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How long does it take you to make a team?

Started by CT5Holy, March 26, 2013, 05:12:14 am

CT5Holy

What the topic asks. =P

I'm just curious, really. I think it'd be interesting to see the differences.

Anyways, I take... a while. I don't make teams that often, either, so that isn't helping things. Recently, it probably takes me 2-3 hours per team on average, though there was definitely a time when I would crank out a team to mess around with in ~45 minutes.
That number only counts how long I actively spend thinking about a team - usually the initial idea I have for a team comes to me like weeks or months beforehand, but I don't get around to building a team until way later. Or I'll come up with a unit I want to try out but I don't use him for whatever reason, either me forgetting or me feeling like the unit doesn't fit in the team.

Also, how do you guys go about building your teams? Where do your ideas come from? Do you just think of ideas on your own? Do you get ideas from watching videos?
For me, I usually just go through the Master Guide looking for... something that interests me, I suppose. Usually something that can produce big numbers.

Share and discuss and what not~

(I get the feeling that there'll only be like ~6-8 replies haha)
Winner of the 1st FFT 1.3 AI Tourney

RavenOfRazgriz

Back before I stopped caring about Arena, it'd take me maybe 3 hours to design a team from concept to completion unless I was discussing the concept with someone else (usually FDC) while designing it, at which point the time could vary wildly.

My ideas generally centralize on being a giant douchebag or otherwise proving people wrong when they say something I consider to be incredibly incorrect.  (Jump is useless, Cursed Ring is useless, Death Sentence is useless among others.)

As for when I sit and build my teams, the thing I probably spend the most time doing is manipulating the CT order, making sure the units I want to move first will win speed ties, units I want to move second will lose them, etc.  (You'll notice a lot of my teams will order the units with 8 Speed in front and 9 Speed in the back as my 9 Speed units are often reactionary units like DERP Chemists that work better once the opponent has closed some distance and started whatever their strategy is, while my 8 Speed units are usually hazers meant to disrupt the enemy's 9 Speed units after they've won the speed tie and before the 8 Speed ones can make use of the setup the 9 Speed units made for them.)  Manipulating the CT order like this is probably one thing very few people even think about doing but it's something all my teams are designed to do if nothing else.

It should also be obvious I'm a very defensive player, I used to play YGO wayback in 2007-2009 when Card Advantage was a driving force in that game so I tend to think of FFT in terms of turn trades, which usually leads me into making oppressive teams meant to grind out +1 turn advantages so that I can quickly build tons of momentum over slower teams and generally reneg the Speed advantage of faster ones.  (This is another reason DERP Chemists intentionally lose the 9 SPD Tie, for example - the enemy 9 SPD users move first and move toward the Dancers, then my Chemists can do any healing they need to do or apply pressure against Charging moves with Blackmail and Doom.  This is intentionally done to minimize the chance of revival loops and send me into negative turns and bring out +1 turns with Blackmail.)  Again, just things I think a lot of people never really considered when making their teams but really, really should.

Barren

Well I remember when I first started that I was rather clueless at times on how a team works. I was a fan of these AI matches but I wasn't sure how to make a good team so I submitted a couple to try out but then eventually I developed the team some know I'm famous for: Big Assault

Big Assault granted me several victories in the past and I started to make more and more teams. But its all trail by error.
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown
You dare cross blades with me?

Celdia

I don't think I've spent more than 45 minutes on a team with the exception of one that Raven helped me tweak one time. This likely explains why I never make a particularly successful team. Anyone that has ever paid attention to my teams' wins likely knows which was the one I got help with.
  • Modding version: PSX
  • Discord username: Celdia#0

TrueLight

I usually spend around an hour or two when designing a team. However, when a tournament is around the corner, I will spend around a week or so making and improving the team. I usually have 3 tabs opened when making a team. One is a reply to the Team Submissions thread, another is the Master Guide, and the last is either the Arena Battle Videos/Balance Thread. I'm looking for ideas or concepts that interest me. I also have a calculator nearby since I used to go over the JP every time back when I first discovered Arena >_>

As for the name of my team/units, I have a habit of naming the teams after certain attacks from other games. I usually make minor changes to my teams, but that's when I know what is exactly wrong with the team. As for the teams, I tend to use low HP units and mages rather than tanky units. I use about the  same number of male and female characters. I seem to always have a Ninja on my team, just because I know that I have a reliable damage dealer. I have never used Serpentarius as a zodiac. I don't know why.
  • Modding version: PSX

Gaignun

I spend 15~30 minutes per team by playing around with the team design tool.  Each team attempts to exploit a particular skill or skill set.  Most teams fail.  If I cannot find a way to exploit a particular skill well (e.g. Demi, Solution, Heretic), I usually complain about it in the balance thread.

The exception is before tournaments, when I spend hours playtesting teams, trying to find the most broken combinations possible.

Avalanche

Its hard to tell realy, when i think of my season 1 Team: it more or less developed from my former Team "Naturalist" After each Match i discovered stronger configurations and tested new Units. Always when i lost a Match i changed something untill i won the Match against the Team. After a few Weeks  i couldnt find any more Teams who could win against my Team. Than i considered my Team  finished

AeroGP

I spend between ten to forty five minutes coming up with an initial draft. I then throw the draft against existing teams I feel pose the biggest threat so I'll know what to tech. If early testing proves the idea to be critically flawed, I scrap it. Otherwise, testing continues until I can come up with what I feel is an optimal build. This can last for hours upon hours or even across days at a time, especially before tournaments.

I usually get my ideas directly from other teams. If I see a unit's effectiveness in action and feel I could make something more of it, I won't hesitate to copy it. (even verbatim) I'll then rummage through the master guide looking for ways to optimize and support the idea, and the team-building process begins.
Quote from: Tycho"There are a number of different factors impacting server connectivity on Xbox 360," the spokesperson said. "It is a particularly complex server architecture and we continue to work with Microsoft to improve connectivity."

I don't want to bolster any "violent gamer" tropes, but that statement makes me want to improve the connectivity of my front two knuckles with their esophagus.  I wonder how Brenna would respond if I told her that "fidelity" was complicated.

Dokurider

Like CT5Holy, I look over the Master Guide as well as discussion topics for ideas. I'm pretty hipster; I look for underused and overlooked weapons/skills/strategies/combinations for the initial spark, Silver Bow being the most recent and most public example. Building a team usually takes anywhere from a solid day, to a few weeks. This is mainly due to to the trouble I have of building teammates to support and complement said unit concept. For instance, it took me almost a month to complete Air Krieg and since then has gone through several dramatic changes. It went from a 4 man team to a 2 pair team, even giving birth to a spinoff team that I actually consider marginally superior. Building the proper support and finding the right teammates for my unit concepts is probably the biggest hurdle for making a team, because making a optimized DPS machine is nothing but math and statistics. In particular, coming up with that initial buddy unit is almost as important as the initial unit itself or the star unit as I like to call it because it determines the rest of the team composition and picking the wrong buddy unit can throw off the whole team, which is why I particularly agonize over the choice. I still have some unit concepts left, but I already have like a bajillion teams already, so I'm probably done or near done until the next version.

I do have favorite teams to test against in the creation phase of team building. I'm not naming any team names except my own teams though. I like to use Dorter Thieves in particular as a measuring stick. Most of my teams can't beat Dorter Thieves, but they put up a hell of a fight against them, or they should.

Is that long enough?

Jumza

My first team didn't take me very long because I knew exactly what I wanted, and I researched enough to know exactly how to get it. My second team took a lot longer because I only thought of 2 units to use, and I had to try to create 2 others to work well with them. I guess it depends on how much planning you do before hand.
  • Modding version: PSX
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reinoe

For me it depends on the team.  Some ideas come together easier than others.

My "Hyperfabulous" team has been a work in progress for nearly six months.  It's been a failure throughout but I just don' have the heart to ditch them.

My "Lazytown" team took only 30 minutes.  Around Thanksgiving everyone seemed to update their teams and I didn't plan on doing so, so I just made a team for the sake of making a team.

Element absorb teams don't take me nearly as long as non-element absorb teams.  Sometimes I'll ditch an idea and then come back to it.  For example "Piceous" was initially going to be a Wind elemental team, but I couldn't get the idea to work and then I realized a Dark absorb would do everything I want and more naturally.  Then about  two months later I revisited the wind concept and threw Ice into the mix to round things out.  The team seems pretty strong now but before that it was terrible, got ditched, came back terrible, and then finally became decent.  "Piceous" took perhaps a few days, but "Windswept" took a few months to get right.

Les Liaisons Dangereuses started out as team designed to play up the brokenness of charm.  Everyone on the team could charm the opposition either through "Charm" or Beguile.  Then I put some earth absorb elements onto the team.  Then I just ditched the "charm" theme altogether because Beguile is too weak.  Now the team name is a relic.  And I'm in the process of creating a new "charm" team.

At any random moment I have two to five teams in the works.  I get inspired all the time by watching old videos too.  It's not uncommon for me to go back to page 40 or so and see videos from back in the day.  "Short Circuit" started out as a joke team for me, but they're actually pretty strong.  The initial concept only took an hour, but I've been tweaking them ever since it turned out that they can be pretty tough.
My dreams can come true!

Elmdork

it can take me several days to decide on a strategy i want to pursue, but once i have that idea and actually make the team, i know my fft well enough to pretty much hit my mark, though i always need an adjustment or two. the quickest team i have produced is "no foolin" with a whopping 10 minutes.  never has laziness looked so powerful with my twin samurai and dual mimes.

i usually pull up a notepad and take notes of ideas while perusing the master guide. i always have the "stats" tab open to make sure my numbers are the most effective possible. first i decide abilities, and i favor expensive support/reaction/move with fewer class abilities. of course depends on the team, but i'll rarely give a unit options for an attack/ability of the same range. they'll usually have a different action for completely different situations. so even if you break all the equip etc, they should in theory still do their job.

speed, turn draws, elemental stuff is all factored in with the equipment afterwards. one thing i do that i don't see noted anywhere is i plan out what my attack and defensive formations look like. "Zirekile Highwaymen" display this the best. the berserked paladin charges forward regardless of morale, carrying my hard hitting units with him. the archers tend to move in a similar pattern and in an ideal situation, you'll see an arrow formation. this formation allows them to maintain offence while being in range for support healing. 

yeah, slap that together, see what happens with my somewhat obscure ideas and usually i have a fix or two to make. i would say it takes a good 2-3 matches before you can even label a team "complete"
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown
The bird of Hermes is my name
Eating my wings to make me tame
  • Discord username: rouroni elmdor

Zotis

I rarely take less than 2 hours on a team.  I usually spend forever over analyzing and making my team try to do a million things that it doesn't end up doing...

Lately I've been faster and more focused on achieving what I want my team to do.  I think my latest revision of Medusa took me 2 hours, and I considered that to be fast.

Part of the reason it takes me a long time is because I write notes and list all my abilities and their costs and save the files in an organized folder.  I still have a tendency to miscalculate my JP costs despite writing it all down...

When I make a team I usually think of something I want to try, a cool technique and I want to see if it will work.  Then I make a list of everything I want for each character and I do this by prioritisation, then with the JP I have left over I add other stuff.

formerdeathcorps

March 11, 2014, 09:09:33 am #13 Last Edit: March 11, 2014, 09:17:14 am by formerdeathcorps
My teams either take 30 minutes or 3 hours or 3 days.

1) I'm an offensive player at heart, so I can very easily make up-tempo autonomous offenses.  These are defined as teams capable of scoring 2.5 KOs per 4 turns while no unit is in the 1HKO range of non-optimized offenses and every unit is a lethal threat on his own.  These teams take 30 minutes to make and are my favorites because they are exciting to watch.
2) Teams that take 3 hours are either defensive teams or trick teams.  The former is defined as a team where on average, no more than 1 unit will be KO'd per 4 attacks from an enemy team.  These take longer because defensive teams / trick teams need to have backup strategies to destroy their commonly seen counters or need to have a setup that covers the broadest net of opposition.  This often requires hair-splitting decisions to get right (which is why they take 3 hours).
Back when I wasn't playing for keeps, I used to also make teams based on my former roleplay characters.  These would also take 3 hours, but the reasoning is different here: I had to reconcile the characters, their skills, and their gear to Arena's standards.  Most of these teams were average or below-average, though, so I scrapped them.
3) Teams that operate off squad synergy (i.e. a team meant for an AI tournament where each unit has a different role and the team cannot afford to lose any member) or those that need to be rebuilt take 3 days.  Because every piece of vital, I have to constantly re-juggle the pieces and figure out the things needing replacement as well as what to replace them with.  Quite often, when facing problems, multiple solutions exist and multiple replacements are possible, so a complex game of judging what is "functionally equivalent / better" is in order.  I find CT5Holy, Barren, and RAven (back when he cared about this stuff) to be helpful sources of advice when I am working on such things.
The destruction of the will is the rape of the mind.
The dogmas of every era are nothing but the fantasies of those in power; their dreams are our waking nightmares.

silentkaster

Sorry to hear about your severe depression, Reks. I know I am a stranger, but if you ever need someone to vent or otherwise talk to, feel free to PM me. I know it is difficult.

My team building usually centers around an ability. For example, my latest team, Taboo Topics, centralizes on Wiznaibus. Yes, it does chip damage but more importantly causes poison and general disruption among sandbagging teams. Cheer Song to boost the archer's speed and quicken the lancer's jumps to support. It's not a devastatingly powerful team, but I feel it holds its own.

To answer the question, it takes me about 2 hours on average to create a team and usually I make minor edits a few times after.

PS: If anyone PMs me an ability, I will make a team around it if you want.
You've stepped in puddles less shallow than me.

reinoe

Quote from: silentkaster on March 12, 2014, 12:16:46 pm
Sorry to hear about your severe depression, Reks. I know I am a stranger, but if you ever need someone to vent or otherwise talk to, feel free to PM me. I know it is difficult.

My team building usually centers around an ability. For example, my latest team, Taboo Topics, centralizes on Wiznaibus. Yes, it does chip damage but more importantly causes poison and general disruption among sandbagging teams. Cheer Song to boost the archer's speed and quicken the lancer's jumps to support. It's not a devastatingly powerful team, but I feel it holds its own.

To answer the question, it takes me about 2 hours on average to create a team and usually I make minor edits a few times after.

PS: If anyone PMs me an ability, I will make a team around it if you want.

I'll send you four and you can pick one... :o
My dreams can come true!

Shintroy

I categorize my teams into gimmick, theme, and original concepts.

Themed teams take the shortest amount of time to visualize and are the hardest to execute effectively. The foundation(jobs, unit names and sex, and sometimes even equipment and abilities) of these teams are usually already set, and making the team functional without compromising the theme is always a challenge. The amount of times themed teams can be revised varies though. For example my team "The Hallows" probably reach its limit in the amount of changes since almost every aspect of the team references something, while my team "FFIII" has no limit to the amount of times I can alter it due to being able to change equipment and entire units.

Original teams at the moment take the longest time to start. To start I usually base them off a single ability and go from there. Themed or Gimmick teams usually borderline as original teams or even up as original teams when I drop the gimmick or theme. "Smite" is my only team that started off as original so I don't have much on this category.

Gimmick teams vary in both the time it takes to plan and execute well, but usually fall somewhere in the middle of the above two categories. Gimmick teams also tend to be hybrids of themed and original teams like "The Wild", "Power Rangers", and "Barrows" started out with a theme, and all ended up as gimmick teams. True gimmick teams like "Bad Breath, and "Powers Combined" took no time and all to come up with and are extremely flexible at the same time.

I'll probably scrap teams that reach their peak in potential. I enjoy the journey more than the destination.
Some day my people will be free.

Reks

I've been thinking about team-making.

Honestly, I'd followed a rule: Self-perseverance. That tied into Elemental Absorb and having a ton of revival.

But lately, as effective as that is, it's rang... Hollow. I don't get a joy from watching my teams win or lose because they did/didn't absorb a certain attack, I have fun with them getting a good back and forth.

And that's a bit hard. So I'd been playing with concepts both new and old. Berserk and status. That kind of thing.



Now how it comes to actually MAKING teams now.

I start with an idea. Could be anything. I work in the frozen foods department in the middle of a big heartbreak episode, which was what gave me the idea for a team I'll post later: Ice and Charm.

Or I just take something (like PA) and design teams around that stat. Or status, which I've yet to exploit. But alas, all in due time.

I still follow a bit of keeping myself alive, as most of my teams have two units with resurrection. (though it seems to be harder to heal in 1.39 if it's not focused on or a Monk)

Having one unit dedicated to doing damage seems to do well, as does having another focusing on support.
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown
  • Discord username: Reks#0128