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FFT Arena: Discussion Thread (12/29/09)

Started by PX_Timefordeath, December 30, 2009, 02:34:50 am

PX_Timefordeath

December 30, 2009, 02:34:50 am Last Edit: July 10, 2010, 01:59:43 pm by PX_Timefordeath
AeroGP runs it now

Quote from: "Zodiac"The idea is Asmo's:

An AI Tournament patch.
Yes, right now we're using 1.3 as a base for AI tournaments, but there are many cons to that. 1.3 needs to be rebalanced for multiplayer use. Just look: many skills cannot be accessed, golem is utterly broken, only the top available items are used, no tier 3 monsters, etc.
The goal of such a patch would be to create an item pool where every item has a different use, but in overall is not better or worse than another item in the same category. The same would go for monsters; tier 3 would not be superior to tier 1, only different. Everything would be balanced for multiplayer use only.

Okay ye lazy bastards, guess I'll start this damn topic.

Changelist:

ASM:
Uses Final Fantasy ASM'd as a base. (See this thread for more information)
  • ASM'd growths implemented, EXCEPT Speed.
  • Jump increase to 3/2 still requires Spears.
  • Axes get new formula ([(0 + (1..PA)) + PA] * WP); Flails retain 1.3 formula ([WP] * WP)
  • "Equip X" is unchanged. (No Equip Crossbow+Bow, for instance)
  • 1.3 Sage class is used.
  • If possible, Two-Hands hacked to only increase WP by 50%; otherwise, Samurai lose innate Two-Hands.
  • Thieves lose innate Concentrate. Instead, they gain Vanish: 1 CTR, Self-inflicted Transparent.
  • Bulldemon family gains Counter reaction, since Caution is now innate to all monsters.
  • Other ASM'd skillset changes and new abilities are PENDING. (These need to be discussed for competitive purposes)
Fury Hack is also inputted at Brave+35% damage done and taken.

Jobs:
Thieves/Ninjas lose 1 Speed.
Mime is allowed with average PA/MA. (Only one mime per team)

Items:

Daggers
Daggers DO NOT lose +1 Speed
Orichalcum is 9 WP, 5% W-EV, +2 MA
Assassin Dagger is 12 WP, 5% W-EV, 25% Death Sentence
Air Knife is 11 WP, 5% W-EV, Wind-elemental, 25% Sleep

Ninja Swords
Hidden Knife is 7 WP, 0% W-EV, Initial: Transparent (it sucks, but whatev)
Spell Edge is 12 WP, 10% W-EV, 25% Don't Move
Iga Knife is 11 WP, 15% W-EV, Wind-elemental; Boost: Earth
Koga Knife is 11 WP, 15% W-EV, Earth-elemental; Boost: Wind

Swords
All swords have 10% W-EV
Ancient Sword is 14 WP, 25% Don't Move
Ice Brand is 13 WP, Ice-elemental
Rune Blade is 11 WP, +2 MA
Blood Sword is 10 WP, Absorbs Damage as HP (Undead reversal, Not usable with Two-Swords)

Knight Swords
Defender is 18 WP, 30% W-EV, Cancel: Don't Move, Don't Act
Save the Queen is 16 WP, 25% W-EV, Always: Protect

Katanas
(This is actually pending, and I'm looking for some really good ideas on what to do with them)
Murasame is 12 WP, 20 W-EV, +1 MA, Water-elemental, Restores HP
Heaven's Cloud is 13 WP, 20 W-EV, +1 PA, Wind-elemental
Kikuichimonji is 16 WP, 20 W-EV, 25% Silence

Axes
Axes are now 1-handed, but cannot be used with two-swords or two-hands.
Giant Axe is 7 WP, 25% W-EV, Earth-elemental, Boost: Earth, Wind, Water (note: no Axe proc)
Slasher 12 WP, 30% W-EV, 25% Decapitate

Rods
Thunder/Flame/Ice Rod are 4 WP, 5% W-EV, 25% Bolt/Fire/Ice2
Poison Rod is 8 WP, 5% W-EV, 100% Poison
Wizard Rod is 4 WP, 5% W-EV, +2 MA
Faith Rod is 4 WP, 20% W-EV, Always: Faith, 25% Faith

Staves
Healing Staff is 8 WP, 10% W-EV, Restore HP, Boost: Holy (note: NOT holy-elemental)
Wizard Staff is 4 WP, 10% W-EV, +2 MA
Gold Staff is 10 WP, 10% W-EV, +2 PA, 25% Dispel

Flails
Flails lose Two Hands compatibility, but DO NOT return to regular random formula
Flame Whip is 10 WP, 10% W-EV, Fire-elemental, Boost: Fire
Morning Star is 11 WP, 10% W-EV

Guns
Mythril Gun is 9 WP, 5% W-EV, +1 MA, 25% Slow
Blaze Gun is 12, 5% W-EV, 5-Range, Casts Ice/2/3
Glacier Gun is 12, 5% W-EV, 5-Range, Casts Fire/2/3
Blast Gun is 12, 5% W-EV, 5-Range, Casts Bolt/2/3

Crossbows
Hunting Bow is 12 WP, 5% W-EV, 25% Second Attack
Gastrafitis is 14 WP, 5% W-EV

Longbows
Long Bow is 12 WP, 5% W-EV, 5-Range
Windslash Bow is 10 WP, 5% W-EV, Wind-elemental
Mythril Bow is 11 WP, 5% W-EV, +1 PA

Harps
Lamia Harp is 13 WP, 10% W-EV, 25% Confuse
Bloody Strings is 13 WP, 10% W-EV, Absorbs Damage as HP (Undead reversal)
Fairy Harp is 13 WP, 10% W-EV, 25% Charm

Books
Battle Dict is 13 WP,  0% W-EV, 25% Zombie
Monster Dict is 11 WP, 0% W-EV, 25% Sleep
Papyrus Plate is 9 WP, 0% W-EV, 25% Petrify

Spears
Partisan is 14 WP, 20% W-EV, 25% Cancel: Protect (note: cannot be thrown)
Oberisk is 13, 10% W-EV, +1 PA
Holy Lance is 11, 10% W-EV, Holy-elemental, 25% Holy

Sticks
Ivory Rod is 10 WP, 15% W-EV, +2 MA
Octagon Rod is 12 WP, 25% W-EV, Cancel: Frog (100%)
Whale Whisker is 11 WP, 15% W-EV, Water-elemental

Bags
All bags are 12 WP, 0 W-EV
C Bag is +1 MA
FS Bag is +2 PA
P Bag is Always: Regen (maybe Initial: Regen, we'll see)
H Bag is Half: all elements

Cloths
All cloths are 0 WP, 35% W-EV, Initial: Defend
Persia is Always: Protect
Cashmere is Always: Shell
Ryozan Silk is Initial: Haste (wanted Always: Regen, but... =/)

Throwables
All throwables are 9 WP, except Shuriken which is 11 WP.

Shields
Ice Shield is 20% P-EV, 15% M-EV, Absorb: Ice, Weak: Fire
Fire Shield is 20% P-EV, 15% M-EV, Absorb: Fire, Weak: Ice
Gold Shield is 20% P-EV, 15% M-EV, Absorb: Thunder, Weak: Earth
Aegis Shield is 10% P-EV, 50% M-EV, +1 MA, Cancel: Silence
Crystal Shield is 25% P-EV, 20% M-EV, +1 PA, Cancel: Stop

Hemlets
Platina Helmet is 95 HP, 0 MP, +1 PA
Circlet is 115 HP, 25 MP, +1 MA
Crystal Helmet is 150 HP, 0 MP, Cancel: Sleep

Hats
Twist Headband is 56 HP, 0 MP, +2 PA
Black Hood is 100 HP, 0 MP, Cancel: Don't Move, Don't Act
Golden Hairpin is 80 HP, 50 MP, +1 MA, Cancel: Silence
Thief Hat is 45 HP, 0 MP, +1 Speed, Cancel: Charm
Flash Hat, 30 HP, 25 MP, +1 MA, +1 Speed
Ribbon is 20 HP, 0 MP, Cancel: All negative statuses

Armor
Carabini Mail is 115 HP, 0 MP, +1 PA
Crystal Mail is 170 HP, 0 MP, Cancel: Petrify
Reflect Mail is 145 HP, 0 MP, Always: Reflect

Clothes
Power Sleeve is 70 HP, 0 MP, +2 PA
Earth Clothes is 85 HP, 10 MP, Absorb: Earth, Boost: Earth
Black Costume is 100 HP, 0 MP, Absorb: Fire, Cancel: Stop
Rubber Costume is 50 HP, Absorb: Thunder, Cancel: Don't Move

Robes
Wizard Robe is 30 HP, 22 MP, +2 MA
White Robe is 45 HP, 60 MP, Half: Thunder, Fire, Ice
Black Robe is 60 HP, 45 MP, Boost: Thunder, Fire, Ice
Light robe is 55 HP, 50 MP, Always: Regen, Weak: Darkness (apparently this isn't enough...)

Accessories
Germinas Boots is +1 Move, +1 Jump
Rubber Shoes is 30% M-EV, +1 Move, Cancel: Thunder
Sprint Shoes is +1 Speed
Bracer is +2 PA
Magic Gauntlets is +2 MA
Reflect Ring is Always: Reflect
Defense Ring is Cancel: Sleep, Berserk, Death Sentence
Magic Ring is +1 MA, Cancel: Silence, Absorb: Earth, Wind (note: Absorb: Water is now removed)
Angel Ring is Initial: Reraise, Cancel: Blind, Dead
Diamond Armlet is +1 PA, +1 MA, Cancel: Slow
Jade Armlet is Cancel: Stop, Petrify
108 Gems is Cancel: Blood Suck, Undead, Frog, Poison, Boost: All elements
N-Kai Armlet is Cancel: Confusion, Charm, Half: Darkness
Wizard Mantle is 10% P.EV, 20% M.EV, +1 MA
Elf Mantle is 15% P.EV, 15% M.EV, Initial: Transparent
Feather Mantle is 20% P.EV, 10% M.EV, Always: Float
(Perfumes are dead; Feather Boots is dead until I can think of a boost to give it)

Abilities:
Charm duration is ASM'd implementation.
Potion is BANNED (or whatever equivalent we come up with so that Hi-Potion (70 HP) is the minimum potion for Auto-Potion).
Cure4 now only heals one unit.
Ice/Fire/Bolt4 are now 10 CT and can hit the caster
Meteor is 12 CT, Dmg_F(MA*45), 70 MP Cost, Hits Allies
Drain is both vanilla Drain and 1.3 Diminish (Dark-elemental, 33% damage healed as hp, Undead Reversal)
Pray Faith and Doubt Faith are now 1 CT
Salamander/Leviathan are Dmg_F(MA*13), 3 AOE
Golem is now 6 CT with Caster Faith/100*(MA+10%) to hit
Zodiac is Dmg_F(MA*47), 10 CT, 99 MP Cost
Chirijiraden is MA*15, Hits Allies and Caster
Last Song is 20% to hit
Nameless Song loses Random Flags
Nameless Dance is now 10% to hit and loses random hits flag
Throw Axe is back in Throw Skillset

Dome

Quote from: "PX_Timefordeath"The goal of such a patch would be to create an item pool where every item has a different use, but in overall is not better or worse than another item in the same category. The same would go for monsters; tier 3 would not be superior to tier 1, only different. Everything would be balanced for multiplayer use only.
So, we should take every uberpowa item and ability, and nerf it a bit, so nothing is truly uberbroken, I guess...

"Be wise today so you don't cry tomorrow"

philsov

Context is HUGE.  Are we assuming to still be level 35, in a 4v4 match with AI control?
Just another rebel plotting rebellion.

PX_Timefordeath

Yes, here, we'll discuss what to change, how to change it, and then change it to test. Right now, we're in discussion time, but we'll assume that it's 4v4 AI matches with AI control. Level is to be decided.

philsov

ok, then... regarding the job trees:

Speed and jobs (and items):

Fast mages are horrible.  The worst possible opener would be for a mage to go before a melee goes, march into the middle of the field, charge some big ass spell, and then promptly die from the charging debuff.  

Plus... Priest, while 8 speed at level 35 in 1.3, does have a 110 SPM and usually is 1 speed point ahead of the 100 SPM jackbutts.  Additionally at level 35 being at 100 SPM isn't *that* big of a liability.  So I suggest dropping the +1 sp off carabini mail.  This enables all the mages to equip +Sp gear if desired, and prohibits Knight/Lancer/Samu from having +1 sp from head/armor.  Priest and Time Mage are also the only mage classes that should have higher SPMs, because haste/protect/shell can be reduced to 1 CTR with short charge, ensuring minimal liability.  Oracle is a contender, but for the life of me I can't ever prompt them to cast blind over ANY other spell.  But at least priests with slightly better SPC and armored units without +Sp armor fixes that gap.

Regarding reactions and movements, both absorb used MP and critical quick certainly have their places, and I wouldn't call jump +1/2 worthwhile.  And this is more just classes themselves... there just simply aren't that many reactions for mages in the first place, much less useful ones (they share about the same worthwhile:useless ratio).  Hm.  Swap Dragon Spirit over to Priest and give Squires Caution for starters.

Regarding damage output... just remove innate 2h/DW from Samu and Ninja.  They'll still do comparable damage with the rest, and samu is half there for draw out anyways so it can lose some single-target strength anyways.  Flare/Holy/Flare2 will become the top dogs but they'll still be marred by charge time and MP cost.  

For items... EVERY item with a different use is a stretch -- there's only so much that can be done with gear.  But currently there's maybe 2 decent weapon choices per slot, and 3 head/chest slots for light/heavy armor.  Using robes as an example, 3/4 of them  can be brought into the fold by simply normalizing their HP/MP stat boosts:

Robes - All add 70 HP and 50 MP.  
Light Robe - Regen
Black Robe - Boost Fire/Ice/Lit
White Robe - Half Fire/Ice/Lit
Cham Robe - Absorb:Holy, Cancel:dead
Wizard Robe - +1 MA
Robe of Lord - 85 HP, 80 MP.  No stat boost.

Past that I have no clue how to make Silk/Linen worthwhile.  But we can do similar things to the other armors.  Weapons... probably 3 or 4 per slot is a good idea; through a mix of WP, add:status/procs, and +X stats.
Just another rebel plotting rebellion.

Zaen

I'm thinking about how to balance out weapons, whether it be added status effects, procs, WP difference, or stat boosts. The thing is, there's tons of weapons to balance, and it's hard making everything unique.

This may be a crazy idea... but what about giving each class it's own set of unique items? Like Knight, Geomancer, and whoever else gets swords get different ones available, each having different perks to using them? This kind of reminds me of Soul Calibur, with each person having similar weapons, but different styles. This could make it more interesting.

Here's a possible idea. Geomancer Sword could give a different element boost, but with a slightly lower WP, say 10 instead of what a Knight could have, like 12. On the other hand, a Knight's basic sword could give it a speed point, and has more WP. The idea is having weapons fitting needs of the class. This only will work because of it being an Arena patch, as there's no way to diversify weapons that specifically ingame. It's not like you're giving a NPC random.
"Oh, God!! The Hokuten!!" ~Guard, Sand Rat Cellar

Xifanie

Here are my ideas:
- For ranged weapons we can increase/decrease the attack range
- For daggers we can place 25% add status
- For the rest we can increase the Cast spell on hit to 50/75/100% and add fitting skills.
- Staves/Harps can add positive status by 100%
- Make armor add something special but prevent some positive statuses.
- Reflect Shield: Always reflect but crap evasion
- Make bad status HARDER to recover from, but offer more options. Esuna/Remedy/Sitgma Magic anyone? The weaker items like Antidote can stay all 100%.
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<R999> My target market is not FFT mod players
<Raijinili> remember that? it was awful

PX_Timefordeath

Asmo had the idea to add elemental weaknesses to more things, and I want elemental boosts to more things, so that mages and low level black magic have more effectiveness in it.

Look through the list of items, and we are only using about 10% of them currently. We have a lot we can edit.

Looking through the patcher, there are 80 item attributes we can edit. There are 239 editable items. 127 weapons, 112 equipment.

16 Shields, 32 Access, 64 pieces of armor.

Also, are we agreed at everyone being level 35?

Dome

Quote from: "PX_Timefordeath"Also, are we agreed at everyone being level 35?
Why not 99?

"Be wise today so you don't cry tomorrow"

philsov

99 is a poor choice in 1.3 because of stat scaling -- everything is so fast that charge-time abilities are nigh-unless, and the MA/PA to HP ratio is a bit different than at 35.  Basically it'd be a one-shot fest across the board and the metagame would de-evolve.  We're going for balance, not power.

A more radical idea would be to simply make these level 35-like stats level 1.  We can modifiy the pre-raw stats and then we can never have to mess with growths and instead focus purely on multipliers for class balancings.  Additionally this also means we'd be able to pick up people from the soldier office already prepped for action, zodiac/br/fa permitting.  No need for exp or JP grinding, imo.  Then we can unlock all the gear right at the start, do some attack.out and world map editing to go to the deep dungeon (anywhere, really, but this is most compatibile with zodiac's latest creation, I think), and just barrel through fights as desired.
Just another rebel plotting rebellion.

Samuraiblackbelt

instead of trying to make ALL the items useful, we might as well just make like 5 of each, or something like that. it would reduce the need to come up with lots of variations to make them all useful.

Quote- For daggers we can place 25% add status
I don't think this is going to be enough. in an AI tourney I wouldn't want the items I choose to rely on luck, I would rather choose something with stat boosts that I know are going to work, rather than hope the enemy is blinded/poisoned/death sentenced/etc.
giving daggers more weapon power wouldn't work, daggers should be weak, but we need to do something more to make them useful.

other than that I think all Zodiac's ideas are good.


give all armor of the same type the same HP, but add different stuff to make them more useful.

all shields could have elemental attributes, like ice shield and fire shield, only more of them. we could do one for each element. they could either half or or absorb the element of the shield.

we could give heavy helmets add: blind, but give them large HP or stat boosts
<JoZ> I'm not Wiz. Even if I were, I wouldn't be narcissistic enough to go under an alt and comment on my own team.

PGF: "You are ignoring this user. Click to see their post."

Xifanie

Quote from: "philsov"Additionally this also means we'd be able to pick up people from the soldier office already prepped for action, zodiac/br/fa permitting.  No need for exp or JP grinding, imo.  Then we can unlock all the gear right at the start, do some attack.out and world map editing to go to the deep dungeon (anywhere, really, but this is most compatibile with zodiac's latest creation, I think), and just barrel through fights as desired.
Giving that my patch works solely on home made saves on a custom memory card, all this stuff is meaningless. I had to disable every location but the deep dungeon because my music hacks act funny (and tend to crash) when exiting bar/shop/soldier office.
Oh but don't worry, for what it gets and its purpose it is fully functional.

What about job levels? I thought that we could remove them all so people only have to spend JP in abilities they will use. Maybe a 250JP cost for job unlock? Just throwing in ideas.
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Anything is possible as long as it is within the hardware's limits. (ie. disc space, RAM, Video RAM, processor, etc.)
<R999> My target market is not FFT mod players
<Raijinili> remember that? it was awful

PX_Timefordeath

@Samurai

But a tournament is not fun if there is a small pool to choose from. If there are large pools, the fun of it all will come from trying to find the next greatest combination of skills, items, and units. Also, many strategies also increases interest. You might want to go with a luck team, being able to slaughter anything in one hit or watching the team crash hard. You might go with an average team, where it isn't great, but no real weaknesses. I say make a large pool out of everything.

Zaen

That sounds like a plan, using JP to unlock jobs. Thing is, we'd either need to place a higher JP cost than 250 for each job, or lower the amount of JP. With 250 JP unlock, if you use stuff from 5 different classes, you'd be down 1k JP, with 2400 for your abilities... maybe it's just me, but that seems like a bit too much to spend on whatever you want.
"Oh, God!! The Hokuten!!" ~Guard, Sand Rat Cellar

PX_Timefordeath

Actually, spending 250 of your 3400 jp to be able to get abilities from that job sounds good. Although, doing this we might have to lower the 3400 jp.

philsov

tbh the 3400 element is just another variation introduced.  There doesn't need to be a JP cap at all, in fact that's how we did most tourneys at Super Tact.  There's just simply banned abilities/classes and everything else is free game.  In terms of a real patch it's probably just simpler to unlock the classes and make most if not all the abilities cost >10 JP so you can just select what you want and ignore the rest, since there's no real way to juggle around a JP cap ingame.  And then the banned abilities will simply just be inaccessible.

This of course means things like sages with abandon and singing knights, so if you're really going for a "larger pool" it just kinda follows.
Just another rebel plotting rebellion.

Xifanie

Actually, I think being able to choose your own action abilities adds to the fun. It allows to build more specialized unit members and teams.

We talked about this patch a bit in chat; here's the idea. Implement the fury hack to change physical damage to 25+fury%. If you get the idea with a fury range of 40 to 70 (65%-95%), 40 vs 40 fury would deal 42% physical damage while 70 vs 70 fury would deal 90% physical damage. Sure the difference is not HUGE, but for a mage reducing physical damage to 65% can mean a lot...
Yes weapons and other physical abilities will deal less damage but faith based magic really needs the boost compared to physical attacks. And anyway it gives a reason to have low fury(brave) on a unit.
If we were to make spell cast 100% on hit, we could see real different setups. A mage could use its rod to cast a strong spell on a target, but of course since most warriors have lower faith than mages, the overall damage will be much greater against other mages. Coincidentally, warriors could benefit from having higher faith or MA to cast stronger, or higher % hit to hit, spells with their weapon.
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Anything is possible as long as it is within the hardware's limits. (ie. disc space, RAM, Video RAM, processor, etc.)
<R999> My target market is not FFT mod players
<Raijinili> remember that? it was awful

boomkick

Why not just remake the job tree to include many more classes other then the ones we have on the original job tree.

This means to change each of the inaccessible classes into something different and completely original requiring base job unlocks to get to. This would create more variety and may actually feel more interesting.

Examples would be:
1.To add a Mage/Knight hybrid into the middle of the job tree to create a jack of all trades, yet not the better then both (I was thinking of a Swordskill class, yet the actions would be very weak compared to current 1.3 standards).
2. Create another class focused on bringing down monsters
3. A Unique class that gets it's own choice of action abilities, yet costs so much JP to unlock they get only three action abilities, including R/S/M.
4. Add classes (with permission of course) from other projects, yet balanced in a way to keep it from being overpowered or underpowered in tournament standards.

-Lancer's Vertical Jump should cost less JP, maybe 100-150 less then it's current cost.
-Thief's Hat should be re-balanced and returned to the pool of items.
-There needs to be Charm Immunity on something other than a accessory.
-Elemental Shields for elements, meaning one for each elements (Flame, Frost, Shock, etc.). This will fill up the "weaker" shield slots so we can use shields other then the top tier.
-Sword that adds speed, another that adds PA, and another that adds MA.
-Spears that cancel specific negative statuses and have their WP balanced with the negative ailment they block.
-Lower-Tier clothing (one of them maybe) gets initial protect with low HP/MP bonuses. The Lowest-Tier clothing gets always protect and no HP/MP bonus.
-Hats the same as clothing, except the status is Shell.
-Book procs stay.
-Mythril Gun should be reduced in range just a bit, eight is a bit much.

Those are my opinions on what should be changed. Some of them are weird, yes, but they are suggestions of course.

Xifanie

I think you misunderstand the point of this patch. No item should be superior to any other of the same type; just different. There won't be such a thing as "lowest tier". And all items will be available. Maybe we could add a series of rare items (like one-two rare items per team), but that's probably a bad idea.
This patch won't be based on 1.3 either.
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Anything is possible as long as it is within the hardware's limits. (ie. disc space, RAM, Video RAM, processor, etc.)
<R999> My target market is not FFT mod players
<Raijinili> remember that? it was awful

boomkick

What I meant by "tier" was that the dagger was considered a lower tier compared to a main guage or assassins dagger and etc. I was trying to give ideas so that balance will be there or just ideas for variety so that all items will be used and not just the most powerful ones.