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[Old] FFT Plus 1.02 upcoming changes

Started by Dome, June 01, 2012, 12:45:58 pm

RavenOfRazgriz

Defender still sucks.  For the same reason Chaos Blade sucks - I can get more Attack damage from any standard Sword, and more Swordskill damage from any of the final Swords plus Black Robe.  The W-EV is meaningless because a one-handed sword lets you use a Shield which results in equal or more evasion, M-EV, and usually a secondary effect.  Defender has a very small window where its the best weapon for use with Swordskills and is then useless, and Chaos Blade is just trash considering even Defender is currently better than it.  Defender is also strictly inferior to the Save the Queen - +33% Physical Resistance and 20% W-EV is better than 35% W-EV all the time.  As for Chaos Blade, status immunity is nothing compared to Protect / Shell / Haste, and a Petrify proc is worthless at the point of the game you obtain it, because enemies you can't just out-DPS are almost all immune.

As for the Katana and a LOT of other things I decided to skim a second time... you're doing a lot of design as if this is some kind of Arena patch and ignoring game scaling entirely.  My second skim-through just has me seeing a bunch of mirror-imaged OCD weapons that completely ignore the fact the game exists along a power curve and not a straight line.

Dome


"Be wise today so you don't cry tomorrow"


Dome

Ah, ok xD
Yes, Katanas (And K.Swords, but they are another story) do not have a "progression". They all have the same WP.
But...only the Samurai can use them. If you play the game without grinding, you wont have the samurai class unlocked until middle ch3, and by that point you will have most of the Katanas unlocked. No need to make shitty katanas no one will use. Considering that, I decided to gift (Or curse? Your call) them with an element for each weapon (Except the Masamune, which is unique...you have to steal it and it won't have a Draw Out), making them the only weapon class with all the elements available.

While I don't want FFT: Plus to be an arena patch (If you see all the charts, you'll see that most weapons become outdated sooner or later) I like the idea of having 2-3 weapons of each kind that are usable at level 99...is it wrong?

"Be wise today so you don't cry tomorrow"

formerdeathcorps

Dome, your weapon proposal has a bunch of problems.

Axes:
Earthbreaker has effectively 17 WP with the auto-boost and PA * WP.  Even if you can't use 2 Hands, attack up would be lethal.  Even if it is squire only, that still looks outright broken if you have any skills like Kagesougi / Grand Cross from Arena.

Bags:
There are two H Bags.  But does the bag titled "H BAg" really need to be poachable?  You have effectively 7.5 WP and some status cancels that aren't worth much.

Bows:
Yoichi Bow > All.  There is no legitimate reason why the Yoichi Bow has the same cost as the Perseus Bow, especially when it is easier to get (Poaching vs. Stealing).

Crossbows:
Gastrafitis << Yoichi Bow but has the same cost, especially since longbows aren't forced 2H anymore. 

Harps:
Bloody String > Lamia Harp because any leech effect is the equivalent of at least multiplying WP by 1.5x.

Guns:
Rifle at 4 range and only 12 WP?  Even if it is unevadable, I can use a gastrafitis for the same range and cost, for probably a lot more damage.  Rifle's range is justifiable only if you had +25% petrify (which requires ASM) or 14 WP.

Katanas:
This whole thing feels lazy.  They have an effective WP of 9 at 70 brave and do not scale.  If samurai are intended to be unlocked in the middle of Chapter III, then katanas should still have some degree of WP scaling between Chapter III and Chapter IV.
Also, if Masamune is to be special, shouldn't it have more WP?

Knight Swords:
All knight swords have an effective WP of 10.5 at 70 brave and also don't scale.
Defender's evasion isn't enough to give up a shield.
Having Save the Queen add protect but Ragnarok add shell when the latter is the rarer sword seems out of place unless mages are really THAT strong.  In theory, you want protect and shell at parity.

I'll post more after dinner.
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.

SWFFT

"2 or 3" seems good, like with the Ice/Lightning/Fire split with the swords. But "2 or 3" seems very different from "all 9" (katanas). Not sure if I follow your logic...doesn't it make more sense to have the Samurai unlocked by the time Katanas are available? In which case, to me, it seems weird that your Samurai will never have a stronger weapon from the time you unlock him/her to the time you are completely finished with this patch (since even the final rare katana, in this case the masamune, is no stronger than the Asura).


formerdeathcorps

Lances:
Dragon Whisker is actually OP because you halve all three primary elements AND have high WP.  Since 2H and Attack Up doesn't boost jump, we have a weapon that has way too much value on a jumper.

Rods:
Everything Else < Wizard Rod < Fire/Ice/Lightning Rod < Faith/Elemental Rod
Somehow, I don't think the elemental rods being stronger is intended.  Also, Elemental Rod + Equip Armor may prove to be stronger than knights with white robes.

Staves:
The rare staves are terrible.  The Mace of Zeus is just a trumped up Lightning Rod.  The Sage Staff buys peace of mind, but little else.  Neither are worth the same as a Yoichi Bow, really.  While we are on the topic, the cure staff is effectively a Cure1, at 1 range, which MAY trigger counterattacks.
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.

Dome

Wow, thanks for all the feedbacks XD
Long post ahead...


@Axe
Many monsters are going to get an element, and at least 2 or 3 will have Earth affinity
Equipping an elemental weapon won't be a surefire way to kill stuff. Also, I will probably implement the hack that makes float neutralize earth elemental weapon attacks
@Bag
Yeah, the name has already been fixed (I just need to update the image)
Bags are joke weapons, I do not care about their damage or real WP since they are so random
@Bow
Again, yes, it's the strongest bow, but still it's fire elemental: An elemental absorb/half will make your damage output very low
@Longbow
Lol, Longbows ARE 2H forced...my bad xD
@Harp
Maybe I should nerf Bloody Strings to 8 WP?
@Gun
12*12=144 on units that are not meant to do damage (Chemists or Mediators)
The rifle is fine as it is
@Katana
Samurai will probably get 2 hands innate back, I still have to decide.
Also remember that the mediator will get his Br/Fa altering skills back, so the damage output of the Samurai (Which can already be boosted by stuff like 108 gems and Black Robe) will be high anyway
@Lance
Should I nerf Dragon whisker's WP to 10? Or just make that you have to steal it so you get only 1?
@Rods
A mage with equip armor loses the use of strong support skills like Short Charge/Magic attack up/Precision in exchange for more Hp...don't know if it's worth the trade
I think the only class that can effectively use that combo is the Mediator, which could have used the support for Precision anyway...
@Stave
Suggestions about what should I do with the last 2 staves?

P.s: Guys, remember;
- In the next version Mediators will get their Br/Fa altering skills back (But the effects last just for the battle...no permanent Br/Fa altering)
- Elements are going to be a lot more important than before
- If you see "Steal" at "availability" it means you can get only one copy of that weapon, during Ch4

"Be wise today so you don't cry tomorrow"

RavenOfRazgriz

You speak like this is an Arena patch where I need to compensate for metagames where I don't know every opponent beforehand and can't simply use a different weapon against encounters where my Earth one doesn't work.

The problem is, I can peek into any battle I want, see how its set up, then bring in the things that work best against it while removing the things of my own the don't.  The element affinities are most likely to be drawbacks for the AI since I can actively choose to bring in Element Resistance, Float, etc. but the AI cannot, meaning the most they can do in reply is just make me equip something else for one fight then go back to status quo.

Dome

Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on July 22, 2012, 04:41:59 am
You speak like this is an Arena patch where I need to compensate for metagames where I don't know every opponent beforehand and can't simply use a different weapon against encounters where my Earth one doesn't work.

The problem is, I can peek into any battle I want, see how its set up, then bring in the things that work best against it while removing the things of my own the don't.  The element affinities are most likely to be drawbacks for the AI since I can actively choose to bring in Element Resistance, Float, etc. but the AI cannot, meaning the most they can do in reply is just make me equip something else for one fight then go back to status quo.

Well, if you want to spend so much time planning ahead...enjoy the advantages it brings XD

"Be wise today so you don't cry tomorrow"

RavenOfRazgriz

That's not really planning ahead.

>Enter battle
>Oh, my EarthBreaker won't work in this fight, lots of Floating guys.
>Soft Reset
>Equip a different weapon
>Enter battle

I AM SO SKILLED.  I AM PLANNING SO FAR AHEAD.  L1 R2 L2 R2 SELECT START, THE BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS.

...

Dome

Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on July 22, 2012, 04:58:56 am
That's not really planning ahead.

>Enter battle
>Oh, my EarthBreaker won't work in this fight, lots of Floating guys.
>Soft Reset
>Equip a different weapon
>Enter battle

I AM SO SKILLED.  I AM PLANNING SO FAR AHEAD.  L1 R2 L2 R2 SELECT START, THE BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS.

...

Maybe you brought Earth Clothes as well, and a Minotaur for sinergy
Removing the Earthbreaker might change which unit you want to bring for the battle (Maybe the Squire without the axe is not so useful for your set-up)
Also, this works only for scripted battles (And not every time, since enemy's equipment changes each time you enter it thanks to "<random>" flag in the FFTPatcher) and not for random battles

P.s: Lol at the "Breakfast of champions"

"Be wise today so you don't cry tomorrow"

RavenOfRazgriz

Random encounters are things I do for fun assuming I don't skip them.  Unless its a challenge encounter where I'm gonna for a specific encounter roll (11 Monks, eg), they're irrelevant and not what I'm gunning for.  Most often I'm playing the main game, various sidequests, or Deep Dungeon, all of which ARE scripted and are the primary content in your game each player will play through.

And honestly, in a single player game, I'm most likely not going to waste my time on things like that unless they're things that just fit together naturally, like me bringing my DPS Squire with EarthBreaker and my DPS Monk with Earth Clothes.  99% of the time these things don't need to be considered at all and from a player perspective you're better off ignoring them.  Even if I don't need the Axe, I just switch the Squire's primary, slap a different weapon on there, good to go.  Even in the far more difficult mod that FFT+ originally leeched heavily from, you never needed anywhere near the level of inter-party connectivity an Elemental Team brings up, and were often held back if you did so even though those teams were some of the best in AI Tournaments.

In a player's hands, the best team is almost always 5 distinct and fairly self-sufficient units with very few gimmicks.  If you're doing something else, it's mostly because it's cool and for-fun, and not much relevant to the points FDC and I are bringing up.

To bring it back to Katana for a minute as well - "more than two or three" = the entire Katana pool being incredibly boring and mostly the exact same weapon with Masamune being the weakest of all of them, and Samurai having no Attack command scaling whatsoever.  If you're trying to unlock Samurai without grinding, they're still not hard to have unlocked before Chapter 3 because Propositions and a huge number of other things, and you've made it so the Samurai's Attack command starts at the highest point it will ever reach (Asura + Black Robe) and only gets weaker over time because they never get a stronger option but enemy max HP only grows between other gear scaling, and what weapons still do have scaling quickly surpass them.

In general, you seem to have a big issue with scaling - when you consider something "end game", your default option is to just slap the same number on everything.  See: Katana, now have no scaling at all.  See: Robes, all the "end game" Robes all share the same HP, removing Robe HP scaling from half the game.  (There's the random unnecessary Wizard Robe nerf but that's unrelated.)  Knight Swords, despite all being rare, still follow an obtainable and easily tracked progression through Chapter 4, and these also don't show any form of scaling.  Dancer cloths also have this issue, etc.  You're basically designing an Arena game based on your equipment list... then placing the equipment in a game with a very easily traced power scale, and in a lot of cases it just leads to a lot of equipment that's just boring palette swaps of each other. 

You're so concerned about that OCD balance where tons of stuff is viable at "end game" and has roughly the same power you've removed a vast majority of scaling from the entire second half of the game and tossed out a lot of the cool effects that makes weapons in other mods fun.  Things being fun are more important than an OCD balance where tons of things are "viable" at end-game at the cost of them all looking the same, especially in a patch like FFT+ where the balance is there but the game itself is still meant to be kind of easy.  FFT: Arena has currently (and is slated to get quite a chunk more) equipment variance than you're sporting right now and it has no scaling whatsoever, so there's really no excuse for the piles of boring and palette-swapped weapons aside from a lack of ideas.

You're making a mod with a very distinct power scaling through story progression, leveling, etc., designing weapons for an Arena-like mod which has very little to no scaling, and then just kind of dropping the ball with both.  It just doesn't work and it makes the whole thing look boring and kind of sloppy.

Dome

Sorry, I read the whole post but I don't have the time/will to answer to everything.
Just pointing a few things:
- Remember that we are discussing about WEAPONS and not other pieces of equipment. We'll talk about them later
- FFT: Plus is going to be remade from scratch. Most of the things you've seen so far might change
- I'm still waiting for suggestions about Katanas/K.Swords and everything else, since I received next to none from you so far (Unless I missed something, which is possible...I'm not perfect)

P.s: With OCD you mean this?
P.p.s: If you guys want to see the current status of weapons without scrolling a lot of text/posts, here is the excel file with all weapons' data
Download

"Be wise today so you don't cry tomorrow"

RavenOfRazgriz

Yes that's what I mean.  I have OCD so I have to actively work against it when designing good weapons or I constantly end up with things like your Katana list.  Once upon a time I'd have tried pushing something like that as actively being good because it makes me feel comfortable, but I know its bad and actively work against what makes me feel naturally comfortable and satisfied because I know it sucks on the design level.

I'm not giving you suggestions because I'm not intimate in any way with most of the stuff in FFT+.  Let the players who know how the classes and such play out give suggestions, I'm just pointing out the stuff that obviously sucks and showing you why it obviously sucks since I know once you fix it, as long as you're doing so because you know WHY it's bad and not just because you're being told to, you'll go over other stuff, go "oh that's probably kinda sucky too" and fix it without needing it pointed out.  There's lots of other stuff I could poke issues with and have been tempted to do, including a number of things FDC brought up, but I don't know exactly how the stats in FFT+ pan out or what skills the classes accessing those weapons have innately so there's no point if there's an actual reason for that kind of imbalance.  (The Axes being Squire-only one is an example of an unseen element somewhat justifying what's been presented, though what's presented is basically the only Axe usable by Squire once its available and is likely the only weapon you'll be keeping on your Squire because of how much better it is than almost everything else, unless there's other relevant changes to the Squire's loadout such as Robe access.)

Basically, since I'm not intimately knowledgable with the patch nor invested in it beyond when I bother to make an autistic splerge post here and there, I'm just gonna tell you something sucks and to fix it and hope you're knowledgeable enough with your own patch to think of an answer to the problem, because someone more invested may not be as willing to tell you "it sucks, start over" because they want that new release.

Stretch

Give samurai equip change so the huge array of elemental katanas is simply an action away in the battle. They can adapt to the battles with all these elemental monsters and deal tons of elemental weapon attacks to monsters.
Yeah, right

Dome

Quote from: Stretch on July 22, 2012, 02:52:58 pm
Give samurai equip change so the huge array of elemental katanas is simply an action away in the battle. They can adapt to the battles with all these elemental monsters and deal tons of elemental weapon attacks to monsters.

That's a very good idea!

"Be wise today so you don't cry tomorrow"

Stretch

I like the idea of the samurai losing the clunky armor and getting robes, or just anything sleeker really.
Yeah, right

Dome

Poll closed!
Bolded sprites are the ones are going to be changed

Squire (Male)    - 6 (6.5%)
Squire (Female)    - 7 (7.6%)
Thief (Male)    - 2 (2.2%)
Thief (Female)    - 8 (8.7%)
Time mage (Male)    - 7 (7.6%)
Time mage (Female)    - 5 (5.4%)
Geomancer (Male)    - 14 (15.2%)
Geomancer (Female)    - 5 (5.4%)
Samurai (Male)    - 11 (12%)
Samurai (Female)    - 6 (6.5%)
Calculator (Male)    - 11 (12%)
Calculator (Female)    - 10 (10.9%)

"Be wise today so you don't cry tomorrow"