild Child... there's seriously nothing better than Animalist?! I would go with "Trepie" before that.

Animist works.  I pulled Animalist out my ass with an FFTA reference guide at retarded o'clock in the morning while half awake because I realized I had all one-word class titles then "BLUE MAGE."  Would've looked quite classy, I know.

Updated with some nice truffle shuffling of R/S around and filling in all the empty ones I had been holding back, so everything sans Summoner and Mime has exactly 4 R/S, and I have 7 empty R slots and 7 empty S slots.

General idea is something like Squire + Knight + Ranger + Priest + Wizard for tier 1, Thief + Dimensionalist + Blue Mage + Summoner + two of the Blank Jobs for Tier 2, Ninja, Dragoon, Samurai, Mime, etc. for Tier 3.  I'm 99% asleep currently so this is a horribly shoddy plan that needs far better revision latter but you get the basic idea.  When I have the empty classes filled in, Attack Boost and Defense Boost will be moved to those, and Defiance and Vehemence will be moved to respective Dragoon and Ninja.  There's still also likely a few other things I can shuffle around, but the basic framework is there and at least somewhat sensibly visible now.

I also decided to make my boosts all 15% / 20% / 25% to close the gap between normal units and glass cannon units a tad and to weaken retard-power-tank setups.  This'll be coupled with a universal buffing in base PA/MA... later, when my brain is functioning better.

Regardless, don't miss this Truffle Shuffle of moderate balance proportions and your chance to suggest some R/S that could potentially fill the missing gaps because my brain's currently dead!

Meh, I dislike the name Animist, if only because of it was the name of the FFTA class that has nothing to do with Blue Magic whatsoever. It was obviously the first thing I thought of, but I've long since discarded it.

At present, the only other option for Blue Mage that I think is decent is "Changeling", but even that's kind...of meh. I might still end up using it, though, if I can't think of anything else.

Nothing to say about the RSM shuffle, mostly because I can't tell what got moved where. I must admit that I wasn't really paying attention to most of the RSMs at present anyway. Apologies, RavenofRazgriz.

Changeling would fit a Morpher more than a Blue Mage, and honestly Morpher's a better name.  Animist/Animalist are still some of the best I can get.  Erm... Druid?

Haha.  It's fine.  I'll need to do it again when I fill the empty job slots and make the Job Wheel proper, I just wanted to get everything listed and get something a bit closer to what'll be in the final draft of things.  I still need some more R/S ideas too, I have just enough for every class besides Mime to hold 4 R/S total from the looks of it if I turn everything on that list into a usable R/S, which would make my undiagnosed OCD very pleased.  I just can't think of anything, and I'm trying to avoid using the evasion based ones for the same reasons I removed Maintenance, Innocent, currently have no non-gear sources of Reflect, etc. - I hate skills that outright demolish you just because you have a playstyle, and not because anything you're doing is actually wrong besides "this reaction says all magic suckzorz!"

[Insert long-suffering sigh here.]

Damn it. I hate it when I forget stuff right before I'm about to post.

Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on March 10, 2011, 04:10:19 am
Changeling would fit a Morpher more than a Blue Mage, and honestly Morpher's a better name.  Animist/Animalist are still some of the best I can get.  Erm...Druid?

No! Kill it with fire!

QuoteI hate skills that outright demolish you just because you have a playstyle, and not because anything you're doing is actually wrong besides "this reaction says all magic suckzorz!"

What reaction says that, though? Doesn't Reflect not work. Similarly, couldn't you say the same of Arrow Guard and Iro...Finger Guard?

I mean, I can understand you're getting rid of Maintenance and Innocent, the minimalist route, but there are other abilities that tend to screw over particular skillsets and always will. (Hey there, Counter Magic Ahriman.)

Since we're talking about this, though, there's something was I wondering: What exactly did you intend to set the reaction response to?

I was going to ask something entirely different because of Fury, but then I remembered you were using a flat rate of reaction for everything, so....

Always fun to forget stuff!  So not Druid.

I more meant the Reflect Status.  What you said is why the player doesn't learn Arrow Guard, Finger Guard, Catch, etc. and why they're all on the list of shit I can disable and write over.

Lol, 1.3's Counter Magic Ahriman is very mean.  Difference is with that (and my somewhat less mean carry over of Double Magic Ahriman), you can just break the MP score down to disable Counter/Double Magic then cast it to death.  Both Oracle and Wizard have means of doing this in the caster trees alone, in my case.  ;p

QuoteWhat exactly did you intend to set the reaction response to?

Huh?  Maybe it's because I just woke up a few hours ago and am going back to sleep soon but I have no clue what you're asking.

Sorry, I meant "percentage-wise", you said that you're having all reactions trigger at the same percentage independent of Brave/Fury/whatever. Merely asking what it was if you would be willing to divulge.

I remember Fury status bugging me before I remember just as I was posting that you said you had reactions as fixed percentage.

Oh.  I said in the other thread that all the Reactions are on a flat 100% trigger up front.  I'm just in the process of fixing up what they trigger against and stuff so that "weaker" Reactions have the advantage of triggering a far greater number of times than "stronger" ones.  Eg, Blind Will/Fury and Calm Mind/Heart are "weak", in that they don't add to your DPS directly but rather modify it over time, but they trigger against basically everything that's not your own Cure spell.  More powerful ones like Adrenaline require damage, still more powerful ones in terms of direct DPS like Counter / Double Magic / Nature's Wrath have unique triggers, etc.

Tl;dr the rate's 100% and the main balancing factor will be manipulating what sets them off, not how often they get set off, so you need to choose quality vs utility.

Ah, I see. I was wondering how you were going to differ them.

Sigh. If only we do that right now instead of the "mere" Counter Flood and Counter Magic prompts. (I'm not counting Blade Grasp just because no one gets that broken POS anyway.)

Speaking of things that only the AI might get, when it comes to Maintenance, are you getting rid of it entirely? Or are you just getting rid of it for generics?

The Blade Grasp prompt also controls Counter and I believe Dragon Spirit, so don't discount it yet.

Entirely. 

You can't break Weapons or Armor anyway, so there's no reason a boss would ever need Maintenance from a balance perspective.  (No taking their weapon and illegitimizing their skillset, for example.)   I'm actually keeping bosses on a basic level vulnerable to as many things as possible since random things such as nonessential immunities shouldn't make your playstyle unusable.  If your chosen style of play can't win, it should be unable to because it's either a poor playstyle or a poor choice based on the enemy team's composition or the map composition, not because some guy is randomly invulnerable to a bunch of crap because he has "Divine Knight" as a title or something.  If you need to be immune to something, use more evasion or a piece of gear that blocks it, that goes for bosses too outside of a few rare exceptions and the likes of the Lucavi.  I'm trying to keep the design both fair and consistent, so that it doesn't ever feel like the AI is "cheating", so to speak.

Honestly, if I have to give a boss protection from something because that something is just some cheap boss raper, I need to fix what I'm protecting the boss from to begin with.  The ones who need to block a status or two to function properly will have access to gear that grants that protection, etc., so the amount of innate status immunities and extra guards like how Maintenace was applied in 1.3 will be few and far between.

I see. Well, I agree with that decision for the most part, especially if we're counting the Lucavi as separate--I'm trying to make the Lucavi more vulnerable to status, admittedly, though not as stupid as the whole "hey, let's Paralyze Vanilla Altima over and over again because it works!" thing.

I'd somewhat argue that as long as Knights and Thieves have skills beyond "break/steal equipment", that Maintenance as isn't nearly as stupid as it could be, but I'd only weakly argue that because I can see why you're getting rid of it and it's no skin of my back, honestly.

"Let's Paralyze Altima over and over again!" is why Immobilize and Paralyze can't stack on top of themselves anymore and generally only last... 2 turns-ish?  Locking a unit down with that strategy requires constantly camping and reapplying the status... and in a ~5v5 situation, this is generally not something you want to be devoting 1-2 units to doing.  Obviously Lucavi will be immune to Paralyze and a few other uber-debilitating statuses because they're either alone or supported by very non-clerical units, but as usual it will only be the ones essential to making the Lucavi function how I want them to.  I do, however, have a few behind the curtain tricks planned for them too in order to offset this.

The deal with Maintenance in that regard is that both sets are designed to play into themselves.  With Thief, you use Muddle and Pocket Sand as means of making theft easier before slamming the opponent with a Toxic and getting the fuck out, with Knight, you lock the fucker down with Shatter Leg and just tank them through attrition as you break them down.  They still have other skills, but with Maintenance, neither class can really do what it's supposed to do.  (And yes, if you go through other skillsets, they all have at least one intended "default strategy" built into them like Break/Steal do.) 

While I'm remembering, you mentioned about both Thief and Ninja having Two Swords, which they both do, and they both share the same PA, but the difference is their base equipment and how their skills play into Two Swords.  With Thief, Daggers have piddling WP that has almost no scaling as the game progresses, and are mainly good for being able to deal an array of status at 100% on hit, so flinging around two allows you to fuck units up either before or after stealing in the same way a Thief would use Muddle, Pocket Sand, and Toxic.  Ninjas also have Dagger access because that kind of status dealing plays well with ignoring defenses and screwy Will-based skills, but they also have Ninjato (and possibly more when I decide a couple things), which are far more powerful in terms of raw damage, allowing them to actually use Two Swords to put holes in things like we remember it doing and not just status down a hoe.  It's the same basic concept between them, but abusing different synergies and skillset access to achieve a completely different end.

I see. Not much else to say besides that, though I do keep not getting around to my own equipment list. Fell asleep way longer than I meant today.

Regardless, it will be interesting to see how equipment is handled on certain units without Maintenance.

Haha, I've had the same problem lately in terms of sleeping.

Today's update will be minor in terms of content posted.  Did some math, am deciding to actually not adjust PA and MA on any units at this time.  This gives more leeway for high power moves like the Samurai's Flair skills, plays better with the new Element application I'm using, and a number of other things.  Since I also decreased Defense Boost and co by a proportional amount, this shouldn't cause many problems, but rather just allow for more design space.  I may or may not buff the constant on bare fists and Monk skills by 2 though, currently undecided there.  Working on making sprite previews for the generic jobs, since there will be a few sprite swaps and new palettes on everything.  I need to adjust a few of the weaker palettes some and finish a pair of sprites I forgot to do, though, so that update won't be seen for a day or two and will be in the form of a third [ugh] thread with an [IMAGE HEAVY] warning so people aren't forced to load a crapton of images every time they check this thread for updates.  So yeah, expect that soon and don't miss it!

Minor update because my weekend is busy and I'm not done with those sprites yet.

All of the Equip X have been merged into two simple skills: Any Weapon and Any Gear, both of which are fittingly available on the Squire class.  Added the Support Skill "Medic", temporarily located on the Priest class, which boosts any healing skill by 25%.

I still need ideas for my now... I think 12-13 free Support Skill slots and 7ish free Reaction slots.  Those with ideas, come forth!

Also, decided my two of my empty classes will be physical ones, one focused on offense and one on defense.  Thinking one of them should be a bow user and the other should use some weapon that is otherwise not used much, meaning Greatsword / Katana / Ninjato / Gauntlet.  Ideas on which class should be which, which weapons the close range one should use, skills for either, etc. are much appreciated. 

(Ugh. Three and half hours later and I'm still tired yet still not tired enough to go to sleep; just too tired to think up good ideas, apparently. Still, I'll respond to this because I said that I would yesterday after the Chocobo thing.

Speaking of which...what are you doing with monsters anyway? I was speaking with FDC a bit four to five hours ago and he was under the impression that you using the ARH for them as well as using the monster slots because you had found someway around the Monster Skill limitation. I may be relaying that incorrectly, though. I must admit curiosity, though, given my own current dilemma over skill set space.)

As far as flaming monsters to replace pigs go, I still can't think of any. Even if I could, there probably isn't a sprite for it yet. Maybe you could just force in the Lamia sprite with some type of "Fire Kiss" attack or something. Shrug.

Concerning reaction and support abilities, I can think of nothing support-wise that isn't covered.* (In fact, if you could illuminate what exactly a few of them do, like Speed Boost, that would be great.) Reaction-wise, I've nothing inventive. Just that "return negative status", reactive-Shell and reactive-Protect reaction that I'm sure you've thought of before.

With regards to class ideas, having looked over both this thread and the original thread's contents more thoroughly than before, I think that I might be able to be of some help there:

1. Of whatever your close-range class does, it should be focused on either Greatswords or Axes since at present now other class besides Squire can use those weapons without Any Weapon. Similarly, it should probably be able to equip both.

2. Whether your long-range class is offensive or defensive, I don't think it should be or, rather, can be bow-based. I'm not saying this just because I'm still an impasse myself for making two other bow-based classes (though at this point I probably won't have to). I'm saying it more because your Archer/Ranger pretty covers EVERYTHING a bow-based class can do at present, even with the lofty aims of formula. Given that you're keeping guns widely available to Generics in your patch, you could maybe get away with the Gunner class I couldn't. After all, the FFX-2 Gunner (http://www.ffcompendium.com/h/jobs/gunner.shtml#FFX2) was decently offense-based and I'm pretty sure you could make an defensive-based class if you put your mind to it, even if it would arguably be more difficult to do (with the way that Ranger is now).

3. If you want a defensive, close-range class, then there's of course Paladin, who could use great swords and unlike Dragoon heals/be concerned with allied units more actively. I can't really give skill suggestions, though, given that I'm both still largely unaware of your formula (aims) and that I'm still uncertain of my own (untested) Paladin, which I'd imagine you don't want to emulate anyway. There's the problem of Paladin potentially stepping on Agrias's toes, but since you've said absolutely nothing about special characters, I've no idea; I just know they're kind of annoying similar name-wise. Paladin, however, would at least give you the chance for more offensive, Holy-based attacks.

4. If you want an offensive, close-range class, then there's similarly always Berserker. It'd be something to perhaps give focus to the Axe, which, as aforementioned, like Greatsword is similarly "unloved" equipment-wise. It's not like they have to be focused around Berserk, though, oddly, Lancer/Dragoon give them the same problem that it potentially give Paladin when it comes to competition, especially with wanting to keep everything so minimalism--just for different reasons.

5. If you want a close-range class that could go either way, then you could focus a class on Greatswords (and/or Axes) and knockback since you seem so eager to spread that around. I'm not sure you're making formulas to affect AoEs--though I'm almost certain you're not because those are probably even more tedious--but having arching attacks that "clear out" hit enemies and such seems like it would at least be interesting. I have no idea what the hell you would call it, though.


That's pretty much all I have for now. I would have liked to be more helpful after such a delay, but I'm as bird-brained as the creatures that are now giving me trouble.

P.S. You used the name "Swiftness" for both a Dragoon attack and Dimensionalist's react with Haste ability. Also, Squire's "Blind Fury" has a minor typo.


*Well, that's not entirely true. I'm just not sure whether a support ability that allowed one's magic to ignore Reflect would be worth it and that, even if it was, it wouldn't be one of those supports you tend to not like such as Maintenance and such.

I'm giving the monsters human skillsets.  You should already know this, since I'm the one who told philsov to do it.  No monster skills, no monster talk, no breeding, no bullshit.  Feels good man.  I'll figure something out for the flaming monster, maybe a Moogle carrying around a flaming marshmallow on a stick and a bottle of sake.  Speed Boost is +1 Speed, by the way.  I should note that more clearly if it's not already clear enough.  If there's others you don't get, feel free to ask about them.

I'm probably going to make more copies of Sunken State style and Counter Tackle style Reactions to fill my list out unless someone gives me a genius idea.

Knights can currently also use Axes and Greatswords as well as Squires, but one of the new classes will as well.  I've decided not to have a ranged class be one of them, because I noticed ranged weapons were far better spread than I was thinking they were.  Mustadio's going to be drawing from a few different Gunner classes to assemble his skillset, since he's losing Seal Evil and he'd only have 2 skills if he didn't get some nice gains.  I'm intentionally not having an outright Gunner generic class because this is still Ivalice, guns are incredible rare archeological finds, you'd not have a whole class of warriors specializing in it.  A few classes can use them (I removed both Chemist and Mediator, the only two that could in Vanilla, so I obviously had to change who could use them), but none are based on them.

The defensive close-range class will likely be a sort of Paladin, using healing skills based on PA and WP and equiping heavy armors.  I'm not entirely decided on the kinds of skills it'll have, but it'll be a PA/Fury based healer.  I'm not sure if these skills will be Weapon Ranged or not at this time though.

The Special characters aren't seeing unnecessary amounts of retooling, Agrias still gets Holy Sword (renamed Holy Arts), Mustadio still gets Snipe (renamed Snipe Skill), etc.  I'm keeping them true to their Vanilla versions, seeing changes more like the Knight or Oracle received that merely enhance their focus and remove some redundancy in their sets. 

Berserker - Nah, unless it's "Berserker" in the historical sense and not the sense related to the Berserk status whatsoever.  In which case, I may as well make my aggro class a Viking.  Though, super-powered Weapon based skills are already covered in the Samurai's Flair set, so... heh.

Mixed, eh.  I'm not making any classes based on Knockback.  The AI couldn't use something like that correctly most likely. so I'd rather not.

I'm going with a Paladin-like concept for one of them, though, but I'd rather not name it Paladin if I can avoid it. 

I'll fix typos when I update the post later.  The Dimensionalist's Swiftness is on the way out, so that's fine.  I'm going back to using Vanish, oddly enough. 

Yeah, Supports like that aren't something I'm interested in.  Speaking of, however, I've got 3 more after some thinking and some discussion with FDC again for the first time in a while:

Range Boost
"Increase reach of long-range skills and attacks by 1."
Range of skills and attacks (including the Attack command) with range of 3 or more is boosted by 1.

Strikethrough
"Focus, striking through frivolous defenses."
Ignore modifications from Protect, Shell, Defense Boost, Arcane Defense, Focus Defense, Defiance, Bad/Worst Zodiac Compatibility, and Elemental Resist when attacking or defending.

Pullthrough
"Focus, pulling through frivolous assaults."
Ignore Berserk, Sleep, Frog, Chicken, Oil, Float, Attack Boost, Arcane Power, Focus Power, Vehemence, Turbo Mana, Good/Best Zodiac Compatibility, Elemental Weak, and Elemental Boost when attacking or defending.

Concentrate will also be replaced with Slipthrough, which nullifies all evasion on both the attacker and defender.  This means I no longer will be using the portion of FDC's hack that causes Confusion/Blindness override.  Accuracy Boost will now also grant Accuracy * 1.5, in an attempt to make it not suck (it did before) and fill the shoes of old Concentrate.  I may change this to be a hard boost to Accuracy instead though, I'm not decided on that yet.

I thought that Monster Talk was still necessary even if you gave them human skill sets. Or do you just meant that you don't want Monster Talk around, so you're not going to need it to affect them?

(Anyway, looking at some old files reminded me there's at least 110 skill sets to used that are either unused or just plain redundant, so I should have room.)

Can't help you with things up names for Paladin that aren't Paladin either. I still can't even think of something for Blue Mage, especially now that "animist" will probably used for something else entirely for me.

I suppose you could name it Defender, but that's horribly generic. Defender of what? Defender of whom?

Crusader, templar, justicar, inquisitor (less likely)

I mean there's nothing using the Talk Skill flag, actually.  If there were, Monster Talk would be innate all.

Yeah, there's tons of empty skillsets.  Speaking of monsters - if I found a way to bullshit them being able to hold equipment, what would the thoughts on them having access to some be?  Also, I'm thinking of just letting Monks use Hats and adjusting their stats to compensate because they now can use Weapon/Shield/Bodygear/Accessory anyway.

I'll just call it Paladin for now, I guess.  Templar is Beowulf's job, Justicar and Inquisitor is kinda eh period, and Crusader doesn't at all seem fitting for a healing class.

(Ugh. Damn it. Fell asleep for like 10 hours. Stupid DST.)

Ah, I thought as with regards to Monster Talk.

With regards to monsters, I was contemplating allowing the more humanoid monsters like Goblins, Skeletons, Ithillids/Mindflayers and Bull Demons to wear armor, but, yeah, the equipment just kind of disappears if you try to directly bullshit it. Wonder if there's another way.

(Rather recently, I've been contemplating letting Chocobos and Bombs wear armor, but there's more for special events. After all, the intro has chocobos wearing armor IIRC & Boco would be even easier to differentiate that way and I always found the FFIX Grenade (http://www.ffcompendium.com/h/espmon/bomb.shtml) rather humorous to look at.)

As for Paladin, eh, maybe a better name/a name you like better will pop up once you decide on the abilities.

I forgot to mention that I'd could get behind Viking if you wanted to do that instead. It'd be a way to give a physical class Lightning and Ice/Water techniques given that Fire, Wind and Earth are so comparatively widespread.

I've had a couple ideas regarding monsters, but need to test and see if my hunch is correct.  If so, I got this.

Yeah, I'm going with a Paladin of sorts and a Viking/Berserker-like unit of sorts, the former focused on healer and the latter focused on more reckless forms of rip and tear than the Samurai.  As for Element balance, outside of the two Element skills that Ranger has, I'm pretty sure there's almost a 1:1 correlation in spread of Fire/Bolt/Ice/Dark/Earth/Wind.  Ninja has a Fire/Bolt/Ice set, Monk as an Earth/Wind set, Samurai and Wizard have full sets of Elements, etc.  I'll probably spread a few elements around into the sets of these two jobs so the Fire and Wind skills of the Ranger class have complements as well, but I was rather conscious about keeping Element access roughly even.

Apologies on the slower updates, by the way, weekends are very likely to see little to no updates unless I somehow have sleep on them, and I've been busy contemplating, brainstorming, and designing more Support skills.  Tomorrow or the day after we should start getting back on track.

Hi.  I'm relatively new to this community but I was excited to read about your project.  It sounds like you've got some really interesting ideas.

I was trying to think of any alternatives to Animalist and all I've come up with a few ideas, none of which I think are any better than what you've already got.

Echoist - this would be based on the class being able to repeat actions once it's experienced them.

Renderer - this sounds clumsy but I'm trying to think along the lines of Relm's Sketch command in FFVI.

Reckoner - this actually sounds cool, but it's a bit of a stretch.  It's along the lines of the "including" definition of reckon, as in the class includes learned monster skills.

Assimilator - the class absorbs and incorporates monster skills.

I like how you're trying to better differentiate the elements and give them a greater role in your project.  Some random element-related thoughts I had are related to weather...I don't think there's nearly enough content in this suggestion to propose a weather class, but it would be cool if there was a skill that could change the weather on a map.  Maybe a skill called "Storm Front" which would change a sunny day into a random chance of rain, thunderstorm, or snow.  You could combine this with ratcheting up the effect of weather on elemental damage.  For a longer battle, tipping the weather could help a party take advantage of an elemental setup.  I don't even know if this would be possible to do...you'd probably have to prevent it from working indoors...and even if you could implement it, it's probably not something the AI could use to its benefit.  On a related note I had an idea about a Hail Storm which would hit every unit on the map with Ice 1 or something similar, unless a unit was "taking shelter" under an overpass or overhang.  That would kind of be like how lancers can't jump on a unit that's under a bridge.  Again though - this would probably be something that would be too easy to exploit and that the AI couldn't coordinate using properly.

I look forward to reading further updates on your project.

I just feel like being cool and make a suggestion.

Breaker/Intercepter -- The whole skillset would be to disable something temporarily, including some, but not a lot, of damage (even if you're not killed by it, getting your arms dislocated is not all that pleasant). Melee fighter.

Skill names with corresponding effect (of the top of my head, to give you an idea, not meaning these should be the skills/names)

Dislocate elbow -- Don't act
Dislocate knee -- Don't move
Dislocate jaw -- Silence
Ear swat -- confuse
Eye poke -- blind

And so on. I find it to seem like an amusing class. :p
Worth thinking of?

Other skills would include some sort of guard to not get locked with these negative statuses him/herself.

I'm glad to see I got a few ideas in my absence.  I posted more in depth in my Power Rangers Edition thread, but the short of it is that I had to factory reset.... I think 5 times now, on this laptop, and lost some stuff.  I've got things sorted now though, so work will resume shortly.  I was holding off and making sure everything was stable due to having to reset more than once.

As for the ideas given -

TheChad, Animalist is meant to be a bit more nature-oriented, hence going with that name over a mimic-sounding name, though Renderer does give me a few ideas.  I'll be think-tanking things a bit more.

As for weather, formerdeathcorps will eventually be trying to hack the game's weather, and I'll likely incorporate that hack when it's done since it'll enrich random battles by quite a bit and make a few story battles more interesting.

Kaffe, that suggestion is basically what Mustadio's Job is.  I'm working out a few specifics, like whether they're be %status, damage+status, evadable/unevadable, etc. but I'm basically expanding Mustadio's skillset so he has access to a status combination no other skillset has and with weapon range/properties instead of magical ones.  Sortof like the physical/ranged equivalent of an Oracle, except not tank-oriented.

As for progress, there has been some, but I think I'm going to be discussing the last couple human job classes more openly to get input on them.  I kind of know what I want to do with them, but after being forcibly removed from the FFT scene for a month or so and having little brainstorm time, I've yet to pan them out to my liking.

First thing I'd like to take care of is the Paladin, official name pending.  This will be the highest-HP armor class. Knight and Lancer will see a bit of a base HP reduction to accommodate this, so that base HP goes Samurai -> Knight -> Lancer -> Paladin from lowest -> highest.  Its MP will be fairly solid, more than most physical units, probably a bit lower than or equal to the Priest.  Skill-wise, it will be a healing class, again similar to the Priest, though its skills will be PA/Br/WP based instead of MA/Fa based.  I'm thinking they will also be weapon ranged - this puts the Paladin as a meaty, close healer, the Priest as a ranged healer, and several other classes such as the Monk as various kinds of mixed units.  This also greatly increases the value of Any Weapon (a skill that's one of the main reasons I prefer using Weapon Range whenever I can) to allow the Paladin to use a Gun or Bow of some kind, as well as the value as this as a secondary on a ranged unit like the Ranger over White Magic or Martial Arts.

Exact skill and weapon loadout, however, is up in the air.  Obviously, its offense should be either very light or completely relegated to the Secondary and Support Skillsets, and it should have "the basics" - at least one heal/revive/anti-status spell.  After that, I have no idea quite where I want to go with it yet.  I've a couple ideas, but getting a few from outside is always nice.

Here`s one of the jobs I thought of for a patch. Basically, a melee class that focuses on buffing either nearby allies or all allies on the battlefield - like a more physical Bard. Most of its buffs affect allies only but require a specific status on the Exemplar to activate.

Exemplar: `Warrior versed in mass combat, uses Charisma\Leadership to turn the tide of battle`

Skillset: Charisma\Leadership - `Exemplar job command. Bolsters allies throughout the battlefield with commanding presence.`

- AoE Heal centered on the user, Radius 1-2, weak-mid healing
- Req: Poison, AoE 2 (user), Add: Regen
- Req: Slow, AoE 2 (user), Add: Haste
- Blind -> Vanish

Animist makes me think of SaGa Frontier 2.  In that game, Anima was a primal force that existed in almost all things and could be manipulated to use spells.  Also, animism is a description of religions that deal with nature spirits and things like that.

Nein, that's really not what I'm looking for at all.  It'd basically be a gimmick class the AI would have no clue how to use due to needing negative status prereqs, and those same prereqs would easily make it the worst generic class for both primary and secondary.  I'm trying to avoid things like that.

Pickle Girl Fanboy... that's kinda the feel I wanted for the Animist class, so I'm very close to sticking with that name now.

I just took a look at the jobs and saw that you have one empty slot. I would suggest using it to create Chocobo Knight, it surely would be fun. If neccesary I will come up with skill ideas, just say if you want such job in your patch.

Chocokin was actually the very first job idea I came up with to replace Calculator.  I ended up cutting it because I couldn't think of anything to give it besides Chocobo skills and I already have a Blue Mage type Job so two Jobs running around with monster skills seemed redundant.  I guess I could make it a monster-helper type Job, but that doesn't quite fit the motif I'm going for with the generic jobs.

I do intend to have a Chocokin Job though, not sure if it'll be player recruitable special/pseudospecial but I do want to have people in feathers running around on some level.

Expect sweeping updates on everything posted in this thread so far within the next couple days.

I'm changing the raw HP and MP stats of units, so that among other things, MP will now be in quantities comparable to HP in the vein of the original Digimon World, for any who have played it.  (Eg, a Male unit might have 35 HP and 30 MP, while a Female unit might have 30 HP and 35 HP.)  This means going through and redoing everyone's MP Costs and MP multipliers, meaning I'll also take the time to touch up PA and MA and clean up skillsets a bit.

Okay, time to get back to working on this with some Ability updates.  I'll post this as a tentative first for a bit of feedback in case I change my mind on one of these.

Squires:

Losing both "Caution" and "Diminish".  Not only do I fear AI issues with both Br/Fa boost and Br/Fa minus in the same skillsets, but games need to end.  Being able to Caution yourself down to 11 Br, for example, and take almost no physical damage (especially when paired with gear and Supports) is something Redesign doesn't need any part of.  Games that get stalled aren't fun games.  I'll need to brew them up a 6th skill to keep them at my minimum skill limit, but I'm going to wait until I have a synergistic idea to go into what's mostly a buff-based and non-magic supporting skillset.

Ranger:

Losing the "Calm Mind" Reaction.  Same justification as above.

Monk:

Possibly losing both innate and learnable "Barehanded" as I consider a modified Fist formula that will allow Gauntlets to influence Attack damage.  This means his Attack command will be the primary source of raw damage unless you want Unevadable (Machinegun Punch), an Element Boost, etc.  This also means I can possibly raise the Y values some because I can take some focus off his PA and don't have as many multipliers on the stack anymore.  "Geomancy" will very likely only become "Boost: All Elements." with a possible "Weak: All Elements.", without actually accessing the old Geomancer skillset.  If it does keep skillset access, it will likely be a very restricted form of it.

Priest:

"Cure", "Cura", "Curaga" are going to be simplified down to a single-target "Healing Breeze" and a wide-area move that still needs a fancy name.  I don't need cure tiers for the purpose of scaling the heal itself, and I only really need a single target and a wide area for the purpose of Heal vs MP Efficiency vs CT.  I'm also considering dropping Esuna - Float is very similar to Esuna in Redesign due to the Float status' stacking properties, and I'm thinking giving "Status Heal" to the Dimensionalist will help further distinct their Job from other magic-based Jobs.  "Calm Heart" is also very likely going for the same reasons as "Calm Mind" and the Squire's pair of reduction skills.

Wizard:

No changes.

Dimensionalist:

The "Swiftness" Reaction is looking more and more like a poor idea unless I make it into an SOS Haste.  It'll also need a name-change because the Dragoon has a skill called "Swiftness" as well.  For balance reasons I doubt Critical: Quick can stay unless I can also get it to add my modified Death Sentence or something.  Otherwise there's no change here.

Summoner:

I'd like to possibly get their primary set down to 8 skills, but otherwise I'm happy with what I've got here.  My planned changes to MP also balances "Blood Price" rather insanely, wow.

Thief:

"Adrenaline" possibly needs to be reduced to 10 CT.  His R/S list also shows how out of date some of this is because "Concentrate" doesn't even exist anymore in my notes.  I'd like to possibly make "Awareness" into a Support over a Reaction but I'm not sure how that'd pan out balance-wise.

Oracle:

"Mana Drain" is getting axed because it has nothing to do with the rest of the skillset or Oracle in general beyond Oracle's low base MP.  "Sleepel" is also likely to go because Sleep doesn't actually add anything to the skillset that other statii don't cover, meaning it'd be better if I used Sleep-inducing skills elsewhere.  "Dispel" is in a similar position to Float - "Rot Flesh" inflicting Undead does pretty much everything I'd want Dispel to do, so having both is redundant in this skillset.

Dragoon:

"Dragon Spirit" is the most likely thing to go for being brokeshit, especially in Redesign.  I have anti-sandbag measures but at the same time Dragon Spirit kind of sits in the same area as stuff like Calm Mind unless I use the same fix as I'm considering for the Dimensionalist's to-be-renamed "Swiftness" and make it SOS Reraise.

Samurai:

Iaido will likely be simplified down to merely allowing for Draw Out skills.  It'll also only have 6-8 skills in the skillset now due to the changes I made to available Katanas.  Nothing else is changing on them, though.

Ninja:

I want to redo this entire goddamn skillset, but currently have no ideas.  Reflexes is now going to be an additive 30 C-EV and possibly become a Support instead of a Reaction.

Knight:

No changes.

Animist:

Being reduced to 8 Blue Magic spells from 16, with them being made a bit more common among monsters.  Otherwise, no changes.

Mime:

No changes.

Miscellaneous Changes:

I need to seriously lower how much shit is affected by Double Magic.  I went way overboard with it.

(Oh, gods. I'm finally free.)

I had meant to comment on this as soon as it saw it on Tuesday, but you'll probably have noticed that I've not really been around the past week and a half.... We'll get to that later though.

1. Squire/Ranger: While I can certainly understand how this is problematic, I have to ask where the problem lies with (in your opinion) primarily. Is it the Brave decreasing itself? The damage system you're intending on using? (It's Fury-esque, right?) Is it the fact that there's no way to properly assail such a low-Brave unit, even with status?

2. 11 or less Will: I also noticed you don't really say anything about Will having the same problem even though I partly understand why (or at least think I do). The only reason I'm pointing this out is because you've said you're trying to make Will more inclusive to stuff compared to Faith, but, like Gauntlets, it's been really hazy as to how that's going to be accomplished. Not that there's anything wrong with that since you're still working on it--it would be hypocritical of me to say that it there was something flawed with it anyway given my many vague things. Just asking for clarification, really.

3. Monks: Yes, Martial Arts must die in all of its myriad forms. Kill it with fire. I'm far less enthused about Geomancy potentially dying all together considering I was going to steal your support idea for it, Jump and Draw Out as well, but I can certainly understand cutting down on it at the very least; the last four techniques can easily completely die and I'm sure you could probably condense at least a couple more.

4. Cure Condensing: Ah, I had considered this as well, but I'm going to stick with three at present. I was going to suggest the seemingly obvious "White Wind"...before remembering that you had that already. Fail. Of course, that shouldn't be surprising considering that I still haven't been able to come up with (what I think would be) a better name for Blue Mage than Animist.

4. Esuna dies because of Dimensionalist: Sounds like a valid plan given your status interactions.

5. Swiftness: While its current form is horribly broken (given it makes Speed Save look kinda, even with the changes you've made to Haste) comparative to most of your other RSMs, SOS Haste seems kind of..."meh" compared to SOS Quick unless Haste lasts long enough to justify it. That or I'm possibly (read: probably) missing something. That said, as far as names go, you could either call it "Celerity" or "Doubletime", even if "Celerity" basically IS "Swiftness".

6. Summons to 8: Why is it so important to go from 9 to 8?

7. Thief: Yeah, Adrenaline/Speed Save as 20 CT bugged me as I told you (or Eternal...or philsov, I forget) earlier. 10 CT seems fine while still being advantageous. Awareness should probably remain a Reaction for now, especially since all your reactions are meant to activate at 100% anyway. Given Abandon/Reflexes reduction, despite their similarity, Awareness should be treated with more caution due to your planned changes to evasion and Awareness essentially negating that.

8. Oracle: Nothing to say here at present.

9. Dragoon: Yeah, Dragon Spirit is a pain in the ass. Constant access to Reraise when you're trying to make sure that people don't get killed as easily as they do in vanilla/1.3 means that it becomes even more obnoxious; this is the reason why I heavily considered killing it. I'm not sure that SOS Reraise solves the actual problem, but hey, it at least it would occur far less frequently....

10. Iaido: ...Wait. Iaido does something besides allow access to Draw Out? I know you explained it to me when I asked, but apparently I didn't fully understand (or I forgot).

11. Ninja: *shrugs* I got rid of Ninja completely. I'll try to think of at least a couple of things, but you're much better at jobs than I am, so....

I support the Reflexes change, though. Despite what I said about Awareness, Abandon being a Reaction always bugged the [expletive] out of me.

12. Animist: ...Why reduce it from 16 to 8 when it takes up no additional space? I'm definitely missing something here.

13. Double Magic: Assuming you did what I told philsov I was wary of when he revealed Double Magic to us in the ASM'd section, then yeah. Otherwise...yeah?


To Embargo cave!

*runs off and trips, falling flat on his face*

....

@Squire/Ranger:  It's the damage system, due to Fury or Will affecting every skill and weapon in the game.  A unit with 10 Fury/Will is only taking 40% damage from a unit with 70 Fury and 10% or less from a unit with 100 Will, respectively.  If they have a defense boosting Support or two, that 40%/10% becomes even lower.  That's... retarded, so I'm making it not happen.  (Aside: I should probably find a way to remove those +30 buffers on Fury as well, but that's going to result in some huge WP values I think.  I could also give Will a +30 buffer, which may be a better idea.)

@11 or less Will:  I actually did mention them, but I mentioned them as "Br/Fa" because I was doing the notes sortof quickly.  Will actually has a far greater problem with this than Fury does unless I also give Will a +30 buffer, as stated above.  There's no Chicken Status, though, so there's nothing "special" about being 11 or less of either besides taking insanely low damage.

Monks:  Martial Arts isn't really dying for being broke.  I just don't need it's 1.25% on the damage stack anymore.  Geomancy is going or being heavily consolidated for a reason I'll explain below.  (Note that it has nothing to do with not liking it as a Support - that's not changed.)

Cure Condensing:  I think I'm going with "Divine Wind", both because it's obviously a higher form of "Healing Breeze" and because I like me my references.

Swiftness: Haste has over double it's Vanilla duration to compensate for it's far lower power and higher number of predators, for reference.

Summons to 8: Again, I'll explain below.

Thief: I only had Adrenaline at 15 I think, but yeah.  Awareness being a Support will likely see it weakened some - probably into all sides become 75% or max evasion or something, so that you're giving up front evasion for evasion on all sides.

Dragoon:  I might remove it and think of something else entirely.  Pride's new Status gives me a couple ideas, but my being overly picky about animations will possibly lead me to not using it.  SOS Reraise solves it though if you can land a kill shot with a move or weapon that also removes Reraise, of which there are a few.

Iaido: It was dumb and bloated, made all weapon attacks become MA*WP.

Ninja: I've talked to some people and gotten some ideas, I'll update him soon, probably make him a mix of his current self and a secondary skill in bad status, sortof like Ranger.

Animist: Now here's where I'll explain everything.  The AI can only "remember" 34 skills.  In Vanilla, this is Attack, Defend, 16 Primary, and 16 Secondary skills.  Now, I want to make units who have access to 4 skillsets, Defend, and Charge tiers innately.  This means that not only do I generally not want to surpass 8 skills in each of my 4 skillsets, but my less important ones (read: Supports) need to have less than 8 in order to accommodate Charge tiers.  This is the main point behind removing Geomancy, cutting several Iaido skills, etc.  This is also why I'm trying to get every job down to 8 skills maximum.  If I'm only worrying about the "max" skill setup being, say, 8 + 8 + 6 + 6, or something, this gives me room for four tiers of Charge, which is almost exactly what I want.  Unless when Pokeytax finally gets all four skillsets working on the AI he can ignore this limitation, it's best to handle it now.  It also helps me go back and again remove redundant skills, something I'm always happy to do.

Double Magic: I just have tons of stuff flagged for it, including things that make little sense like the Samurai's Flair skills.  ...Yeah.  It really needs to be chopped down by quite a bit, I think, unless I make it into a "Mimic" Reaction where it'll just copy any skill.  That's also an interesting thought, hm.

(Heh, I missed a "the" in the above post that I don't feel like editing now that I noticed. Damn articles....)

Well, that was prompt was as usual. I had to catch up on another forum or else I would have answered this much sooner.

I see with regards to Swiftness, Iaido and the AI's skills limitation number. With regards to the latter, well...I might as well talk about that in the list:

1. Below 10 Will?: I'm guessing you mean there's no Chicken status for Brave that's below 10, correct, not Will? I mean, it would still apply to "Will", but I'm guessing you mean that you got rid of the (silly) Chicken status completely, correct? Sort of "funny"--ugh, I need to stop using that today--how that becomes a problem. I guess I'll have to keep that in mind for my patch....

2. Monks: Oh, I wasn't cheering for Martial Arts' death because I thought it was still overpowered. I was cheering for its death because I'm a malicious bastard.

3. Divine Wind: It sounds like a fine name for the Priestly class, though it might be a bit confusing because of "Divination Magic" now existing in your patch.

4. Adrenaline and Awareness: Ah, I see. I'm not sure that's the best solution to Awareness, but you can always change it, so....

5. SOS Reraise: Ah, so you've tested that thigns that cancel Reraise will do so right before dead on a fatal blow? Did you have to change the order of statuses for this? I forget if statuses with lower number take priority or if it's the higher ones. I believe it's the former, but it's been so long since I tested it....

6. Ninja: Very well. It's good to see you already got competent help since I doubt I'd be much of help in the Kamikaze arena.

7. 34 Skills: I remember you telling me that this was the case before, but at that point, you were only really talking about it with regards to 3 skillsets and with Blue Magic as your only 16-skill set, I didn't think it would be a problem. Still, I suppose it should have occured to me when you basically intending to turn Movement's slot into a 2nd Support slot.

Still, that's indeed rather...irksome. May I know why exactly you want 4 Charges? I'd think that only 3 would be neccessary, but it's possibly I'm forgetting something about Charge.

(Also, Jump would only take one "skill spot", wouldn't it?)

8. Double Magic becoming Mimic: That sounds rather head-achy. Perhaps if it were to become an actual Mime action instead of just a Reaction, though that's probably even more difficult to code if it's at all possible.

@10 Will?:  Yes, I was trying to say the parity here would be that neither had a status effect or special trait to it.

@Divine Wind:  I don't expect much confusion.  The names are similar, but the "feel" will carry it.

@Awareness:  I want Awareness to have some kind of downside, and considering making it a Support will allow Awareness + Reflexes in a single unit (+30ish C-EV to all sides), reducing the end value before applying it seems like a fair solution.

@SOS Reraise:  I think I need to jigger with a few things to make it work as I want, but I'll figure it out.

@Charges:  It's not that I want 4 specifically, it's just that having 4 of them is a comfortable amount of design space for me to toy with.  Something like +1, +2, +3, +5.  Need to get the specifics in eventually, but they're more meant to help prop up physical damage more than anything, especially since physical damage is honestly pretty badly biased against in terms of damage if you're not spec'd for it.

@Double Magic becoming Mimic:  It's more that I was considering "flag Counter Magic on every skill in the game" so it would become similar to Counter Mimic.  I'm going with reigning back my current implementation of Double Magic instead though, I think, to make it more proper Double Magic-y.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand update:

All Will calculations lost their Level component.  I'll be fudging about some math and getting Fury and Will to use the same additive constant, most likely 30.  Skills compatible with Double Magic reduced.

Squire lost Caution, Diminish.

Ranger lost Interrupt, Calm Heart.

Monk lost Barehanded, Nature's Wrath.  Geomancy is now only an Elemental Boost.

Priest lost Esuna, Calm Heart, and had Cure, Cura, Curaga consolidated to Healing Breeze and Divine Wind.

Wizard lost nothing.

Dimensionalist lost nothing.

Summoner lost Fairy.

Thief lost Concentrate. (Duh.)

Oracle lost Mana Drain, Sleepel, Dispel.

Dragoon lost Dragon Spirit.

Samurai lost nothing.

Ninja untouched for now.

Knight lost nothing.

Animist untouched for now.

Mime untouched for now.

Still need to do quite a bit of rebalancing but trimming the fat and focusing the skillset is always the best place to start.

Some notes that aren't in the OP yet:

All multipliers fixed up.  See attached image.  I'll adjust the OP later.

Fury and Will constants finalized.  Now all skills have (TarFoW+20)/100*(CasFoW+20)/100 as their Fury or Will setup.  I've got to do some spot-checking and stuff still, but if necessary I'll be devising a way of making the Y constant on Spells scale somehow, probably using a variation of the LVL modifier I scrapped from the Will mechanic.  I'll also be moving the Martial Arts skillset and other related things that are quadratic or semi-quadratic like that over to a PA variation of the same Formula to allow for better scaling once everything's finalized.  I've also got to look at WP later because all my WP calculations were with Fury +30 and not Fury +20, but that's not this thread.

I've decided that the Jobs currently in the OP (14 Generic Jobs and 1 Mime) will be all the Jobs in Redesign at this time.   I've even got the preliminary Job Tree all figured out.

Squire - No Prerequisites.
Animist - No Prerequisites.

Knight - Level 3 Squire, Level 2 Animist.
Ranger - Level 3 Squire, Level 2 Animist.
Priest - Level 2 Squire, Level 3 Animist.
Oracle - Level 2 Squire, Level 3 Animist.

Monk - Level 4 Squire, Level 4 Knight, Level 3 Ranger.
Thief - Level 4 Squire, Level 3 Knight, Level 4 Ranger.
Dimensionalist - Level 4 Animist, Level 4 Priest, Level 3 Wizard.
Wizard - Level 4 Animist, Level 3 Priest, Level 4 Oracle.

Dragoon - Level 5 Knight, Level 5 Monk, Level 4 Thief.
Ninja - Level 5 Ranger, Level 4 Monk, Level 5 Thief.
Summoner - Level 5 Priest, Level 5 Dimensionalist, Level 4 Oracle.
Samurai - Level 5 Oracle, Level 4 Dimensionalist, Level 5 Wizard.

Mime - Level 5 Squire, Level 5 Animist, Level 5 Dragoon, Level 5 Ninja, Level 5 Summoner, Level 5 Samurai.

Basically, this is a 4-Tiered Job System with Mime being the Job you get for fully cresting every single tier.  Yes, this kind of setup also means Job progression is kind of slow but this is intentional, I don't want people able to speed-unlock large sections of the Job tree at once.

I've also got how I want to fix up Ninja mostly down as well.  My next update will be filling in the OP with more accurate data and either fixing up Ninja or adjusting all the Reactions/Supports to make sure they form to this scale properly.

For a quick rundown of how to interpret the multipliers below this sentence.  PA/MA at level 50 = Multiplier / 10 - 1.  Speed is basically 6, 7, 8 in ascending multiplier order, but I'll be adjusting it to 8, 9, 10 later.  HP and MP there's no real easy way to force out, sadly.  A 50 HPM or MPM is about 100 or so HP or MP at level 50, though, and 140 is somewhere in the realm of I think 225.

Pretty huge update:  Every formula updated to what should be the final version, at least for the Beta release.  This includes every physical and magical class.  Ninjas are also FIXED at last.  Thief and Knight also regained Take/Shatter Armor, because I redid my Helmet/Hat/Armor/Clothes HP scale some and the difference between a Hat and a Clothes is nowhere as drastic anymore.

Fury and Faith are now (TarXA+30)*(CasXA+30)*[Formula], finalized.

Skills that don't refer to Weapons *mostly* now use either a PA*Y or MA*Y formula, as with Redesign's system and my PA/MA Growths, these formula actually scale pretty damn well.  I'll need to re-examine Weapons later, as my low Ys mean my WPs probably need a once-over.  Shouldn't be too hard to figure out though, especially if I scale the early game weapons back a WP or two to compensate for any lost WP space this new setup causes.

Summoners lost Bahamut as well because it was redundant.  The remaining Summons (Cyclops, Bahamut, Zodiac, Lich, Odin, Golem at the very least) will be Boss-only, and at least some of them *may* be Learn on Hit and available in Deep Dungeon if someone misses them if so.  I don't think anyone else will be losing anything, though, unless I think of a more generally useful skill to replace Mug.  I'm at the point of wanting to see if I can grab another skill or two for most of my smaller skillsets, because I feel everything unnecessary has finally been trimmed.

I changed my Growths again from the ones in that image, but now they're all in the OP, so it's no big deal.  Speed hasn't been fixed yet, but that's mostly me being lazy.  I also reversed the locations of Wizard and Oracle on the Job Tree, so that the class with the best MA multiplier outside of Mime isn't available super-early in the game, and for the sake of making a drastic change to the tempo of the first couple Chapters.