My Patch (Unamed)

[Atma]

thanks for the info... i'm gonna be late for work, so i gotta jet.  can't wait to try this out.  

[formerdeathcorps]

Fixes (other than renaming characters and plot changes):
1) Chickened units now gain 4 brave per turn until they lose chicken.  Thanks to Tigerlily for finding the general offset and Zodiac for pointing out how ASM actually works.
2) Redid equip items as described previously (less HP to status boosting gear, more HP to armor/clothing/robes, less to hats/helms, more differentiation between armor and clothing in HP).
3) The Araguay Woods encounter has the proper event scripts now.
4) The Algus and Mustadio battles have been fixed accordingly.  Not only does this save event space, the camera angle has also been fixed for Algus.
5) Lenalia Plateau and Windmill Shed difficulty increased.  Algus difficulty increased.  Zirekile should now be possible (as previously, it was bugged to be near impossible).
6) Removed skillset bug with learn via JP moves.  Thanks to the Damned for pointing this out.
7) Juggler/Thief formation sprite mix-up fixed.

New Bugs:
1) Formation screen depicts the wrong sprites for Rad/Lavian/Alicia

Deferred Problems:
1) Crystal on Ultima and Elibdis.  I know, I said I was going to do this now, but since no one has gotten to Chapter 4 in my patch yet, I see no reason to fix this.  I'll fix difficulty issues as people test them, not before.
2) Blue Mage and spillover JP...this problem means that it is technically possible for a perosn to never master the first 6 blue mage skills (and thus create serious problems when trying to master lancer or swordmaster).  The solution is currently to give some monster abilities JP costs less than 9999 so the BluM at level 8 can learn the first 6 skills, but this sort of goes against the spirit of blue magic.  Since no one has gotten to that point in the game, I won't touch this problem.
3) Magic Break formula.  I will fix this, but in the meantime, Magic Ruin is now Faith Based with X = 165.  This averages out to around 50% when both units have 55 faith (average).

[Timbo]

I love the chicken/brave fix.  I'm pretty excited about it.

[Tigerspike]

I'm glad my question produced something useful.  lol at being called Tigerlily, though.  Anyway, I checked out your patch and looked at some of the stuff you've done.  I like what I've seen so far.  I've always wanted to make Kain from FFIV as a special 'master' version of the lancer type, and the info I learned from dissecting your patch makes that very easy to pull off now.

[Timbo]

His JP spillover technique for the Lancer creates a really unique approach to generic "Special" jobs.  It's very clever.

[The Damned]

6) Removed skillset bug with learn via JP moves.  Thanks to the Damned for pointing this out.

I did what now?

Oh, you mean the Blue Mage problem I was having? Yeah, I figured you were probably right, though I haven't had time to test it out since I just finally got down with all my 20 generic classes yesterday (after completely getting rid of a class that I was going to have for another class that I hope works, even if it's kind of boring, but enough of that).

Regardless, glad to hear that things are working.

I keep meaning to give yours a try, but it's like everyone came out with interesting patches at the same time and I'm not even more half way through 1.3 still on top of working on my other patch (and the other stuff I should have to do). So...yeah. Also doesn't help that I've never touched Shishi, so I'm not sure what to do prevent the game from glitching since you said we had to do something in Shishi.

[formerdeathcorps]

Sorry about that.  I know someone on another forum by the name of Tigerlily.

As for the trend The Damned is mentioning, I'm afraid I might have broken the ice there.  Eternal had released his earlier for testing, but I was the first one to post here (thereby encouraging other people to post their ideas--both half-formed and rather well-done).  Let's hope this wave blossoms in mature patches.

[formerdeathcorps]

Sorry for the delay; I had to rewrite a lot of Battle Conditionals.  Except for oversights on my part, there should be no more glitches in Chapter 2 (though I'm going to closely watch any Araguay fights or Queklain fights).  You can download the latest version at http://www.sendspace.com/file/tfxdrf.

Fixes:
1) Gafgarion/Hunter will leave the party at the proper time and will teleport away when wounded regardless of which choice you picked at Araguay.  Battle made slightly harder.
2) There should be no more problems at Zirekile Falls with Gafgarion/Hunter not moving.  Is still very difficult, but I don't think it's impossible now.
3) Yellow and Dark Dragons should no longer have portrait problems.
4) Distinguished the Golden Chocobo from normal yellow chocobos.  There are now 6 colors for chocobo.  Added DD sprites for all monster types that had extras in the original game (with complete portraits).
5) Made the player start out with a bit more skills in the very beginning.
6) Made enemies harder at Lenalia and Windmill Shed.
7) Added Draclau battle.  Obviously, his sprite was completed.
8) Added some new music to the DD.
9) Enemies can no longer throw fire balls at level 1.  Just don't over-level in the second battle, though.
10) Algus will shoot properly.  Wiegraf/Sixe will die, instead of disappear at the Windmill Shed.
11) You now start with 5 potions and 2 PDs to make Battle 2 less arbitrary.
12) All enemies outside of random battles (there's nothing wrong with facing mutant humans) can no longer use monster skillsets.
13) You can now rename all units, though I advise you against renaming special units (because this will not change the TEST.EVT names).  (I forgot to patch this.)
14) Small Bomb actually is now fire elemental.
15) Help text with Zodiac signs proofread for clarity.  Same goes with the grammar of most spell quotes.

New Mechanics:
1) Blind is weak against dark rather than float weak against wind.  Blind now cancels transparent and stops it from being added.  Thanks to Zodiac for patiently helping me debug.
2) Oracle lost Bio 1.  Gained Darkness (need better name), which is a dark elemental 2 spell that can't be evaded, reflected, or target allies (at 0 vertical tolerance).  On top of 2v3 blind, oracle should be more viable in damage as well.

New Bugs:
1) TEST.EVT will not reflect name changes made to anyone but Ramza by the Soldier's Office.
2) An "Asura Knife" is broken when using Soul Release.  Not sure this is fixable without making the Asura 0 WP (which is not what I want).
3) A unit with darkness and oil will not take 2x fire damage.  I can ASM fix this, but it is a pain to do so.

Needs Confirmation:
1) Level 99 squads occasionally run into level 88-96 enemies even though I flagged everything as "Party Level".  I only detected this in my game, so please check this out in yours.

Deferred:
1) Darkness halving the maximum accuracy of units.

[leoncpa]

I have a suggestion about the classes you need to unlock themselves via spillover JP.

Considering the only real way to get the new classes are by invite, and that inviting has a craptastic chance and "now costs MP".
I suggest you either create a status effect on specific chars during story battles that improve invite success rate, or change the invite formula to affect those with lower brave more.

I kinda think the latter would work better.
ex: invite chance +30% if brave < 30 or something like that.
Reason being--- I was being told that move-find item is more useful now, and lower brave makes it more successful.
But also because normally your main chars you want to have higher brave, so you don't "automatically" replace your old units with the new ones.

I'm mainly concerned with what is needed to earn the new classes. Inviting by itself is poor, but can be easily improved imo.
The steep requirements to earn the new classes for others is another problem to me, because of the intensive farming required.
But atm i do not have any idea on how to fix that, considering the limitations FDC told me were in place.

I still would like the requirements a little lower though ^_^ such as lvl 4 instead of lvl 6. squire lvl 8 seems to be a must though.
It would cause story battles to purely be "job unlock events" if that were the case. not too bad though I think if they were brought in at the right times.


edit: btw this is my first post, hi all  

[Timbo]

I could be wrong but I think fdc gives you some special characters that have those jp spillover jobs unlocked during the normal progression of the game.

[formerdeathcorps]

You're right in saying I will give you special jobs in Chapter 4 either with some of the spillover JP jobs learned, but you will be able to invite generics with the special jobs unlocked before then.  The partial compromise is that in Chapter 2, you will receive specials with skills that you'd otherwise obtain from spillover JP jobs (Musty, Lavian, Rad, Alicia).

OK, I'll put this before a vote.  I'm going to nerf blade grasp either way, because it's stupidly OP (as in it doesn't follow the description given to it in its BATTLE.BIN descriptions).  It is currently unusable by the player.
There are three ways of doing this.
1) Make it not block 3+ range weapons, which I feel is still too OP (and thus will remain out of player hands).  However, this requires more ASM work than what Razele did.
2) Make it not block 2+ range weapons, which I feel may then all right for player use, but still might be OP.  I'll let players decide this whether or not this is too OP for player use.  (Note, ranged weapons are still comparatively weak in my patch, but lances are the deadliest things you can imagine.)
3) Make it not block anything except sword, katana, samurai sword, and knight sword, which would definitely be not broken, but may not be adequately balanced (since I want something to nerf lancers).
4) No changes to the effectiveness.  Elmdor needs to be a challenge.
5) Some combination of the above + a changed denominator to lower the maximum proc rate.  Note if the denominator is low enough, it may be possible to have no changes + player usable.
To assist in the decision, here's an article on the actual Japanese martial arts technique of shirahadori: http://www.aiki-buken.com/aikibujutsu.html.

[Timbo]

How about
6.) Nerf blade grasp to only work on swords, knight swords, katanas, and axes and then change Silent Walk into Blade Grasp 2, which functions like the original, and is given to Elmdor and the ghost monsters.

[SilvasRuin]

If you have any desire to mimic the real thing, then the best concept to match it would be blocking anything with a cutting edge and then giving it to the vampire (Elmdor) that is actually strong enough to pull such a thing off.  Being the supernatural being that he is, I suppose it still wouldn't shatter all sense for him to be able to stop other weapons, only projectiles truly being questionable.  (Hey, if he were that fast and strong, by all rights he should be quintuple turning you and turning you into mince meat.)  I see no way to balance it without either making it over powered for the player or obsolete in comparison to Hamido or First Strike or whatever that other one is called.  Maybe tweak it a little and give it to Elmdor then call it a day.

[formerdeathcorps]

How about
6.) Nerf blade grasp to only work on swords, knight swords, katanas, and axes and then change Silent Walk into Blade Grasp 2, which functions like the original, and is given to Elmdor and the ghost monsters.

I can't technically do that because I can't simply convert movement abilities to reaction abilities, I don't think.  What I could do, though, is convert the unused reflect ability to Blade Grasp +.

[DeadManWalking]

It'd probably be easier to make Reflect the limited Blade Grasp and just not touch the original.  I vote for option 5.

[formerdeathcorps]

Actually modification is always easier.  For blade grasp, for option 5, all I need to do is apply Razele's hack with some basic modifications.

[formerdeathcorps]

OK, here's the second round of voting, and far more creative ideas can be contemplated.  With ASM, we can actually remake all the R/S/M abilities.  Personally, I was fine with most of them, but:

1) Critical HP triggers are too weak.  I'm not sure whether I should just raise the % of activation or completely remake them.  The abilities to be modified include Bonecrusher, HP Restore, and Critical Quick.
MP Restore makes the least sense (since low HP doesn't necessarily mean low MP), and in my opinion, should be reworked as something else more useful.

2) The "Reflect" reaction does nothing.  There is also a blank reaction slot.  i personally would like the "Reflect" reaction add reflect when hit by magic as a TM reaction (kind of like regenerator), so we technically have one slot to make a totally new ability from.

3) Regenerator is too weak.  Any ideas to boost it?

4) Blade Grasp fixes (see above).

5) There are three blank support abilities.  I was thinking of implementing Vehemence (after some study of Zodiac's fury hack), Turbo MP (2x MP cost [if MP Cost > 0] = some boost to spells cast, either as a multiplier to non-zero X and Y values, or the removal of caster faith from consideration), and some unspecified skill that I don't have many ideas about yet, though I'd like for it to boost evasion, particularly to magic.

6) There is 1 movement ability, Silent Walk, that doesn't work.  Originally, it was an even weaker version of move-find item, but that''s too weak, so I'm likely to have it add invisible after the player moves any amount of squares (so it's a movement ability analogue of concentrate).  However, I'm likely to delete Move on Water and Move Underwater as redundant so we technically have 2 slots here to manipulate.

7) We have one spare status effect that's entirely empty and can be modified.  Also, I have yet to fully confirm this, but it seems critical may have no effect on the game itself (other than to display that a unit is just badly wounded), and can be replaced by other statuses (if I can remove HP check tied to it), and thus, any effect that matches the animation may work.

Please keep suggestions simple, coherent, and balanced.

[R999]

Just a follow up based on our discussion in chat, here are the notes:

Regenerator => Intercept
0.5*Br% proc Quick.

Reflect => Swiftness
Br% proc Haste

Critical Quick => Half: Quick
Br% Proc Quick when HP < 50%.

Critical HP Restore => Half: Restore HP
Br% Proc Restore 100% HP when HP < 50%, but also inflict Sleep.
or
Br% Proc Restore 50% HP when HP < 50%, but also inflict Berserk.
or
Br% Proc Restore 25% HP when HP < 50%.

Critical MP Restore => Half: Restore MP
Proc Restore 100% MP when HP < 50%.

Silent Walk
Add Transparent on any Movement.



And some other notes.  HP Save, MP Save, FingerGuard100.

[The Damned]

Lol, HP Restore called too weak? I never thought I'd see that day. I'm surprised you don't think Damage Split is too weak then.

Also, I personally think that Regenerator is fine as is and if you do indeed think it's too weak, then you can always either a)boost Regen status itself or b)reduce damage across the board. You can even do both.

Otherwise, I agree.

What are your thoughts on Dragon Spirit then? I'm curious.

[formerdeathcorps]

Lol, HP Restore called too weak? I never thought I'd see that day. I'm surprised you don't think Damage Split is too weak then.

Also, I personally think that Regenerator is fine as is and if you do indeed think it's too weak, then you can always either a)boost Regen status itself or b)reduce damage across the board. You can even do both.

Otherwise, I agree.

What are your thoughts on Dragon Spirit then? I'm curious.

HP Restore is actually the strongest in that category and most likely could just use a 5% boost in HP activation (from 20 to 25% or R999's idea).  It's really Critical Quick (useless except in really close matches or to run away, or for bombs to blow up) and Bonecrusher (easy to circumvent) that irks me.
I can't really boost regen more in CT (because parity would demand a boost to all other positive status effects), or in nulls (because none really make sense other than poison).  As for damage reduction, that opens a nest of trouble I'd prefer to not consider because it's a cascade effect that requires me to change more multipliers (so monks fit and the Lucavi don't become impossible).  The point of this patch was to make the minimum number of mechanics changes needed to delete redundancies, remove broken features, and balance the game without resorting to 1.3 while creating enough space to be able to indulge in a story rewrite (and the attendant mechanics changes).

Dragon Spirit is not that bad because I boosted DS to override re-raise and to ignore cancel dead (so there's a counter).  That, and the player won't be getting this before Chapter 3 (and afterward, damage split may just be better).  So I'm not that worried.  If someone's being too cheap, I'll probably lower the chance or make it faith dependent instead of brave.
Speaking of faith dependence, that could be another method to boost regenerator.  Regenerator is weak compared to even reaction abilities like weapon guard (because when used by a player, it usually corresponds to a really high W-EV weapon or two swords).  Another idea would be to use the spare status effect to create a turbo-regen effect that only comes from regenerator (though I'd rather save that slot for something else).

R999:
Intercept: I like the idea, but it doesn't sound like something priest would use.  I'd rather keep any modification of regenerator as a priest reaction.  However, intercept and Half Quick shouldn't exist in the same game because of overlap issues.
Swiftness: Don't forget TM has initial haste.  I don't really see why TM should have this also as their reaction.  I'd rather see reflect (which only stops offensive, non-summon magic in this game).
Half Quick/HP Restore: Half Quick is nice.  Would be much more useful and dangerous.  Rest sounds like the best idea, I think, and not just because it's a Pokemon analogue.
Half MP Restore: I don't think you get my point.  MP Restore should not be tied to HP in the first place because that's the central incongruity.  It probably should be faith dependent (and trigger on MA dependent attacks), and should have an effect with MP being restored or enemy MP being reduced.  Maybe something like Blood Magic: for each 8 HP points lost, you have a faith % chance of gaining 1 MP or the enemy attacker has a chance of losing 1 MP (I'm not sure which is better).