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Modding and game balance questions/job and ability ideas.

Started by Lionheart537, July 20, 2017, 12:56:40 am

nitwit

Growth and multipliers are more abstract ways of talking about damage.  In any game no one should be able to 1HKO someone.  Figure out what the minimum number of hits it takes to kills someone should be for your patch.  Three hits is a good minimum, because if 3 people team up on someone that person is guaranteed to lose in most situations.

If your minimum hits to KO is too low high you end up with early game FFTA.  I lost battles in FFTA because I could do a decent amount of damage but I couldn't heal; the enemy wore me down over 2 hours until I gracelessly expired.

EDIT

That's a pretty good plan for Beowulf.  Frees up a lot of abilities.  I'd give him the Rune Knight skills too.

The following is an argument against including any level or experience modifying formulas.

QuoteOn that note I was going to remove xp draining skills, but if growths vary among jobs should it be kept anyway?

Level gain/drain is probably too much, but exp gain/drain sounds very annoying.

I could only see level drain working if it's a suicide effect that instantly crystalizes the unit that casts it, it drains multiple targets of more than one level, it's enemy-only targetting, and you fix the level down so you don't lose more growth than you gain.  Losing 5 levels at once is annoying and reduces your HP and MP totals (sp, pa, and ma are recalculated after battle), 10 levels is enough to make me auto-reset, and I could lose a battle if I lose that much HP.

An ability that damages experience needs to deal a lot of damage and hit multiple targets to be annoying.  I'd use something that reduces experience to zero, has a very large range, and is enemy-only targeting.  It's possible to cheese it for JP farming, but it's very involved as you must get the enemy to cast it.

Steal Experience is useful for cheesing, but it's very niche and you can't steal what the enemy doesn't have so it has limits.  You can cheese it by reducing enemy PA/MA to zero, but boosting their SP to equal yours.  They get a turn to hit you, you get a turn to steal experience.  As you gain levels they get more experience, and up until they gain a level each term you can get a lot of experience.

Steal Experience can be used to farm JP by having a throwaway theif use it to siphon experience off the rest of your team while you grind.  I don't know if anyone has used it in a hardtype mod but it seems doable.

EDIT

Losing a battle is exhilarating, rage-quitting is not.

Lionheart537

QuoteGrowth and multipliers are more abstract ways of talking about damage.  In any game no one should be able to 1HKO someone.  Figure out what the minimum number of hits it takes to kills someone should be for your patch.  Three hits is a good minimum, because if 3 people team up on someone that person is guaranteed to lose in most situations

Ahh I see what you mean. I'm not close to actually testing for balanced values and stats yet, but I'll be sure to refer to this entire thread when I'm working on them.

On the xp stealing you and Nyzer are right, it's hardly more than an annoying gimmick (although a kinda interesting one). I was going to keep Toad (as an Oracle skill now though) so that can always be used for cheesing training. I don't personally mind having some exploits, they can be fun, and it'd be almost impossible to remove all exploits anyway.
  • Modding version: PSX
It's not much yet but check out my spriting thread!
http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=11772.0
Here's a look at my vanilla mod thread, progressing one step at a time!
http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=11785.0

3lric

Quote from: Lionheart537 on August 03, 2017, 01:43:20 am
and it'd be almost impossible to remove all exploits anyway.


Inb4, you summoned Raven, >.<
  • Modding version: PSX

Pride

  • Modding version: PSX
Check out my ASM thread. Who doesn't like hax?

nitwit

Quote from: Lionheart537 on August 03, 2017, 01:43:20 am
Ahh I see what you mean. I'm not close to actually testing for balanced values and stats yet, but I'll be sure to refer to this entire thread when I'm working on them.


http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=11482.msg217839#msg217839

When you are planning stat values check out this tool I made.  You can use it to print all damage values for all abilities, for all jobs at all levels (or any subset thereof).  File download and instructions are in the last post I made.  If you need help just ask in the thread or pm me.

Quote from: Lionheart537 on August 03, 2017, 01:43:20 am
On the xp stealing you and Nyzer are right, it's hardly more than an annoying gimmick (although a kinda interesting one). I was going to keep Toad (as an Oracle skill now though) so that can always be used for cheesing training. I don't personally mind having some exploits, they can be fun, and it'd be almost impossible to remove all exploits anyway.

It is possible to remove all grinding exploits, but it takes some planning and ASM hacking.

For Frog, you need a hack to give it a CT timer.  Considering how debilitating it is, I'd make it share a CT with Stop.

Self-targeting abilities can be un-cheesed by making a hack where abilities that target only yourself get very little exp and jp.

Stat break exploits are fixed by changing the minimum and maximum stats, and by not having as much stat growth for any class.  Enemies are no longer completely harmless. 

Changing the min-max on stats also reduces the amount of grinding you can do with stat-boosting abilities.  You can still cheese by having one person break a stat and a third person (Ramza, for instance) boost the stat, but preventing stat boosts from targeting enemies means you must use an ally instead, which kind of wastes time as you can't train a full team all at once.

I would make Chakra ally-only to prevent free Monk healing for enemies you grind against, and I'd make sure that it doesn't target the caster (which is closer the ability Sabin has in FF6).  Definitely give it an MP cost too, since it's free MP healing.  The only other forms of healing are potions, monsters, spells, and calculators.  Only monsters and calculators are free healing, but monsters reduce your team and can be made to have MP costs and calculators are so advanced that you don't need to grind anymore.

If everything has an MP cost then anyone who can restore it is much more valuable.  Enemy calculators in particular are extremely potent as the enemy has unlimited items.  MP-free healing becomes a huge boon, Chemists become valuable and worth keeping stocked throughout the entire game.  Move MP UP becomes useful, especially if other movement abilities aren't OP.

Changing the trigger rate for reactions as outlined above means reducing Brave to 00 no longer neuters enemies.  If the reactions are all fairly useful the enemy is still a little dangerous no matter what you do.

EDIT

Consider roles.

The Monk is a weird combination of  glass cannon and tank, plus a support/healer, mid-range attacker, and a mobile up-close fighter.  Clearly that is overpowered.

Apply the hack that makes class evasion apply to magic to ensure the Monk has some survivability.  Reduce the HP multipliers to normal and keep the equipment restrictions.  Slightly reduce the range and power of the longer attacks, and put limits outlined above (no self-targeting) on the healing and any buffs you add.  Make everything cost MP, even just a bit.  Maybe give everything an extremely short charge time.  Remove Martial Arts in favor of a less straight-up powerful innate support.

The Monk is now a glass cannon with some limited support, healing (including rare and valuable MP healing), and mid-range attacks.  If you want it to deal a lot of damage (and it no longer deals quite as much damage), it needs to be up close.  The Monk's role in battle is to support the warriors and tanks as they close with the enemy, then attack the enemy from behind or the side in conjunction with its allies as the battle climaxes and it runs out of MP.

Marching up the enemy and punching them will get you killed very fast.  If move and jump are hard to come by, you won't make it all the way before you are pelted with spells, arrows, and bullets... another reason to reduce move and jump, archers and shoe accessories are useful again.

RavenOfRazgriz

Quote from: Pride on August 03, 2017, 03:03:01 am
I'll put up the raven signal



I'm trying to sleep, what do you want, you son of a-
Quote from: Lionheart537 on August 03, 2017, 01:43:20 am
it'd be almost impossible to remove all exploits anyway.



There's a number of... suspect things, asserted in this thread, which I've got no intent to reply to at 5 a.m., but I can at least assure you of pic related.

Lionheart537

QuoteI'll put up the raven signal

This genuinely made me laugh out loud.

QuoteWhen you are planning stat values check out this tool I made.  You can use it to print all damage values for all abilities, for all jobs at all levels (or any subset thereof).

That will be extremely helpful thanks! I assume it can be edited for custom formulas and values so very helpful indeed!

I was going to wait for a different thread to get too involved in my job ideas but I'll say that Monk is no longer a weird fast, tanky, dps, support. Monk losses all support and healing abilities; in lieu of them he gets a self buff or two and more ki-like attacks. I'm going full DBZ here and will attempt to make a custom energy beam/kamehameha animation to replace earth slash. A Spirit Bomb-like attack will be easy with Ultima already existing. Monk's old support skills will be inherited by the Paladin. I have a line up for them but I'll admit I'm stretching my imagination to keep Pally different enough from Knight and White Mage.
  • Modding version: PSX
It's not much yet but check out my spriting thread!
http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=11772.0
Here's a look at my vanilla mod thread, progressing one step at a time!
http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=11785.0

Nyzer

The monk being a sort of jack-of-all-trades is actually kind of their series staple, and I wouldn't personally change their action skills very much. The route I'd go would be to nerf their tankiness to some degree over anything else.

If you opt to use an ASM to make weapon evasion automatic instead of requiring a reaction ability, it reduces their tankiness quite a bit compared to other jobs. You can compound this by reducing the job's own C-Ev. I wouldn't really shave off their HP, as - again - series staple, but with low evasion, they'd be more vulnerable to multiple melee attackers than plate wearers. Some of their learnable RSMs could also be shuffled elsewhere, though I'd keep First Strike - IMO, pre-emptively countering melee attacks seems very appropriate for a monk, and sacrificing the reaction slot to become an Attack tank (unless your Bravery fails you) doesn't strike me as terribly OP.

You can also put in a couple small nerfs on their ranged damage skills. Wave Fist/Aurablast can be set to Stop at Obstacle. Earth Slash/Shockwave can have its range reduced (and maybe vertical range slightly increased to compensate).

I really don't agree with the idea of the monk losing its three supportive abilities. The physical tree in the base game isn't exactly overflowing with supportive stuff, and the monk is the only one that can restore MP and revive. Its offensive skillset is already well-rounded, too - one single-target attack, one ranged attack, one AoE attack, one ranged AoE, and Doom. IMO, you should be looking at the monk's skillset as a general example of a good skillset, one to base other skillsets off of. If you ask me, the monk's skillset is one of the few up the physical tree that isn't stuck in such a situational niche that you barely use it in practice.

... I should also point out that one of the monk's arguably overpowered strengths is that their skills all have no MP or CT cost in the base game. Which kind of leans in the direction of the "OP Holy Sword" problem. Addressing that will also cause them to fall more in line with other jobs.
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown

nitwit

I agree, it's best to subtly modify than make drastic changes.

Remove innate martial arts.
Change unarmed damage to base PA * current PA.
All abilities get MP costs and charge times.
Wave Fist gets stop at obstacle flag (good idea btw).
Chakra and Stigma Magic can't self-target.
Reduce the range of Earth Slash to at most 6, but increase the vertical tolerance.
Increase the vertical tolerance of all abilities slightly.

Lionheart537

*prepares to argue* ....actually that's a good point. Reducing Monk's utility to make a custom job more viable isn't all that justifiable. Hmm... even by giving him more attack options it doesn't help Monk's case that much. I could let Monks heal basic/physical ailments and have low healing Chakra. Give Pally more severe status (i.e. petrify, undead, blood suck, etc.) healing and a white wind ability that doesn't self target. Also i'd rather Pally get the revive ability still. With Monk's stats being tweaked I'd like them to be able to wear hats. Definitely give them more Vertical tolerance. A mix of Jojo hamon and Dbz ki Monk... I'm a nerd so that's the way I see it lol.
  • Modding version: PSX
It's not much yet but check out my spriting thread!
http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=11772.0
Here's a look at my vanilla mod thread, progressing one step at a time!
http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=11785.0

Pride

High HP Growth/Mult Monks are... amazing users of Equip Armor, so giving them hats and lower HP stats or removing equip armor is probably the best way unless you don't care about them being strong hp sponges.
  • Modding version: PSX
Check out my ASM thread. Who doesn't like hax?

Lionheart537

August 03, 2017, 09:27:34 pm #51 Last Edit: August 03, 2017, 10:16:24 pm by Lionheart537
Yeah severely lower their HP multiplier I think. Also maybe just forget about Paladin and share those skills with Monk and Knight. They're kinda a melding pot of those and Holy Knight anyway. As much as i like the idea of them they really don't have a place without undermining other jobs. Yeah I think that might be for the best. Hmm that would make Calc and Dancer/Bard jobs empty.

Also I'm having second thoughts on Blue Mages now. They would kinda fill Samurai's spot with wildly diverse abilities, but overshadow monsters (well besides immense Hp values). I could take an idea I saw and make Sammy into a magicite user with the same mechanics (require big item graphic changes though). Move Dark Knight to calculator spot. Of course that means Idk who'd get Invite. Maybe Bards/Dancers as beast tamers and buffers? Or toss it on Thieves who already get some vanilla Mediator skills. Hmm... a lot to think about.

EDIT: i'm a bit biased against Sammy as I just don't see Samurai in a clearly European-Fantasy setting making a lot of sense. Still a lot less work to leave them be.

EDIT: The magicite could be unique in the way that each adds stat boosts and/or status buffs but are near worthless for standard attacks. On the other hand katanas are pretty cool and again, less work on my part. Or just use Blue Mages and leave calc, bard, and dancer empty or for a brand new job idea. I might be stuck on this awhile...

As an unrelated question are Faith and Innocent status worth using? They aren't useless i know but seem kinda gimmicky with silence, disable, stat buffs/debuffs, and the Curse status i want to asm in (makes unit take extra damage from all sources until removed or unit dies).

As always thanks for your time and advice everyone!
  • Modding version: PSX
It's not much yet but check out my spriting thread!
http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=11772.0
Here's a look at my vanilla mod thread, progressing one step at a time!
http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=11785.0

nitwit

If everyone has weapon guard then debuffs like blind are more useful, but since Monks can't equip weapons this doesn't benefit them.

If class evasion applies to both physical and magical attacks then it benefits classes that have good evasion and are normally soft targets for wizards and summoners (and calculators are less OP).

If you want to go the HP sponge route then reduce Monk class evasion and limit their equipment even more (no clothes and no hat).  This monk is best served by reactions that assume it will get hit, and do something to negate the damage or give a bonus.  HP Restore, Regenerator, A Save, and Brave Up are good.

Alternately you can let a monk have a hat and clothes, but reduce their HP and give them a self-targeting buff that costs a lot of MP and has a long charge time.

A Monk with high evasion and not a lot of HP is best served by reactions that make it hard to hit or reduce damage - sunken state, abandon, and hamedo are great.  Hamedo is especially good if you are fighting face-to-face a lot.  You're less likely to survive long enough to counter, so you need something that avoids damage altogether or allows you to avoid further damage.

Knight is viable if you give it a short-ranged (2 squares) debuff (berserk is a good one), the ability to equip spears, and a very minor buff to all adjacent allies but not itself (defending).

Faith and innocent are kinda dumb, they make the Mediator less useful.  They make mages either maximally effective or totally useless.  They are one of the few status effects that have CTs, and there are hacks to let you mess around with status effect CTs.  I would use them to give other debuffs a charge time.

Here's a diagram:

status effect has ct ct notes/todo

charging n
performing n
defending ? lasts until next turn, or maybe until hit next?
jumping n

float n
reraise n
invisible n TODO give ct
regen y 36
protect y 32
shell y 32 TODO share ct with protect
haste y 32

sleep y 60
poison y 36 TODO share ct with regen
darkness n TODO give ct
oil n TODO remove
petrify n
confuse n TODO give ct
silence n TODO give ct, share with darkness
frog n TODO give ct
slow y 24 TODO share ct with haste
stop y 20
don't move y 24
don't act y 24 TODO share ct with don't move
death sentence y 3 lasts 3 turns exactly
blood suck n
undead n
chicken n
charm y 32
invite n
critical n
dead n technically only lasts 4 turns before eliminated
crystal n TODO probably remove
treasure n TODO probably remove

berserk n TODO give ct, share with berserk
innocent y 32 TODO remove/replace
faith y 32 TODO remove/replace
reflect y 32 TODO no ct

dark sprite n TODO remove
wall n TODO remove

there are limited number of ct slots
make another table with statuses that will share a ct, and list of available cts



A more interesting curse ability is one that negates all healing until it is removed or the unit dies.

Off the top of my head, a good debuff for early game is undead.  It makes killing anyone with auto-potion much easier, it is an effective way to negate most healing, it makes anyone with rereaise unrevivable by any means (counter to chantage).

On the flip side, it is sometimes an effective buff: it heals dark elemental abilities, it reverses absorption when the caster is not undead, it allows you to cancel death sentence, it makes the Death spell (but not add: dead) restore you to full HP, and there''s a chance that character will revive when their time runs out after they are dead.

With this in mind, you can build a class around the undead status.  Either a death knight that is undead and has some melee means to inflict undead; or a dark mage with dark elemental spells, a death spell (the formula for the death spell is what you want), HP absorption, and a spell that inflicts undead and maybe blood suck.  I'm not sure if blood suck'd enemies will attack undead units, as this should lose HP for them.

If you really want to be cheesy, make a death warrior, reduce its faith to zero, increase its brave to 100, and give it the Catch reaction.  It should not be possible to kill this if it's armored, it has good support and movement abilities, and it has other means to reduce damage.

Lionheart537

Quote from: nitwit on August 04, 2017, 02:05:57 am
Faith and innocent are kinda dumb, they make the Mediator less useful.  They make mages either maximally effective or totally useless.  They are one of the few status effects that have CTs, and there are hacks to let you mess around with status effect CTs.  I would use them to give other debuffs a charge time.

A more interesting curse ability is one that negates all healing until it is removed or the unit dies...Off the top of my head, a good debuff for early game is undead...it is an effective way to negate most healing.

I agree with most of your status changes and I'll definitely aim to remove/replace faith and innocent. It should be possible to change that mist and rasp (MP regen and poison) status hack from wall and blank status to overwrite Faith and innocent, right? I'll look into that when I'm messing with it. I'd also prefer 10% over the default 25% each turn. I'll try fiddling with it after i eventually get my feet wet with assembly of course.

On the Curse status I was going to use a hack (by Razele iirc) to make Oil increase damage from all sources; unless Oil makes it wear off after 1 hit, then I'd use evil looking status. Like you said Undead already cancels traditional healing so i don't need Curse for that. I mean it's not a necessary status but why not make oil functional/better? I would opt for a 20-25% increase though not 50 or 100 or whatever oil is meant to add.

Also yes I see Beowulf Death Knight being something like that. I recall a formula hack that double casts raise, then undead and/or charm (or something like that set up) for a necromancy skill. It might conflict or not work but it's an interesting possibility; although I'd probably not use it regardless.

Moar questions because I'm needy.
With haste and slow should I cut Sp affecting moves? I see this a lot and I agree because the two together are abusible and Speed is arguably the most important stat imo.

And on my blue mage/bard/samurai crisis i had the thought: why not just combine them? Just as Summoner is unique with Enemy/Ally only magic damage/heals this BardSammy could be a foil with ally/enemy only buffs and (maybe) debuffs. Make the skills require casting time and Mp. Remove repeat, full-map effect, and item require/break chance. Thief is already getting some old talk skills and has poach and secret shop, so why not give them Invite privileges too?
  • Modding version: PSX
It's not much yet but check out my spriting thread!
http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=11772.0
Here's a look at my vanilla mod thread, progressing one step at a time!
http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=11785.0

nitwit

Quote from: Lionheart537 on August 05, 2017, 02:29:03 am
I agree with most of your status changes and I'll definitely aim to remove/replace faith and innocent. It should be possible to change that mist and rasp (MP regen and poison) status hack from wall and blank status to overwrite Faith and innocent, right? I'll look into that when I'm messing with it. I'd also prefer 10% over the default 25% each turn. I'll try fiddling with it after i eventually get my feet wet with assembly of course.

Remember that are are only so many CTs available for status effects when you create new ones.  Mist/Rasp could use the same CT slot since I assume they cancel each other.

Quote from: Lionheart537 on August 05, 2017, 02:29:03 am
On the Curse status I was going to use a hack (by Razele iirc) to make Oil increase damage from all sources; unless Oil makes it wear off after 1 hit, then I'd use evil looking status. Like you said Undead already cancels traditional healing so i don't need Curse for that. I mean it's not a necessary status but why not make oil functional/better? I would opt for a 20-25% increase though not 50 or 100 or whatever oil is meant to add.

Can't believe I didn't realize that!

Quote from: Lionheart537 on August 05, 2017, 02:29:03 am
Also yes I see Beowulf Death Knight being something like that. I recall a formula hack that double casts raise, then undead and/or charm (or something like that set up) for a necromancy skill. It might conflict or not work but it's an interesting possibility; although I'd probably not use it regardless.

I'm not sure if charm is one of the effects that is processed entirely with FFTPatcher flags, but if it is you could use another debuff for a never-ending charm solely for this ability.  Have something like Esuna cancel it.

Quote from: Lionheart537 on August 05, 2017, 02:29:03 am
Moar questions because I'm needy.
With haste and slow should I cut Sp affecting moves? I see this a lot and I agree because the two together are abusible and Speed is arguably the most important stat imo.

Reduce the amount of stat broken to 1.  This is especially true if stat breaks are more accurate.  Combined with lower overall stats and higher minimum stats it improves gameplay.  The effect of losing 1 SP is relatively linear from 9 SP to 7 SP.  Above that and it barely matters, below that and it cripples you.

Quote from: Lionheart537 on August 05, 2017, 02:29:03 am
And on my blue mage/bard/samurai crisis i had the thought: why not just combine them? Just as Summoner is unique with Enemy/Ally only magic damage/heals this BardSammy could be a foil with ally/enemy only buffs and (maybe) debuffs. Make the skills require casting time and Mp. Remove repeat, full-map effect, and item require/break chance. Thief is already getting some old talk skills and has poach and secret shop, so why not give them Invite privileges too?

I don't have any criticism of those ideas because I don't care about them either way.

I'm making Summoner into a deluxe jack of all mages, but with the traditional Summoner wide AOEs, long charge times, high MP costs, and targeting.  Eight mid-powered elemental spells, a healing spell, a revive, a buff (random 1 of almost all possible debuffs, minus the powerful ones), a debuff (similar to before), HP absorb, and MP absorb.  The spells will be slightly less powerful/accurate to compensate.

Other than HP/MP absorb, Oracle only has status effect debuffs.  Replacing Pray Faith, No Faith, and Foxbird.  Oracle gets Poison, Frog, Charm, Blood Suck, and maybe Death (the spell).

Time Mage gets some slight improvements to the less useful spells (haste 2 and slow 2), 4 range for all spells, and maybe gets Death Sentence (though maybe Oracle gets that instead).  Retains Meteor, the only non-elemental straight-up damage spells.

Wizard becomes an elementalist, gets 2 spells for every element but holy.  Loses all other spells.

Priest gets 2 holy elemental spells similar to Wizard, loses Cure 4, gets some minor improvements to less useful spells.

Mediator gains ability to cancel charging, performing, and defending (not sure if this cancels the resulting ability, have to check).  Gets some other minor changes to abilities.  Mimic Daravon and Death Sentence become odd abilities that add a debuff each at random from a number of useful and not so useful options.

I think Samurai damaging abilities accept elements.  I'll change the AOEs, ranges, elements, charge times, and mp costs of all abilities to make them all sort of useful.  I'll probably make them target all people in the AOE, but not self; and I'll remove Katana breaking.

Bard and Dancer are only getting stat and equipment changes, no ability changes except reduced AoE and minor MP costs.

I should note that all abilities that can have MP costs and CTs will.


Lionheart537

I briefly presented this before, but would pairing up some status debuffs on the "Oracle" skillset be too strong? Some would be all or nothing but most would be seperate hit chance or random. Here's the tentative skillset. Underlined ailments are what i'd prefer if they remain single status infliction.
1. Poison and Rasp
2. Disable and/or Immobilize
3. Silence and/or Sleep
4. Blind and/or Berserk
5. Drain
6. Siphon
7. Dispel
8. Undead
9. Toad
10. Petrify


I'm trying to keep jobs >10 abilities, but i'm flexible if you guys think a different set up would work better. Other jobs are also debilitory focused, but only "Oracle" has reliable aoe debuffs.
  • Modding version: PSX
It's not much yet but check out my spriting thread!
http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=11772.0
Here's a look at my vanilla mod thread, progressing one step at a time!
http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=11785.0

nitwit

Quote
1. Poison and Rasp
2. Disable and/or Immobilize
3. Silence and/or Sleep
4. Blind and/or Berserk
5. Drain
6. Siphon
7. Dispel
8. Undead
9. Toad
10. Petrify


The theme fits for each ability, but 2 and 3 are inherently unbalanced because they are always useful.  Number 2 will always be effective against warriors because they must close, but partially effective against mages.  Number 3 is always effective against mages, but is partially effective against warriors.

Blind/berserk is a good balance.  It's all or nothing for mages and warriors.  One will incapacitate a mage (berserk) while the other will do nothing (blind).  The inverse is true for warriors if everyone has decent evasion.

I can't remix them because you have two abilities (berserk, silence) that are always useful against mages, two (blind, immobilize) that are always useful against warriors, and two (sleep, disable) that are always useful against anyone.  Whichever "always useful" ability is paired with one of the other two will give you no reason to use any of the others.

Disable would be better if it prevented only the attack command.  Sleep would be better if it could be dispelled by any HP damage and it had some positive effect (minor HP and MP recovery, maybe - it becomes more neutral).

You could do something similar with other debuffs - make them conditionally buffs.  Confuse could remove berserk, charm, invite, and maybe death sentence.  You could make it act like a reset for mental debuffs.

I don't know why you're trying to save on action abilities.  Freeing up Beowulf's spell list give you more than enough slots for almost anything you could do.

Nyzer

You can balance more powerful debuffs by limiting their range, AoE, success chance, cast CT, JP cost, duration - you name it. If Blind hits the most targets, has a very high success rate, casts quickly, and lasts a long time, there's good reason to use it over Sleep, and if Sleep does all of that better than Toad/Petrify there's a reason to use it over those as well.

QuoteI don't know why you're trying to save on action abilities


Too many abilities per job just causes incredible bloat. Unless the Oracle's niche changes in some way for this patch, there's no real benefit to giving it 16 skills. There just aren't enough debuffs. You'd end up
a) taking away skills from other jobs
b) copying skills from other jobs
or c) outclassing/underclassing the skills of other jobs

Like... there's no real point to the Oracle getting Poison if the Black Mage has it. It's less jarring if both the Oracle and the Archer are the standard poisoners, as they'd be doing it differently and from different trees and all - but if you're hitting the point where you have multiple skills that just do the exact same thing within the same tree, you really should stop and consider cutting it back a bit. The idea is for jobs to be different in ways that make them worth playing, not to have players thinking "hmm, which of these three mage jobs that perform the same exact function I want should I level as?" Sure, you can give the Oracle a different kind of poison spell; changed range, added other debuffs to the same spell, yadda yadda, but then it starts getting either too unwieldy (can't get the specific effect you want) or too powerful (constantly getting that effect among others).

The only time this rule doesn't quite apply is in the case of something like the Red Mage, a job specifically designed as the jack of all trades, master of none.

And even jobs that have unique skills that don't take away from other jobs still shouldn't be looking at 16 active skills - either you've made that job too versatile, or you just have a lot of skills that you'll never use or almost never use due to them being extremely situational.
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown

RavenOfRazgriz

You guys seriously need to learn concepts like design simplicity and designing with an objective in mind for each character to achieve.  All this focus I've seen on narrow design (ie, classes that basically only do one thing) from my skimming of this thread isn't a good thing, unless your goal is for some skillsets to only be used in specific scenarios and others to be stapled to people's hips.

nitwit

Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on August 06, 2017, 02:48:33 pm
You guys seriously need to learn concepts like design simplicity and designing with an objective in mind for each character to achieve.  All this focus I've seen on narrow design (ie, classes that basically only do one thing) from my skimming of this thread isn't a good thing, unless your goal is for some skillsets to only be used in specific scenarios and others to be stapled to people's hips.

I don't see what's wrong with some skillsets being powerful but lacking flexibility (Wizard w/ nothing but elemental offensive magic) while others that have more flexibility come with additional costs (jack-of-all-mages Summoner with extremely expensive spells).  If every job is a mix of abilities that give them all a large degree of role flexibility then there isn't a pressing reason to ever use another job.

Quote from: nyzer on August 06, 2017, 02:25:05 pm
You can balance more powerful debuffs by limiting their range, AoE, success chance, cast CT, JP cost, duration - you name it. If Blind hits the most targets, has a very high success rate, casts quickly, and lasts a long time, there's good reason to use it over Sleep, and if Sleep does all of that better than Toad/Petrify there's a reason to use it over those as well.

Too many abilities per job just causes incredible bloat. Unless the Oracle's niche changes in some way for this patch, there's no real benefit to giving it 16 skills. There just aren't enough debuffs. You'd end up
a) taking away skills from other jobs
b) copying skills from other jobs
or c) outclassing/underclassing the skills of other jobs

Like... there's no real point to the Oracle getting Poison if the Black Mage has it. It's less jarring if both the Oracle and the Archer are the standard poisoners, as they'd be doing it differently and from different trees and all - but if you're hitting the point where you have multiple skills that just do the exact same thing within the same tree, you really should stop and consider cutting it back a bit. The idea is for jobs to be different in ways that make them worth playing, not to have players thinking "hmm, which of these three mage jobs that perform the same exact function I want should I level as?" Sure, you can give the Oracle a different kind of poison spell; changed range, added other debuffs to the same spell, yadda yadda, but then it starts getting either too unwieldy (can't get the specific effect you want) or too powerful (constantly getting that effect among others).

The only time this rule doesn't quite apply is in the case of something like the Red Mage, a job specifically designed as the jack of all trades, master of none.

And even jobs that have unique skills that don't take away from other jobs still shouldn't be looking at 16 active skills - either you've made that job too versatile, or you just have a lot of skills that you'll never use or almost never use due to them being extremely situational.


I've never once used the poison spell as a Wizard because the Wizard always has better offensive options.  That isn't always true for an Oracle.  So why not move the spell from Wizard to Oracle?  And if a class is limited in one way (can't do much damage) then that class needs options for the ways in which it can do other things (debuff).

I'm not actually changing the number of skills any class has except the Knight (gets 2 or 3 minor skills), Squire (gets +MA and Yell), Oracle (gets 2 more debuffs), and Wizard (loses 2 abilities).

The Knight gets a ranged debuff and a minor buff for allies.  The Squire expands its support role.  Oracle gets more and better debuffing options - some that don't exist outside of monsters - and loses the stuff that competes with other classes like Mediator (making Mediator more useful).  Wizard loses two abilities no one ever uses, gains more offensive flexibility, and by losing non-elemental damage spells make the remaining non-elemental damage much more useful.