Patch Proposals/Ideas Thread

[MiKeMiTchi]

^ I like the idea, Skip.
I really like the idea of implementing 'slashing', 'piercing', and 'bludgeoning'.
Feels like Atlus' Etrian Odyssey skill system.

[Skip Sandwich]

considering making all stats equipment based on my personal patch, found the following values in FFT Patcher to result in 0 stat growth over 99 levels

Code Select Expand

           HP MP  PA MA SP
Growth      255 255 255  255  255
Multiplier  4   7 25 25 20
The above growth/multiplier combos result in both start and end values of 1 in all stats

Needless to say, since hp is based entirely on equipment as well, armor breaking/stealing abilities would be removed from the game (just armor, helms and other equipment will be fair game, but I would also be tying speed to armor, allowing me to keep it constant throughout the game)

Another benefit is that monsters actually become special, as the ability to increase stats via level up would become unique to them (monster speed growth is going to be a problem spot, not quite sure what i'm going to do for that yet)

[Dokurider]

I got an interesting idea for a patch. Turn FFT into one big movie or cutscene. I got the idea from some guy at rpg.net. However the way he was going about it was pretty much fail.

[samuchan]

How about a way to implement handedness?

Right handed people have a slight damage boost (maybe +6.25-12.5%?) when a weapon is worn on their right hand, and a slight evasion bonus when a shield is worn on the right hand (where applicable).  Status effects can also be given a +2-4% chance of happening on a person's preferred hand as well.

Maybe handedness also affects which hand is raised when someone cast a spell or ability.

Ooo - Two hands can also affect magic - Caster uses both hands to cast the magic for extra damage/success rate.

[formerdeathcorps]

If you really insist on doing this, which I don't, the only fair one I can think of is +5 crit in preferred hand and -5% crit in the less-used hand and +5 P/M-EV on the preferred hand and -5 P/M-EV on the less-used hand.  But how would the player know the handedness of a unit?  Remember, this would be extra game data the game must then store for every unit class ever generated, and I'm not sure there would be space for that.

Two hands affecting magic would be like Turbo MP in FFTA, but that wouldn't work too well since status magic wouldn't be boosted by nearly as much as damage magic.

[samuchan]

Tie handedness to zodiac sign?

[Skip Sandwich]

I just had a crazy idea, this will need some testing to see if it'll actually work, but anyway..

some may know already of the workaround 1.3 uses to mess with unit sprites, by messing with a job's M.Graphic, M.Portrait, and M.Palette options. Well, what if you used this ability to swap humans and monsters? Humans would then be limited to special jobs and have an equipment based advancement, whereas monsters would be able to transform into different forms(jobs), much like monsters in the SaGa series, and would have ability and level based advancement. I'll do some testing with this idea and get back here later.

[Skip Sandwich]

back from testing, initial testing positive, the only kink seems to be that the squire job cannot be changed back to once you change out of it, if your spriteset is set to 82 Monster, but otherwise everything works like normal

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Tie handedness to zodiac sign?

Seems too much of an arbitrary move to me.

back from testing, initial testing positive, the only kink seems to be that the squire job cannot be changed back to once you change out of it, if your spriteset is set to 82 Monster, but otherwise everything works like normal

You can always make the monster-Squire job some pre-evolved thing and note "once you [evolve/whatever] your monster, it cannot go back to its pre-[evolved/whatever] form" or something.

[Skip Sandwich]

yeah, but said unit can still freely change back and forth between any other pesudo-monster job, or even human jobs (with a glitchy sprite), just not back to the squire-based job. So a better solution would be to lock squire out of the monster job trees entirely, and have all human classes branch off from squire, while monster classes branch off from Mime or something similar.

[The Damned]

some may know already of the workaround 1.3 uses to mess with unit sprites, by setting a job to use a different spiteset when set to monster gender.

Could you further explain for those of us unaware of what you speak of?

Also, I'm certain what you speak of with regards to humans only having access to "special jobs". Do you mean that they can change into special jobs? Or that units in special jobs are unaffected since those special jobs already take the place of Squire, which is the only job always has to be open?

Nice to see the SaGa series get some love.

[ffta707]

This is sort of a patch, but sort of a question. I've been thinking about this lately, and some of you, and even me a little may think it would ruin the classic tactics. But I thought that it might be possible (with some of our best Spriters) If you could touch up on the details, generate some really precised palettes, and improve maps. Overall, more of a patch of improved graphics, looking more in the lines of viewtopic.php?f=13&t=4659. I think it would be pretty cool, but I'm not sure if the hardware limits any sort of graphics improvement, and I'm sure people with bad PC's wouldn't favor the patch because I've heard people talking about lag in fft.

P.S.

I'm not thinking that Mike's map can be played in game, because I'm not sure what ganesha can do, but I'm just suggesting the graphics could look a little like that on sprites.

[formerdeathcorps]

You really can't improve the graphics.  There's a limit of 16 colors per sprite and probably similar limits for the palette of tile types.

Naturally, if you were to improve the graphics, you'd also have to improve the system it runs on.  But if you're going to do that, you'd might as well redesign the AI...and pretty soon, you'd already have another game.

[Skip Sandwich]

@Thedamned
All jobs have a set of flags that determine what sprite, palette and portrait that a unit set to use spriteset 82 (normally used for monster jobs) will use when set to that job, as opposed to spriteset 80 (generic male) or 81 (generic female). So you can use this to force a job to use a different spriteset then normal. 1.3 uses this a lot in deep dungeon to have 'special generics' or units with special character jobs but generic job sprites.

[ffta707]

I figured there was a limit. It would be pretty cool if it could be done though.

[The Damned]

Oh Skip Sandwich~~.

I again to wish to subscribe to your newsletter. As such, I would ask that you once again come hither and explain one of your earlier proposals.

Armor is divided into 3 categories; Plate (heavy armor, strong against piercing, weak against bludgeoning), Chain (medium armor, strong against slashing, weak against piercing), and Leather (light armor, strong against bludgeoning, weak against slashing). there are also "outfits" that act like accessories but are worn on the body slot (forfeiting hit points for stat boosts and status protection)

I was curious about this proposal in particular. With regards to Clothing and Robes, did you just replace them with Armor? Or did you leave them alone and merely weaken their health benefits?

I ask this partially because I'm currently considering letting all classes in my patch use Clothing and maybe Robes as well. Despite the fact that I'm actually trying to use the given elemental system and thus can't replace it with your genius idea, I would, as always, be generally interested in your input.

[Skip Sandwich]

I personally organized armor by weight class (Heavy, Medium, Light), corresponding to the ability to equip Armor, Clothing and Robes, respectively, with armor options determined not so much by 'type' of protection they favor, but rather maximum weight class of armor they can equip. (so knights can equip all armor types, while mages can only equip light armor). I also gave each armor type a speed and move/jump bonus, forming a scale of More HP <<---->>More Speed/move/jump
the Heavy Plate armor may have 5 times the hp of Light Padded amor, but the Light Padded has +4 speed, +2 move and +1 jump by comparison, here is a chart displaying the simplest version of my system (the more complex version ranges from 255 hp +0 speed all the way down to 17hp +6 speed). I like this organization for equipment, as makes for a greater selection of viable choices as you progress through the game, rather then a dwindling selection or or set limit (especially once you start adding in armor with special effects/elemental affinity and whatnot.)
HP ------ Heavy -- Medium -- Light
Plate --- 255 ----- 170 ------- 85
Chain -- 204 ----- 136 ------- 68
Padded- 153 ----- 102 ------- 51

Speed -- Heavy -- Medium --- Light
Plate --- +0 ------ +1 ------- +2
Chain -- +1 ------ +2 -------- +3
Padded  +2 ------ +3 --------- +4

Agility -- Heavy -- Medium -- Light
Move --- +0 ------ +1 -------- +2
Jump --- +0 ------ +0 -------- +1

Here also as a special bonus is my system for shields
Large Shields -- P-ev -- M-ev -- Special
Tower Shield -- 0% ----- 0% ----- Always: Protect
Aegis Shield --- 0% ----- 0% ----- Always: Shell
Mirror Shield -- 0% ----- 0% ----- Always: Reflect

Small Shields -- P-ev -- M-ev -- Special
Buckler --------- 32% --- 16% --- none
Rune Shield ---- 16% --- 32% --- none
Kite Shield ------ 24% --- 24% --- none

I think this is an interesting dynamic, you must choose between blocking a set amount of all damage from physical or magical sources, or a chance to completely dodge damage from those sources.

[Skip Sandwich]

For those interested, here are some sample units fully decked out in my test equipment to showcase my HP <<--->> Speed dynamic. Headgear and accessories are omitted since none of those modify hp or speed in any way. The base unit is a Fighter, the squire replacement, who in this example has 200 base hp

Heavy Fighter 1 (Max HP equipment)
Rhand: 1-handed weapon
Lhand: Shield
Body: Heavy Armor (+0 speed)
Speed: 24
HP: 455
Move: 2
Jump: 3

Heavy Fighter 2 (Max Speed equipment)
Rhand: 1-handed weapon
Lhand: Shield
Body: Heavy Armor (+4 speed)
Speed: 28
HP: 251
Move: 2
Jump: 3

Medium Fighter 1 (Max HP equipment)
Rhand: 2h weapon (+1 speed)
Lhand: ^
Body: Medium Armor (+1 speed)
Speed: 26
HP: 370
Move: 3
Jump: 3

Medium Fighter 2 (Max Speed equipment)
Rhand: 2h weapon (+1 speed)
Lhand: ^
Body: Medium Armor (+5 speed)
Speed: 30
HP: 234
Move: 3
Jump: 3

Light Fighter 1 (Max hp equipment)
Rhand: light weapon (+1 speed)
Lhand: light weapon (+1 speed)
Body: Light Armor (+2 speed)
Speed: 28
HP: 285
Move: 4
Jump: 4

Light Fighter 2 (Max Speed equipment)
Rhand: light weapon (+1 speed)
Lhand: light weapon (+1 speed)
Body: Light Armor (+6 speed)
Speed 32
HP: 217
Move: 4
Jump: 4

[The Damned]

Thank you for posting these things. They're extremely interesting....

While very few of these changes could be made due to the aforementioned elemental changes, you have at least helped me decide on something and give me things to think about. For that, I again thank you.

With that said, I'm still rather curious about something. With regards to your shields, you only had six of them? What did you do with the other slots, if I may know?

[Skip Sandwich]

the other shields were a set of three elemental shields, a evasion type shield that traded P-ev for a boost to PA, a similar shield that boosted MA instead, a shield that was part of a set of items that turned the wearer into a berserk frog with absurd stats (99PA [ still only 72 damage, due to the penalty from being a frog], +500hp, always haste/shell/protect, immunity to all other negative status), and three shields that granted immunity to a single physical damage type in exchange for being weak to the other two types.