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Messages - Gaignun

421
Its price isn't zero now, yet people drive cars that require it.  Electricity isn't free, either.
422
Then we give blind finite duration, too.  That silence is nulled by a popular accessory does not hold water against the call for change.  That's like saying gasoline can be left at $100/L because everybody drives an electric car, when, in truth, everybody might be driving an electric car because gasoline is $100/L.  Difficulty in giving silence a duration, however, does hold water.  I thought giving ailments a duration was a simple as changing a variable.  It seems I thought wrong.

Of course the change to weakness would change little now.  I'm thinking of a patch that features more oil (for example, in nameless dance, kiyomori, poison (spell), and fire1 as you suggested). 
423
39 teams displayed as registered, and at least 4 more to come.  This tournament is going to have a lot of seeds by the current look of things.  I'll sort seeds by the results of last tournament.
424
Quote from: formerdeathcorps on April 27, 2012, 01:16:10 amStatus:
Oil should add weak to more (possibly all) elements.  Of course, this means it will be dispelled by attacks of all elements.


I like this one.  Maybe have it add weakness to all but holy and dark.  That way we can reserve holy and dark for powerful AoE (of which we already have two: Koutetsu and Cyclops) without having to worry about oil catalysing one-hit kills of entire parties.  Reducing the weakness modifier might also be a good idea.

I have another case to make against infinite-duration silence.  Teams subjected to a performing Nameless dancer will never cure silence in fear of being afflicted with it again.  Mages without silence resistance on these teams become useless once the ailment procs.  If silence has infinite duration for a reason, then please tell me why.  If not, can we give it a duration to the beat of 20~30 CT?

425
Quote from: FFMasterPeople need to stop using theorycraft. As I've said a bunch of times, if you want to show something is OP, abuse it to hell and back until people agree with you. That's the only way to get changes to happen around here.


I don't know.  I think some of the suggested changes here are creative.  I can't speak for the ones that say "nerf X", but suggestions that aim to open new designs are legitimate.  We'll see what is being abused in a few weeks.

Quote from: FFMasterBuff Y some more, expect maybe +10/20ish damage


I'm fine with the other changes, but I really don't think the free-of-charge 100% AoE spell that procs status, ignores brave/faith, and can be set as a reaction ability needs to be any more powerful.

Quote from: formerdeathcorps on April 09, 2012, 09:45:07 pm
Gaignun, the way I coded oil makes your suggestions to oil rather impractical: you'd either have to single out fire weakness induced by oil as 1.5x weakness or change elemental weakness as a whole to 1.5x.


This comes late, but what do people think of reducing elemental weakness to 1.5x?  The current modifier of 2.0x is a death sentence to anyone who doesn't cover their weakness.  There are so few weaknesses that the change won't affect much as of now, but it would give the green light for implementing more oil skills without rocking the boat.
426
Which version of the spreadsheet are you using?  Martial Arts should be modifying punch art skills in v1.01.
427
Quote from: formerdeathcorps on April 15, 2012, 05:44:45 pm
People have been saying Wizard has no unique role among the mage classes.


I think their skill set needs to be pruned.  They currently have twelve spells which are all halved by a single piece of equipment (venetian shield or white robe).  Reduce the four tiers into two and introduce three new elements for a total of six two-tier sets.  If we also add corresponding elemental absorption to the underused accessories I mentioned before (defense ring, defense armlet, et cetera), then these accessories can be used together with Black Magic in a variety of absorption strategies.  If we add status effects to the spells, too, then I suggest each accessory both absorbs the element and nullifies the status of the corresponding spell.

Quote from: formerdeathcorpsRight now, the only current means of turning high SPD into a weakness is to use 8/9 SPD units with Jump, but this runs into a host of problems.  Not only are such teams locked at such low SPD, they usually have to devote much of the entire squad to evasion tanking to compensate for the opponent's double attacks.  Also, if the SPD squad can boost their speed, it still may be for naught.  This is why I proposed that Ninja skill; it would allow squads that aren't specially built for jump to deliver far more exacting counterattacks to fast units (who usually are pretty squishy).


Why must SPD be turned into a weakness?  I would think that trading solid equipment for speed is enough of a sacrifice.   They're squishy indeed.

Quote from: Fantactic1316Priests and Wizards as they are now are just begging to be loaded with MA gear and nothing else.


Then they're begging for a taste of their own medicine.  MA-stacked units have no elemental absorption to resist wizards or evasion to resist time mages and oracles.  At 8 SPD, they're also slow.  You need to build a team around keeping these units in working condition, which I think is all fine and well, personally.
428
FFT Arena / Re: Team Design Tool
April 13, 2012, 07:48:30 pm
Version 1.01 is released.  I can't manage to embed lists in spoilers for some reason.  I must be going crazy.
429
Quote from: Wiz on April 11, 2012, 10:55:39 pmIf people are just throwing random ideas out for post-tourney, then I've got no quarrels with that.


This.  I'm scooping the complaints others will make once the tournament is over.

Quote from: dinosaur on April 12, 2012, 04:37:49 am
This has been said and I agree with it so much I made a meme:




Masamune's vertical is so damn high I can't eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Listen!  Someone's stomach churl chowl-stomach just growled!
430
QuoteYou misread what I meant.  I meant that only stall teams can currently use kiyomori the Samurai spell.  Or do you mean the weapon?


No, I meant the skill.  Sorry.  It's still weak at 1 range, though.

You're too hung up on Kagesougi and Grand Cross.  Kagesougi, Grand Cross, and Ninjutsu are the only things representing physical offense right now.  Consider Kagesougi and Grand Cross gone with the guns.  The next best option apart from Ninjutsu is physical attacks.  No physical attack is going to put a caster into critical state from full HP.  A Stone Gun does 151 damage with 70-on-40 Brave and Attack UP.   300 HP units with passive regen will take two bullets and still live.  This damage is manageable.   The only physical attacks more threatening than a Stone Gun that I can think of is Jump and Two Swords (dual wielding weapons).  Like Stone Gun, Jump goes through P-Ev.  Jump also takes time to land, which gives the opposing AI time to respond, turn order permitting.  Two Swords can hurt more and delivers damage instantly, but requires close proximity, is subjected to C-Ev and W-Ev, and has two chances to miss.  Neither Jump nor Two Swords will 1HKO at any rate.  More importantly, both target only one unit.  A single-target attack that doesn't kill is the most manageable form of damage.  Magic, on the other hand, hits multiple targets.  One may die while another is wounded at the same time.  Support needs to both heal and resurrect on the same turn.  High faith, which is indispensable for units with Raise 2, will take heavy damage.  This damage is much less manageable, and it is what I will strive to mitigate with shell.  Sure, status magic goes through shell.  It doesn't go through M-Ev, however, which is what I'll be stacking in lieu of P-Ev, which is of no use against Stone Guns and Jump.  Now I am exposed to Ninjutsu.  I still have a chance of dodging with C-Ev and W-Ev, thank goodness!

The way I see the defensive balance is

P-Ev: physical attacks, Ninjutsu, breaks
Protect: physical attacks, Ninjutsu, Jump

M-Ev: Magic (sans Summon), Draw Out, status effects
Shell: Magic (inc. Summon), Draw Out, Elemental

Moving Ninjutsu to M-Ev/Shell would imbalance the... well, balance.  If Punch Art was fearsome enough to deserve a mention, I would have no problem with Ninjutsu jumping the fence from P-Ev to M-Ev.

Minor point, but:

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... the Grand Cross user will retaliate by healing himself while damaging AND blinding the melee attacker.  The blind makes the melee attacker's future attacks very uncertain while the Grand Cross user just erased most of the damage.


I empathise with this plight.  I think the 100% blind effect of Grand Cross and Kagesougi is unnecessary.  I would remove it or lower its proc. rate if I was calling the shots.
431
Ah, you responded while I was still editing my post post-post. 

Quote from: formerdeathcorps on April 09, 2012, 09:45:07 pm
Gaignun, the way I coded oil makes your suggestions to oil rather impractical: you'd either have to single out fire weakness induced by oil as 1.5x weakness or change elemental weakness as a whole to 1.5x.


Tough luck, then, huh.  I still think oil should be more easily utilised, though.

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As for decreasing the range on spells like holy / flare, I have to disagree.  There should exist spells as long-ranged as guns, especially since holy and flare aren't AoE.  The huge JP / MP costs are more than worth 6 range.


Holy and Flare are much stronger than guns, though.  I view their 0 AoE as the tradeoff of their power.  To each his/her own.

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As for Kiyomori, it currently only works on teams with very defensive / evasive units with long-term strategies (zombie / death sentence / stat reduction).  Increasing the AoE will not increase use because the AI thinks poison is HP damage, and thus, will use poison over attacking.


There are more reliable ways of punching through stall tactics than Kiyomori.  What do you think of my suggestion to change Kiyomori to something entirely?

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...what exactly do you mean by [1,3] or [2,3] for Koutetsu?  I do understand that the current AoE is kind of strong, but I'm not too sure what you are trying to suggest.


I mean the area of effect extends from two tiles away from the user to three tiles away - kind of like crossbows.  It's a very mild nerf. 

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Personally, I'd rather break the consistency and subject ninjitsu to shell and M-EV (as well as reflect).  If you think about all the other broken attacks currently dominating the metagame (grand cross and kagesougi), they are also blocked by protect and P-EV.  Adding ninjitsu to this pile makes it too easy to counter, just run a team like Losers (high evasion) or spam Cherche (which incidentally stops so many other threats).  In short, by making all the strong physical attacks evadable by P-EV and reducible by protect, you guarantee the existence of an obvious hard counter, which can create a rock-paper-scissors metagame.
Part of the reason why shell/reflect/M-EV is underused is because unlike physicals, there exists far more variety in undercutting M-EV (summons), reflect (summons and Tier 4 spells), or shell (status magic).  However, if ninjitsus were also blocked by this (and if we make Draw Out more attractive an offensive option), there would be much more reason to run shell/M-EV.


Kagesougi and Grand Cross won't be a problem if our change to guns is followed through.  Then people will move onto Shell and M-Ev to protect themselves from the next biggest threat: Draw Out and magic.  What would P-Ev be used for if not for Ninjutsu?  Apart from Kagesougi and Grand Cross, physical offense is a little toothless at the moment.  Physical attacks are weak due in part to the attraction of magic; it is safer to stick to Brave-independent skills and keep Brave low than add the option of attacking with weapons and opening oneself to the opponent's weapons (particularly that painful Stone Gun, which goes through P-Ev anyway) at the same time.  The job traditionally dedicated to fearsome physicals, ninjas, has been declawed.  They are weaker than squires, slower than thieves, and as squishy as scholars.   Punch Art, which should be holding the banner of physical-based offense, is excluded to all but units that sacrifice everything for PA thanks to its unwieldy quadratic formulae.  People don't need Ninjutsu to entice them to stack M-Ev; they already are for Draw Out and status magic - and I hope they would be for black magic if not for the impotence of the skill set.

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Replacing Confusion with MP Regen would require some AI hacking.  I don't mind doing it though.


Sounds great!  Don't kill yourself over it, though.  It's currently a suggestion that's been thrown out there, after all.
432
Here are a few more.  Not all of them need to be adopted.  (But some of them do!)

Skills

  • Lower Equip Armor's JP cost from 450 to something lower. 250 sounds about right.  Given that the Paladin skill set is just about useless to units that want access to armour, this will put the true cost of armour privileges at 500 JP.  Casters already overburdened with choice will be able to use the armours' status immunities to protect themselves and their high faith from the fearsome Oracle and Time Mage... as opposed to just stacking M-Ev, which is what they do now.  Besides, paying the current 700 JP price tag to run away from clothes and their delicious elemental resistance/stat boosts is silly.

  • Incorporate the oil status in the Wizard's skill set so that fire mages are used for more than just making their opponents sweat and need a shower.  Either create a skill that adds oil, or include "Add: Oil" to Poison and rename the skill as something flashy like "VX Gas".  Have the poison kill within seconds for factual accuracy.

  • Introduce a reaction ability which adds Oil to targets to expand fire-based team synergy.  Add it to wizards.  Ask British Petroleum to sponsor them.

  • Increase Haste's Y value from 60 to 70 to make it competitive with Masamune.

  • Lower Demi's MP cost from 20 to 14.

  • Lower Demi 2's MP cost from 40 to 30.  Spending 33% more MP than Holy for a skill that takes longer to cast than Holy, is thwarted by the popular Black Costume, and is as accurate as a drunken man playing darts on a fishing trawler reeling in Hemingway's great marlin in the midst of a category five hurricane is a little too pricey.

  • Lower Holy and Flare range from 6 to 5.  Sarah Palin could target Russia from her house with the current spells.  Do it for the Russians.

  • Increase Asura's multiplier from 6 to 7 to make it comparable to Koutetsu and Heaven's Cloud.  (One ignores allies, one has wide range, and one tries to add Slow and fails; all do equal damage)

  • Adjust Koutetsu's range from [1,3] to [2,3].  The ability to easily boost this currently wide-ranged Draw Out skill with Golden Hairpin is overshadowing the other skills - particularly Asura and Heaven's Cloud.

  • Increase Kiyomori's range from 1 to 2.  I would currently end my units turn without doing anything and give the preserved 20 CT to my opponent than use this skill.  Following that line of thought, what are the chances this skill can be changed to add CT to fellow party members?  Masamune bots could haste their friends, then give them CT when there's nothing left to do.

  • Lower Masamune's vert from 2 to 1.  It is currently the bee's knees.  Lowering the vert by one is the most modest nerf I can suggest... while keeping it the bee's knees.

  • Apply P-Ev to Fuuton, Suiton, and Meiton.  Given how highly these skills can be strengthened, they are ineligible for 100% accuracy.



Equipment

  • Remove elemental weaknesses from Mythril, Gold, Ice, and Fire shields.  These weaknesses are inhibiting these shields' adoption.
  • Increase Crystal Shield's P-Ev/M-Ev values from 10/10 to 20/20 to entice people away from Venetian/Aegis shields.

  • Set Crystal Helmet's effects to "Cancel: Don't Move, Don't Act" and Genji Helmet's effects to "Cancel: Berserk, Charm".  Lower these helmet's HP values if necessary.  The current Genji Helmet, with its lone "Cancel: Don't Move," is unattractive considering how underused the Don't Move status effect is.

  • Set N-Kai Armlet's effect to "Cancel: Charm, Oil, Absorb: Dark", since Confusion is not used.

  • Add additional effects to the useless accessories.  You know the ones: Jade Armlet, Defense Ring, and Defense Armlet.  Putting stock in status immunity is as reliable as putting stock in Enron.  You choose and you lose... out on its effects, as the opposing team favours beating you over the head with damage over meddling with the status effects you came to defend against.  Give these accessories something that can always (or often) be relied upon, such as stat bonuses, elemental boosting, or elemental resistance.  Seeing how N-Kai Armlet absorbs Dark while immunizing its user from status effects, how about they likewise absorb an element each?



Status Effects

  • Reduce the damage modifier of Oil from 2.0x to 1.5x so that the changes to the Wizard's skill set suggested above are not totally broken.

  • Lower the CT of Sleep from 60 to 30.  It is not uncommon for a sleeping unit to be left alone for the full duration (~7 turns) of the status effect when its support units are overburdened.

  • Remove the frog status upon death so that the status effect isn't so fatal to the AI's intelligence.

  • Replace Confusion with MP Regen and add its application to Priest's Regen skill and to P-Bag - Regen to give the skill something over Masamune, and P-Bag to give caster's something more than Move-MP UP to passively restore MP.



Finally, I'd like to echo FDC's suggestion about the guns.  Have them use tier 3 spells and lower the WP values of the fire, ice, and lightning guns to 13, 12, and 11, respectively.  This is tantamount to having the current guns proc spells a little weaker than tier 2 100% of the time.  Damage will be about 10 points higher on average (pre-Faith modifier) to possibly make the idea of a gun mage feasible.
433
Quote from: Wiz on April 04, 2012, 03:45:34 pm@ Gaignun - Sweet! You wouldn't mind generating a bracket as well and assigning the commentators their sections to record too would you (Given the fact that you'll have the maps generated for each match)?


Sure.  Who's hosting?  I've got you, Barren, Fanatic, and Avalanche.  Is there anybody else?
434
Quote from: Wiz on April 03, 2012, 11:36:46 pm
I'm curious to see how far Gaignun's come along generating the maps for each match, since that's a variable which should be accounted when making an official deadline.


I can have the maps generated with the press of a button.  All that's needed is the number of players.  I was thinking of generating the maps once registration closes for this reason.
435
That's the nature of double elimination, though.  Whether it's four out of six or six out of ten, the one going into the finals with one loss needs to do twice as much to win.  Increasing the number of matches only helps take unpredictable wins out of the equation for both sides.  That's what I feel this poll is about: whether the finals should be more or less predictable.
436
Redundancy is the whole point of a best of 5, though.  Students of statistics know that sampling error is reduced with the number of trials.  If a weaker team makes it to the finals on the good grace of the RNG, that team will need three, not two, lucky breaks to win the final set.  Sure, a best of 5 is long, but think of it this way: the fighting game community regards a first-to-ten as an accurate assessment of two competitors' relative strength.  For those of you who watched EVO last year, Poongko eliminated Daigo Umehara, a god of fighting games, in a best-of-three with random shenanigans.  Daigo earned a definitive victory over Poongko in a first-to-ten weeks later.  Granted, fighting games are also about one's ability to adapt to the opponent's playstyle over time, which will not be possible here.
437
FFT Arena / Re: Volunteers for Hosting
March 22, 2012, 06:37:56 pm
Quote from: Dol on March 22, 2012, 10:41:50 am
I can also help with little crap like map rngs and the like, just let me know.


I have a selection algorithm set aside already.  You can absolve yourself of this obligation if it will spare you any trouble.
438
FFT Arena / Re: Season 6 Map Selection
March 22, 2012, 06:33:44 pm
The five maps would still be used in other matches.
439
FFT Arena / Re: Season 6 Map Selection
March 22, 2012, 06:16:38 am
Quote from: CT5Holy on March 18, 2012, 10:09:22 pm
EDIT: I'm also giving a frowny face to Bervenia Volcano (75). Lava makes for awkward movement.


I have it on the list for its unique features, if anything.  It is the only map that lets Geomancers utilise their "Move on Lava" ability, and one of the few maps on which they can use Lava Ball.

One negative point about Gates of Limberry Castle 2 (19) that I caught recently is that the camera is terrible.  The walls constantly obstruct the action, which makes it difficult to both watch and commentate.  Given that the medium maps currently outnumber both the large and small, I'm willing to strike it from the list, if only for aesthetic reasons.  Medium maps will be assigned to the third round besides, so we won't be seeing as many rounds played on them, anyway.

On a different note, how does reserving a small selection of maps for the grand finals sound?  The maps would be as balanced as possible so no single team can win via shenanigans (eg. Geomancers running amok on Bervenia Volcano, for instance).  I'm thinking of setting aside Arena (provided its placement is fixed) as one of these maps.  Also, let me echo past requests that the grand finals be a best of five.   The map arrangement in terms size could be

  • small

  • large

  • medium

  • medium

  • medium

440
FFT Arena / Re: Season 6 Map Selection
March 18, 2012, 09:07:31 pm
Quote from: Barren on March 18, 2012, 10:36:32 am
If you want to you can pick the maps for the brackets in the tournament after registration is done. You seem to have a pretty good idea what maps are good and what aren't so good.


Sounds good.  I'll do that, then.

Quote from: CT5Holy on March 18, 2012, 01:43:29 pm
Is the team split on maps like 95 and 26 a problem in your opinion because the team that's split might need say 2 casts of Haste 2 to get the whole party hasted vs 1 for the team that isn't split up?


Yes.  The team on the altar on map 95 begins at a slight disadvantage.  Putting both teams in opposing corners would fix that, but maybe we can use it anyway, as apart from placement it is a good map.

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Banished Fort (115): have the teams start in the two other corners. Granted, there may still be some splitting up, but it won't be the huge extreme that possibly leads to quick 4v3/4v2s that we have now.
Bed Desert (82): Have team 2 start towards the middle, i.e. around where Ramza and co. would start against Balk.
Inside Castle Gate in Lesalia (97): both teams starting placement should be closer together. Current placement leads to 2 2v2s.
Underground Book Storage First Floor (57): Have all units start on the bigger half of the map? This map plays out ok for the most part I think.
Zarghidas Trade City (47): Have both teams start in the middle of the row instead of in the corner. (Keep current distance, just place units in the middle, so the fighting is more likely to happen on the ground) (I hope the wording is clear >_>)


Good suggestions.  I haven't modified positions before, though.  Does anyone who has know if it is straightforward?  As for Banished Fort, I would like to keep it cut anyway, as units will inevitably follow the bottleneck around the fort no matter the placement.

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...I think the following maps are all worthy of inclusion:
At the Gate of Limberry Castle (2) (19): This map is fine. It's not super tight, and you'll get the classic melee guys fighting in front, mages casting from far back image.


I just checked it.  For some reason, I thought teams started on the walls.  It looks like it could pass as a medium map with the current placement.

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Chapel of Orbonne Monastery (62): I think it's ok, if flying/teleporting units are the only concern. Those units will likely fly/port back up at some point. The (slightly) bigger concern is if a unit without fly/teleport gets knocked off the main stage. But even with that possibility I think it's fine.


The fact that there is a safe haven on a small map at all sticks with me.  I believe it is unfair to melee-based teams.  Getting knocked off, like you said, only detracts further from it, even though the possibility is remote. 

[/quote]

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Outside Castle Gate in Lesalia (98): This map is fine, aside from the map being incomplete and targeting issues. Very playable though.


I'm in agreement.  Let's include it for now, then.

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And a map I disagree with:
UBS3 (59): Absolutely needs to go. I'm surprised you've even considered it - bottlenecks and the limited movement for 3 jump units, as you've mentioned, make this map pretty lame. Especially the bottlenecks! That's like the whole map. XD


I'm glad you think so, too.  I'll put it on the list of cut maps for now.

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Also, what about Arena (116)? =P


Whoops.  It should be on the list of undecided maps.  It currently breaks into two sets of 2v2.  If teams are moved to opposing corners, I will label it a medium map.