Weapon/Item Editting

[trickstardude7]

this is random but there should be a rod that heals party MP or uses duskblade to drain mp . Well just an idea!

[Desocupado]

I made Rods Wizard exclusive (as Knight swords are knight exclusive).
That works nice actually... Since give one more distinguish feature to Wizards.

One advice, while granting more options of equipment is good for the player, the AI isn't very intelligent when oit come to generate equipment.
I.e. I made archer be able to equip daggers, they end up using it instead of bows sometimes... (I were thinking about red mage in this case)

So, casting spell on attack, granting always spell, Ma bonus, strengthen elemental are all good bonuses for rods...

[VincentCraven]

Aren't Wizards good enough with the highest MAM? And healing MP by hitting does sound like a fine idea, but isn't that more Staff-like?

And with Red Mage, there probably won't be too many of them as enemies anyways; though we will have to replace the Mediators.

[Asmo X]

I was looking at the accessory list and I was wondering if anyone would agree with this new scheme:

(* = Items that have changed)

Gauntlets:
Power Wrist: PA+1, SP+1 *
Genji Gauntlet: PA+2, MA+2
Magic Gauntlet: MA+2
Bracer: PA+2 *

Shoes:
Battle Boots: Mv+1, PA+1 *
Germinas Boots: Mv+1, Jump+3 *
Rubber shoes: Cancel: Lightning, Don't Move
Feather Boots: Always: Float
Sprint Shoes: Mv+1, Speed+1 *
Spike Boots: Mv+2 *
Red Shoes: Mv+1 MA+1

Rings:
Reflect Ring: Always: Reflect, MP+30*
Defense Ring: Cancels: Sleep, Death Sentence
Magic Ring: Cancels: Silence, Berserk
Cursed Ring: Cancels: Invite. PA+1, MA+1, SP+1, Always: Undead
Angel Ring: Cancels: Darkness, Dead. Initial: Reraise

Armlets:
Diamond Armlet: Cancels: Stop, Slow, Haste. MA+1*
Jade Armlet: Cancels: Stop, Petrify
108 Gems: Cancels: Zombie, Blood Suck, Frog, Poison. Strengthen: Elements
N-Kai Armlet: Cancels: Charm, Confusion. Halves: Darkness
Defense Armlet: Cancels: Don't Move, Don't Act

Mantles:
Small Mantle: P.ev 10, M.ev 10, Mv+1*
Leather Mantle: P.ev 15, M.ev 15, SP+1*
Wizard Mantle: P.ev 18, M.ev 18, MA+1
Elf Mantle: P.ev 15, M.ev 15, Always: Regen. Weak: Fire*
Dracula Mantle: P.ev 30, M.ev 30 Always: Undead*
Feather Mantle: P.ev 25, M.ev 25*
Vanish Mantle: P.ev 25, M.ev 0, Initial: Transparent*

Perfumes:
(Have changes been made to these yet?)
Chantage: Always: Reraise. Always: Poison*
Cherche: MA+1 Always: Reflect*
Salty Rage: Always: Protect, Always: Shell, Always: Slow*
Setiemson: Always: Haste, Weak: Elements*

[Austin]

I'd say most of the items are fine as they are and the ones that do need adjusting (perfumes, certain mantles, etc.) don't really need drastic changes.

[Asmo X]

Well Vincent said he wanted every item to be useful and if an item has mv+1 and another has mv+1 and jump +1 then there's a problem. The more items we make viable, the more interesting the game will be.

[huthutchuck]

Why change the gengi guantlet, there is only one of them.  And it's not very easy to get.
 
You know what, than brings me to another question.  
How much cheating is done by us and is that affecting the decisions we make as far as who to give what abilities to and how powerful everything is?

For instance Draw out.  Alot of those weapons are rare anyway so what difference does it make how powerful they are if every time you use them there is an opportunity that you may no longer have them.  Masmune may be powerful but if you only had one as you should, you would be hesitant to use it outside of a big battle.

Are we doing the weapons dupe and recreating excaliburs and chaos blades?
Are we doing the job scroll glitch and mastering all the classes on level 1?
Are we gamesharking our way to all abilities and all items?

The reason i mention this is because if we are unbalancing the field by cheating.  We will never "balance" the game by editing anything.

[Asmo X]

Why change the gengi guantlet, there is only one of them.  And it's not very easy to get.
 

Fair enough

Also, I dont quite get what you mean about cheating. Are you saying all efforts to edit items/spells etc is futile because you can cheat your way to victory? If so, that's a pretty weak argument since that could be used to undermine any decision you make. I think the best you can do is balance the game as it is played normally, and close down any avenues for cheating as they arise.

[VincentCraven]

I'd love to remove the weapon dupe/item scroll glitch, but those are pure glitches, so I'm not too worried about those. What I am worried about are skills that are meant to be learned and characters that are meant to be used, but break the game anyway. So let's say we aren't cheating.

AsmoX: I think we may have discussed this before, but item availability IMO is a very important factor with items. In the original FFT, players would either upgrade items when better ones became available or save their money for the good items that are coming later. Battle Boots and Spike Boots being trumped by Germinas Boots is fine since you get the first 2 in chapter 1 and the later in, what, chapter3?

That being said, items also are dependent on character availability. Are we keeping the limited gauntlet/armlet availability in this patch? Hmm

[Asmo X]

Vincent: Yeah we talked about that while we were discussing the Blue Mage's skills I think and I tried to keep that in mind. The changes I made aren't exactly sweeping. Gauntlets still have a clear progression in bonuses, Mantles still have increasing Ev, boots with mv (now that theres an accessory with mv+2, its even more obvious) and the other categories havent really changed (except for perfumes which just got a balance).

The early items have a niche now. That's all I did.

[VincentCraven]

Okay, I've thought about it for a while and I think you may be on to something; however, some of the changes you have made are a bit too much.

Bracer with just PA+2 should be okay, but Power Wrist could just be a Berserk Gauntlet.

I'm at a loss of what to do with Battle/Spike Boots, but perhaps a questionably useful immunity should be added to Germinas Boots?

Rings cannot have +MP. Magic Ring instead could have Always: Faith, but blocking Silence and Berserk is useful.

The idea of having Diamond Armlet cancel Haste as well as Slow is pretty nifty. I'd say just add immune: Haste

Mantles:
Small Mantle: P.ev 5, M.ev 5
Leather Mantle: P.ev 8, M.ev 8
Wizard Mantle: P.ev 6, M.ev 10, MA+1
Elf Mantle: P.ev 12, M.ev 12 Sp+1 Weak: All Magic
Feather Mantle: P.ev 15, M.ev 15
Dracula Mantle: P.ev 20, M.ev 20 Always: Undead
Vanish Mantle: P.ev 25, M.ev 0, Initial: Transparent
=> Again I'm at a loss for the first two. Nearly all of the other stuff available in Chapter 1 is never used again though.

Perfumes: Chantage and Setiesmon need to be changed. In FFT Sigma I suggested Chantage have Initial: Reraise instead of Auto: Reraise, and I suggested Setiesmon have Auto: Berserk added on to the other stuff it adds.

[Austin]

Agreed on bracer, I think power wrist is fine as is though. Give spike boots 1mv and 2jmp so they're marginally better than the battle boots. For germinas boots I just gave them +2mv, you might think it's too much but later in the game when there are accessories that can do more useful stuff like add reraise or regen I don't think it is. Also sprint shoes need improvement, +1 spd isn't much help in chp 3. I was thinking either +1mv and spd or +2spd.

Magic ring- +1ma
Diamond armlet is fine, there's no reason to make it worse if it isn't that great in the first place.

For mantles I had the first one add 5 to each and then every one after that(except wizard mantle which didn't change) increase by increments of 5. So in the end the feather mantle had +25 of each. The undead cape is a neat idea, but it only adds 5 more evade than the previous cape. Would that really be enough of a reason to stop characters from healing themselves? I'd never even bother with the dracula cape if it were like that. And there's not really much to do for the chp1 items, they just have to suck.

Perfumes
chantage- always regen, initial reraise
cherche- always float, reflect ma+1
setiesmon- initial protect, shell
salty rage- always berserk, haste pa+1

[Xifanie]

Setiemson: initial Protect/shell?

Who'd wear that? the first turns are when you don't even receive any damage, that would make the perfume completely worthless.

[Austin]

I thought it would at least last long enough to be useful. I never bother casting either so I wouldn't know.
I guess we need another solution to that one then.

[VincentCraven]

Spike Boots? We can just flip the point at which they are available, making Spike Boots come in very early. +2 Speed on Sprint Shoes is good, but I'm pretty stingy with move.

+1MA and +1PA is very useful for those characters who can't wear gauntlets. And with changing Magic Ring to MA+1, you have already made it completely worthless in comparison. Magic Ring originally comes after Diamond Armlet, so you may want to make Magic Ring come first. That, and +1MA is pretty useless pretty fast.

And the Dracula Cape could do with a bit more I suppose.

For Cherche, if it needs something I'd suggest Always: Faith as well. Most magic can't hit the character anyway.
What was wrong with the original always Protect and Shell? Maybe just always Protect?



=O It just hit me. Perhaps, instead of changing the items we already have why don't we make completely new items that use every cool combination we can think of, and then fit them onto the slots available? That way we could easily reduce redundancy. Renaming the items won't be hard once melonhead perfects his editor, right?  

[Asmo X]

Yeah that was my plan with the D.Mantle. Clear winner in both categories but Undead.

Just make the ev bonuses slightly more pronounced for the higher mantles since by that point in the game there's some pretty hefty competition for your accessory slot. I still think 30 30 for Drac is alright given undead, we agree on the Vanish, and maybe a compromise for the feather? 20 20? I'd use that.

And +faith on a ring is good. I never thought of that. I just wanted the Reflect Ring to stand out since Refelct is on a Perfume too.

Also, a Mv+2 item should be ok. Its a different thing to the Mv+2 and 3 supports because you have to give up your accessory slot. Arguably more vital.

Power Wrist is ok as an early +PA item and it's a long slog to the Bracer. Do what you like, of course, but my position is that +1 spd isnt going to create many waves.

The change I made to the Battle Boots make it a PA version of Red Shoes. Should there be one?

Also, I think having Permanent Status effects on Perfumes is kind of a unique thing that they should keep, but it's a matter of balancing them. Austin, your/Vincent's (whoever's) suggestion for the Chantage is perfect. Cherche, I dunno. Just Reflect and Faith maybe? The Setiemson will be useless as per Zodiacs advice and your Salty Rage is possibly too powerful? I'd drop the PA bonus.

Setiemson should keep always: Protect and Shell but we have to add something to this to make you think twice about using it for everything.

[Austin]

=O It just hit me. Perhaps, instead of changing the items we already have why don't we make completely new items that use every cool combination we can think of, and then fit them onto the slots available? That way we could easily reduce redundancy. Renaming the items won't be hard once melonhead perfects his editor, right?  

[Asmo X]

Oh yeah, about the Mantles again, I think the early ones should start at 10 ev rather than 5. Even against other early game accessories, that's pretty useless. How you want to stagger them from there though if you want feather to be 15-20, I dont know. 25 for that would probably be alright. What is it in vanilla FFT? 40 30? Its a big difference.

[Austin]

I'd like the regular mantles to get up to at least 25% in each category.
The first mantle could just add 10%Pev and the second one could add something like 13Pev and 10Mev and it could just increase bit by bit from there.

[Asmo X]

Ok how about this ev setup:

Small: 15 0
Leather: 10 10
Wizard: 10 15
Elf: 15 15
Feather: 25 20
Drac: 30 30
Vanish: 25 0

You get:
1. Constantly increasing Ev bonus totals right down to Vanish
2. Small Mantle competing right up to Elf.
3. The M.ev specialty Vincent put on the Wizard mantle
4. A decent jump to the higher level mantles (Elf to Feather) without being too broken. The original Feather had better P.ev so I thought it was appropriate.