Final Fantasy Hacktics

Monsters:

- Many monsters have changed again for rebalancing purposes, mostly those in the world of ruin.

- The 8 Legendary dragons are now superbosses each with 150000 health and much improved stats and AI from before.  While these can be found throughout the world of ruin, it is not advised to fight them until your characters are above level 90.
   - Those who have played the remake of FFVI may notice that I borrowed some ideas from that version of the game when it comes to the dragons, however I assure you that my versions are much more difficult.

- Atma is now his own unique challenge.  He has a battle script of 2295 bytes (most bosses only have a few hundred) which includes 16 different phases of 62500 health each.  With 1 million health total and an unpredictable, improved AI, you will find this to be the most difficult challenge the game has to offer.  He is optional, and it is advised that you only face him when being as prepared as possible.

- All monsters give approximately 25% more gold.
- All monsters are harder to run away from than in the original game, however all random encounters will always be possible to run from.
- Harpys, a common monster near Thamasa in the World of Ruin, now have a rare (1/8) chance to drop Exp. Egg.

Items:
- Weapons and armor now have their stats annotated in the description box.  Due to limited byte space, these stats are abbreviated as follows.
      - V = Vigor.
      - S = Speed.
      - M = Magic Power.
      - PE = Physical Evade.
      - ME = Magical Evade.
   - An example would be Chocobo Brush: "V+3, S+3, M+5".
   - Stamina was excluded due to its relative uselessness.

Weapons:
- Weapons can no longer be thrown by Shadow.  This does not apply to items which are specifically meant to be thrown, like shurikens and scrolls.
- Weapons will no longer give more than 10% Physical or Magical Evasion.
- All weapons' hit rate has been changed to increase as you get stronger weapons.
- All Daggers now give at least 3 speed.
- ValiantKnife now gives the wearer the ability to cover for weak allies - same as the true knight effect.
- Drainer sword's power reduced significantly.
- Illumina is now: 171 Battle Power, 7 Speed, 7 Stamina, 7 Magic Power, 10% Physical Evade, 10% Magic Evade. Gives: Regen and shell, and increases MP by 25%.
- Ragnarok is now: 171 Battle Power, 7 Vigor, 7 Speed, 7 Stamina, 10% Physical Evade, 10% Magic Evade.  Gives: Haste and safe, and increases HP by 25%.
- All spears now deal the same damage from the back row and have lost a significant amount of Battle Power.  Attack damage will be roughly the same from the back row.
- Imp Partisan changed to Mime Spear, which only Gogo can equip.  65 Battle Power.  Allows Jump to be continuous.  Randomly counter-attacks, and casts Shell and Safe on low HP.  Randomly casts Mute when attacking.
- Shadow's weapons (Imperial, Kodachi, Blossom, Hardened, Striker, Stunner) all give Vigor+5, Speed+3, Magic Power-5.
- Ashura, Kotetsu, Forged, Tempest all give Vigor+3, Speed-2.
- Murasame gives Vigor+4, Speed-2.
- Aura gives Vigor+6, Speed-2.
- Strato gives Vigor+7, Speed-2.
- Sky Render gives Vigor+7.
- All staves now give increased Magic Power.
- All brushes now moderately increase Vigor, Speed, Stamina, and Magic power.
- Shuriken now has 1 battle power.
- Ninja Star now has 11 battle power.
- Tack Star now has 21 battle power.
- All weapons which deals the same damage from back row have had their battle power appropriately reduced to be similar in damage to other weapons of the same tier that will be used from the back row.  This includes Flails, Boomerangs and Cards.
- Fixed Dice replaced by Lucky Dice.  Lucky Dice throws two die like Dice and gives Vigor+7, Speed+7, Magic Power+7.
- All of Setzer's weapons (Cards, Darts, Doom Darts, Trump, Dice, Lucky Dice) doubles the amount of gold gained at the end of the battle.

Armor:
- Armor has been divided into two types.  Heavy armor and Light armor.  Character-specific armor are always light armor. 
   - Heavy Armor lowers the speed of its wearer.  In the early game a full suit of heavy armor lowers physical damage taken by about 33% and scales up to 50% in the late game.
   - Light Armor often increases stats at the cost of defense.  In the early game a full suit of light armor lowers physical damage taken by about 25% and scales up to 33% in the late game.
   - Both Heavy and Light armor reduce Magic Damage by roughly the same amount, however many specific pieces of light armor have increased magic defense as a bonus.

- Flame Shld stats changed: Physical Evade+10%, Magic Evade+10%, Half: Fire, Weak: Lightning, Water.
- Ice Shld stats changed: Physical evade+10%, Magic Evade+10%, Half: Ice, Weak: Fire, Wind.
- Thunder Shld stats changed: Physical evade+10%, Magic Evade+10%, Half: Lightning, Weak: Ice, Earth.
- Top Tier Shields:
   - Genji Shield - All purpose.  High defense, Magic Defense, and 10% Physical and Magical Evade.
   - Paladin Shield - Physical defense shield.  Highest Defense, 30% Physical evade, Adds: Safe.
   - Force Shield - Magical defense shield. Highest Magic defense, 30% Magic evade, Adds: Shell.

- Imp Equipment has been changed to Mime equivilants which can only be equipped by Gogo.  These are as follows:
- Mime Shield: Weak: Wind, Prevents: Dark, Zombie, Poison, Clear, Imp, Petrify, Death, Condemned, Mute, Berserk, Muddle, Seizure, Sleep. Note: No evasion.
- Mime Hat: Weak: Poison, Changes Fight to Jump, Changes Sketch to Control, Changes Steal to Capture, Randomly Counter Attack, Raises Steal rate, Raises Control Rate, Magic Cost is halved, Doubles Exp gained, Doubles gold gained.
- Mime Clothes: Weak: Earth, Gives Regen, Haste, Shell, Safe.

Tools:
- Noise Blaster hit rate changed to 66%.
- Chain Saw battle power changed to 20, hit rate changed to 100%.
- Debilitator hit rate changed to 50%.
- Drill battle power changed to 30, hit rate changed to 90%.
- Air Anchor hit rate changed to 60%.
- Auto Crossbow battle power changed to 80, hit rate changed to 100%.

Relics:
- Goggles removed and replaced with Monocle which increases all stats by 1.
- Star Pendant no longer prevents poison.  Instead it gives Vigor-1, Magic Power+2.
- Peace Ring no longer prevents Berserk or Confuse.  Instead it gives Defense+20.
- Jewel Ring no longer prevents Petrify.  Instead it gives    Vigor+4, Magic Power-2.
- Fairie Ring removed and replaced with Fairy Walnut which increases MP by 25%
- Running Shoes no longer give Haste.  Instead it increases speed by 7.
- Reflect Ring removed and replaced with Shell ring which increases Magic Defense by 20.
- Cherub Down removed and replaced with Emu Down which gives Half: Earth.
- Earrings can now only be used by Terra, Celes, and Relm.  In addition to 25% increased magic damage, they also give Vigor-3, Speed-3, Stamina-3, Magic Power-3 Physical Evade-50%, Magic Evade-50%.
- Atlas Armlet no longer gives 25% increased Physical damage.  Instead it gives Vigor+3, Speed+4, Magic Power+3.
- Hero Ring no longer gives +25% Physical and Magic Damage.  Instead it increases HP and MP by 12.5%(1/8).
- Economizer no longer reduced MP costs to 1.  Instead it halves MP consumed and increases MP by 50% and increases all stats by 3.
- Gauntlet now increases Vigor+5 as well as allowing a weapon to be held with 2 hands.
- Hyper Wrist functions differently now.  It subtracts 6 vigor and then increases the result by 50%.  For weaker characters this will actually lower their vigor unless increased with other items.
- Marvel Shoes no longer gives haste, and instead gives Speed+7.  Still gives Regen.
- Sprint Shoes removed and replaced with Voice Box which prevents silence.

Colosseum:
- Illumina can be bet to win Ragnarok.
- Ragnarok can be bet to win Illumina.
   
- Falchion can be bet to win Flame Shld.
- Flame Shld can be bet to win Thunder Shld.
- Thunder Shld can be bet to win Ice Shld.
- Ice Shld can be bet to win Flame Shld.

Characters:
- Exp required to level reduced at higher levels.  Overall experience required to reach 99 is approximately 80% of what it was in the previous patch.

- Stats for most characters changed drastically. In most cases all stats are lower than in vanilla. Especially concerning Vigor and Magic power. Physical damage characters will tend to have low magic power.  Magic damage characters will tend to have low vigor.

This is my version of FFVI Hardtype hack.  I got tired of waiting for an update to Eternal's and one day I was bored so I asked him what program he used to edit the game and ever since then this has been the focus of my free time

At this point, I have pretty much balanced the first half of the game pretty well as far as I can see.  Though I do tend to get stuck in my own style of playing and I'm sure there are play styles that are better than mine and those which are worse than mine so I am sure there is still a lot of tweaking to be done.

First of all, there is very little, if any eye-candy to this patch.  I'm all about changing the actual game play.  I will not bother with retranslating the game, spells, or items.  The only exceptions being "Fenix Down" being changed to "Pheonix Down" and changing Vicks to Biggs.

Also as of this post, there has been almost no testing to the World of Ruin.  It has taken me so long just to do the World of Balance and I really think the World of Ruin needs a lot more work than the World of Balance.  With that said, it will definitely be harder than vanilla due to blanket changes I made to characters and monsters.  For example, I went through every monster AI script and removed any chance to do nothing.  I've also boosted status immunities and this, by itself, will at least make the bosses able to put up SOME fight.  However I haven't gone through and tested each fight.  Also keep in mind the list of changes below which concern abilities or items which are mostly found in the World of Ruin are not yet balanced for gameplay there and are mostly just ideas for how I would like them to function.

My goal, with the WoR is to make quite a difficulty shift.  While I hope the WoB provides a nice challenge, I want the player to be on their toes even moreso in the WoR.    There'll be tougher, though not necessarily longer, random battles in the WoR.  Also, as part of the balance, exp gained will be significantly higher to better prepare the player for the battles he/she faces. Bosses will definitely be tougher overall.  I plan to make each of the 8 dragons a superboss.  Atma will be another epic fight, as well as the three statues.  And, in addition, there is also the optional and slightly hidden boss fight against Czar Dragon now.  And of course, the fight with Kefka + his three layers will be among the most difficult parts of the game.  In the distant future I plan to make my own superbosses which will possibly even exceed Czar Dragon in difficulty.

Lunar IPS

Use the above program to apply the patch which can be downloaded at the bottom of the post at This Link

EDIT - 5 JUL 2011 - v0.2 out.  Taking down v0.1 and adding changes:



I tried my best to make a list of all of the changes.  I know for sure I left some out, especially really minor ones.  But this should give you a jist of what's different.  Enjoy.

FFVI Changes