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March 28, 2024, 04:57:59 pm

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FFT: Option Paralysis Edition

Started by Darkholme, September 04, 2016, 05:38:22 pm

Darkholme

September 04, 2016, 05:38:22 pm Last Edit: September 04, 2016, 05:58:37 pm by Darkholme
So, I'm sure many of you guys have seen me around the IRC asking random questions lately. Since I've been asked a couple times what I'm working on, I figured I'd start this post. I'll update it as I make progress.

Background
A few years back I started on a patch based on the idea of "no special characters". All the abilities named characters had would be from generic jobs. Special Jobs would be slotted into the job tree. Then the idea expanded a bit. Wanted more meaningful choices of ability in each skillset, rather than some skillsets having very few.
Then I dropped it for a long while; due to a combination of focusing on my other interests (tabletop RPGs) and life stuff.
Anyways. A few months back I decided to pick it back up. Pulled up my old notes, parsed through them, and took things in a new direction, while keeping the main idea from the old one.

Main Premise

  • Generics can accomplish any skillset a special character can.

  • All skills/items are potentially viable at all levels.

  • All actual skillsets should have 4-6 well varied options to choose from.

  • Much Tighter Job Balance - this will likely take some trial and error and testing.

  • Lift some design & balance ideas from D&D4e, for class roles determining stat loadouts and themed skillsets, and an explicit stat each job relies on (PA, MA, or MIN(PA/MA)).



Why?
I like FFT, but felt it lacked some things, and I want to play it without the things that annoy me. If, when it's done, someone else enjoys it too, all the better. This is obviously a much simpler project than Jot5, but it's a more complicated project than Rebirth, or 1.3.

So here's where the project plan currently is.

Planning/Design.
085% Done - Jobs - Heavily redesigned Job tree & skill lists.
085% Done - Stats - Core stat balance around drastically reduced stat growth, to maintain the relevance of the Items and Skills.
100% Done - Weapons and Armor - Items may be a bit less or more useful, but all items should be usable at all levels.
010% Done - Skills - Skills may be a bit less or more useful, but all skills should be usable at all levels. Additionally, each skillset should have 4-6 meaningfully different skills to choose from - so far I've done broad-strokes "what skills should be in what jobs" but have not redesigned or rebalanced any of those skills yet.
000% Done - Monsters - Haven't even looked at them yet.
000% Done - Battle Redesign - Haven't Started Yet

Implementation
000% Done - ASM - I have some preliminary notes on what I'll need, and some research stuff for R3000 I've been reading. Once I finish the rest of my planning, I should have a better idea of what I'll absolutely need vs stuff that would just be nice to have, so I can prioritize the tasks. Then I need to familiarize myself with MIPS R3000 ASM a bit more, and figure out how to do the parts unique to game hacking as my coding experience is all with from-scratch projects, and most of that is with things like C#/Java/PHP/SQL. I've done some ASM, but not since like, 2009, and not for MIPS R3000. This is going to be the most difficult task, and I'll break it down into subtasks once I have a better Idea of what I'm going to need to do.
000% Done - Patcher - No point in doing most of this yet, lots of small details may change. Hence the reason I'm designing stuff in autocalculating spreadsheets right now.
000% Done - TacText - Haven't even looked at this part yet.
000% Done - Battles - Haven't looked at this part yet either, but it should be fun, once I get to it.

Going to balance it as best I can during planning and using excel, but inevitably I'm going to run into stuff that isn't going to work out as intended; and I intend to tweak the balance after it's otherwise done.