Suggestions for my own revamp (be gentle)

[adouchebag]

Ahhhhh, I see....

Could I change it so that the damage equals the casters max HP?  I'm not sure if I ever saw a formula for that....  I'll check again.

Doesn't look like it, oh well.  I always thought the bombs blew themselves up when they were low HP just because they were about to die...now I see the real reason.

[Lydyn]

Well, you could, but then you wouldn't die ... and therefore Bombs would never die ... >.< So, I can give you a good one, but I really suggest against it unless you want bombs using it a bunch of times against you without dying.

Also a note, I don't think there's a forumla that deals your maximum HP, only the damage you've taken or the damage the target has taken OR the target's max MP.

[adouchebag]

Yeah I saw those, no it's fine now that I know how to use it.

Wow, Dorter was fun.  Three archers with Ignore Height, the Knight rez'ed a dead black mage.  Next up....Monks.  WITH HATS zomg!

[Lydyn]

Hehe, sounds fun. I'd be inclined to try it once I get v0.14 out. I'm enjoying the Innate Gained EXP-UP on mine, that allows me to put Altima at level 99 and yet I don't have to grind levels so much ...

When I played Dorter, I got to fight Wizards that killed me in one spell. >.< Along with an archer that couldn't miss... fun, fun. Though the raise sounds a little more fun, but not by much. I know when I fought my Zalmo, he kept raising his stupid knights and monks... good thing I had Dispel Magic too otherwise his Magic Berrier would've been annoying.

[adouchebag]

Wow, Monks with hats and move HP up handed me my ass on a plate.  Not to mention the 3 Knights running around raising everyone I killed, or curing them.

I actually had to go and remove hats from monks, it just made them too powerful.  After that it was still challenging, but I managed to win the fight--thanks to my Blue Mage.  Self Destruct on the last two Monks FTW.

Thieve's Fort wasn't too bad, Meliadoul kept raising the white mages, and the thieves with two swords took out Algus in round one lol.  But it actually wasn't too bad.  So far things are shaping up nicely, this afternoon we'll see how Wiegraf goes--and Algus with his platoon of knights *eep*.

[Lydyn]

Really? My monks have Move HP-Up as well ... giving them.. what? +20 HP can't be that bad, can it?  

[adouchebag]

When there's 3 Knights casting cure and raise, and an archer with ignore height two shotting your chemist, it is.  Plus, their gear and levels were higher than they would normally be at this point, so yeah, they were brutal.  And it would've only gotten worse, with attack up headgear and bonus hp.

[Lydyn]

Oh yeah, you're running into the equipment glitch with having Party Level - Random everywhere. Well, not a glitch, but... equipment is set to appear at certian levels, like seeing Crystal Helmets at level 27.

So, since you have all story battles set to Party Level - Random, just like random battles, you could be looking at seeing Crystal helmets as soon as you reach level ~28 anywhere. This means, if you were level 28 at Dorter, you could've easily ran into the knight having this helmet which adds +120 HP. >.<

Personally, I think that's a bit much ... but that's your choice. I just set all my story battles to increase by +2 levels each battle, so it's controlled (I readjusted all the item levels) and yet you fight 95+ enemies by the end of the game.

[adouchebag]

Actually I like the idea--it will make having a thief that much more useful the whole game, rather than for a few key fights like Elmdor, Gaffy, Balk.  Plus, it will almost be necessary since NPC gear will probably outrun what I can buy in shops--I guess that depends on how much I level.  But that's another reason I like this setup, I can just play the battles as they come, and not have to worry about spending 45 minutes with one speed broken chocobo while I accumulate 50 times.  I'm hoping it will make the game play like it SHOULD have--I can fight in random encounters if they come up, but I won't have to.

[Lydyn]

Well, as long as you enjoy it I suppose. Let me know if any other problems come up.

[adouchebag]

Well, I just finished changing a bunch of text, Time Mages are now Red Mages, Calculators are now Blue Mages, etc.  Still at work but I doubt I missed anything.  Changed their skillsets too, and even the descriptions.

I finished the first chapter without much trouble.  And it's a good thing I gave Ramza Dark Sword, or I think I'd still be fighting some of those fights with a bunch of Knights.  I'm still not sure if the games actually hard enough, however.  The fights have been pretty easy, but I'm still only level 12 or so--it will be interesting to see how much trouble some fights are a little later, when NPCs start getting better gear.

Thieves are a pain now.  Two swords, high speed, the ability to charm or steal--it's rough.  And I'm really excited to see a Lancer in action, but that's not going to be till chapter 3.  I might go through the ENTD again and replace some Knights with Lancers, since they've kinda taken the Knights jobs.

I might tone down Ramza a bit too.  Or lightning stab.  Such an OP ability, it makes some of the fights easy.  But like I said, I think if I didn't have LS, Night and Dark sword, these fights would be a lot harder--maybe too hard.  I'll need to do some harder fights to see if he needs a nerf or not though.  Right now it's still pretty early, I'm hoping later I won't be one shoting wizards and preists with him.  But if he still proves to be too uber later, I'll probably lower is PA multiplyer, or lower the damage on Holy Sword skills themselves.  I'm hoping that taking all the Brave boosting spells out of the game will make it more challenging too.

I raised the level reqs again on jobs, which will hopefully make the NPCs stronger.  I've got summoners coming up soon too, very interested to see what they're like.  I decided to give them Fire, Ice, and Bolt 4 in addition to their other abilities.  They should be devestating (if they have enough MP for more than one spell.  Even with innate half MP, they'll need a lot).

But I'm having fun.  I'm running into one problem however--now that I've got all these new classes, I don't want to play the old ones .

[Lydyn]

Yeah, changing Knights will something else is definitely a good thing. Something I'm thinking of doing in my v0.15 patch (since v0.14 is nearly finished, mainly waiting for Vanya's Lightning Sprite).

I agree with more testing on the Sword Skills. Another option you can do ontop of adding them, is making them avaiable in only Chapter 2 & 3, and Chapter 4, so by the time he gets them, the enemies are harder than they are now. Dark Sword sounds like plenty for Chapter 1, from what I'm reading - though I suggest toning down it's 500 JP cost and bumping the Night Sword's 100 JP cost (I put this at 600 myself). If you're worried about Gafgarion not having Night Sword, just go through all the ENTD files and make sure all his versions have at least level 5+ in his Base class (of course, he won't get the Wizard's Black Magic in Chapter 2, but he rarely uses it anyways).

I'm interested to hear about the Summoners myself. Meteor alone will cost them 35 MP, which is a nice chuck of MP. I remember casting Golem without Half of MP was always an iffy choice since it took 40 MP. Though I'm sure the AI will have no problem casting it.

Oh, and how's the Blue Mage working out for you?

[adouchebag]

Maybe I'll add Chakra in as a Summoner ability.

So far the Blue Mage is working out fine, but I haven't used him too much.  I changed the formula on Choco Cure, to make it sort of a cure 2.5 spell, so it should be much stronger.

I'm still torn on what to do with the damage magic however.  It's going to be weak, but since none of it has an MP cost that will almost make up for it.  I was looking for a good forumula to replace monster magic with, but came up empty--MA*Y is going to have to stay.  He's got an MA multiplyer of 200 I think, plus innate Magic attack up, so I really won't know how useful it's going to be until later--but he works like a charm.  His PA isn't terrible powerful, and I only allow him to wear helmets and armor, so he can't boost his MP any, but can use rods and staves so that when he's got more magic he can rely on it more, rather than physical attacks.  At present, my Blue Mage has 3 mp so there's no chance of cheesing him by giving him black magic too.  Draw Out is still a problem, I might just change the formula to holy sword skills, and tone the Y down.  But I like him, he's gonna be cool.

Oh, and I changed the monster skill sets on a lot of higher end monster, to make the more powerful spells easier to get.

[Lydyn]

Sounds like it might work. Not how I'd do it, but it works none-the-less, or I hope it does.

[adouchebag]

Umm, have a question.

How to I apply the text changes I've made?  I've got the .ffttext file all ready to go, but the readme nor any of the guides I've looked at mention how to apply the changes.  Do I need to save each one, and if so, what name should I use?  Does it matter?  I'm confused....

[Vanya]

In the bottom right-hand corner of the TacText editor it has a list of the files that can be patched for each section. If you click on a file in that box and then hit the button it'll bring up a dialogue box for you to choose the file to patch.

[adouchebag]

So I should patch the .iso like normal, save a new cd image file, and then selected the files in THAT new image file?

Does it save automatically or what?

[Lydyn]

First, you have to extract all the files that appear in the dropbox in the Text Editor, like WORLD.BIN, BATTLE.BIN, ATTACK.OUT, etc. Then go through each section you've edited (like WORLD.BIN for example) and look to the lower-right hand side. You'll see you can select WORLD.BIN in this example... do so, and then click "Save to selected file" and find the WORLD.BIN you extract and double-click it.

A warning, however, the Text Editor is still very much in the Beta phase. I'd strongly suggest avoiding saving any changes what-so-ever to the WORLD.BIN (I just used it as an example), and be very careful with the BATTLE.BIN file. I've had little to no trouble with BATTLE.BIN, but others have reported bugs and glitches with it. Also, keep in mind the byte length of each file and only go 5-10 bytes over the original file at maximum, though I strongly suggest trying to keep the same exact byte length as before.

(I need to make a guide for this as well. )

[Vanya]

This might make a good addition to your tutorial thread, Lyndyn.

[adouchebag]

So whatever changes I made that would've fallen under world.bin aren't going to show up?  I can live with that.

Well I didn't do something right, nothing has changed.

Oh wait...do I need to do this for every LINE i change?

Like if I change the description for Battle Skill, do I need to do this while battle skill is selected under atchelp?  And then again under helpmenu?  Etc?