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FFT Arena: Balance Discussion Thread

Started by FFMaster, July 13, 2010, 07:56:57 pm

FFMaster

July 13, 2010, 07:56:57 pm Last Edit: September 14, 2012, 08:17:41 pm by FFMaster
NOTE: Balance debates only. If you think your change warrants its own thread, go for it.

Master Guide
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FFMaster

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The Damned

Okay, so I'll try to give first impressions without ruminating this too much:

  • First and foremost, thanks for the doing the Level 35 chart thing. A lot easier to get a grip on things for those of us who are horrible with the stat growths and such still.
  • You should also say whether the techniques can target the ally, enemy or both as well if they can hit the user.
  • Not really sure how I feel about Calculators being Illusionists, though my grievance is more than they can't be dodged than that they can hit everywhere. That said, I feel they're better than Sages, who were largely ineffectual in my eyes; I will admit that is some bias on my part due to having Illusionists in my patch.
  • Finger Guard might as well cost 0 JP if it's still going to be so useless.
  • Greased Bolt isn't going to work, especially with the AI. Directly adding Chicken (or Critical or some other statuses) just doesn't work/screws with the AI.
  • Odin potentially adding Dead when hits over such a large area seems pretty OP. Not to push my own patch more, but I would say if you want to make Odin add dead, then make it Linear and/or able to be dodged. Even then, that's kind of OP given you have less people than usual, but it's better than letting it potentially hit entire team at once and haxing everyone to death. This is especially true since it's the second most powerful summon still in terms of pure power, especially since the only other summons that rival it are Earth-based (Titan), which can be avoid by Float or negated/absorbed by other things, and Bahamut, which doesn't have the chance to potentially just kill outright like Odin. Hell, Odin kind of obviates Lich too, currently.
  • Finally, there are minor typos in Equip Sword and Counter Magic that I'm sure you can see.

That's it for now.
"Sorrow cannot be abolished. It is meaningless to try." - FFX's Yunalesca

"Good and evil are relative, but being a dick cannot be allowed." - Oglaf's Thaumaturge in "The Abyss"

"Well, see, the real magic isn't believing in yourself. The real magic is manipulating people by telling them to believe in themselves. The more you believe, the less you check facts."  - Oglaf's Vanka in "Conviction"

FFMaster

2 - maybe some other time. Most of them follow 1.3, so check those for now.
3 - I'm not sure either, guess we will see after the tourney
4 - I agree
5 - Greased Bolt works. It adds Chicken until the unit gets hit by something, or Regen/Move HP/MP Up/Poison activates.
6 - Odin I think is too strong, we are now thinking of making it a mass Death attack. like 25-30% death, or miss.
7 - yeah, i know the mistakes, but i'm just too tired right now to fix.
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FFMaster

Updated again. Mostly its the same though. Hopefully, nobody has any huge objections.
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Zaen

Seems decent, though some of the stronger abilities look kinda cheap, such as some of the powerful summons, maybe even the Sage skills, seeing as they hit the entire board 100%. But... F(MA*4 and 5) seems very weak... I'm guessing around 18-30 damage is the range? Well, I guess seeing as it's the whole map that seems fair. Never mind this.

Leviathan seems to weak, even for having that much range... but I guess that's not going to change. Silf is far more useful than Titan at this point, as it silences or Don't Acts. Maybe Titan could get Don't Move or Silf could get a slight nerf of F(MA*18)?
"Oh, God!! The Hokuten!!" ~Guard, Sand Rat Cellar

The Damned

I have to agree with Zaen, especially since I'm still surprised to see Concentrate so cheap.

Otherwise, all of the Equip X abilities outside of Equip Armor, Equip Gun and perhaps Equip Shield could stand to be a cheaper.
"Sorrow cannot be abolished. It is meaningless to try." - FFX's Yunalesca

"Good and evil are relative, but being a dick cannot be allowed." - Oglaf's Thaumaturge in "The Abyss"

"Well, see, the real magic isn't believing in yourself. The real magic is manipulating people by telling them to believe in themselves. The more you believe, the less you check facts."  - Oglaf's Vanka in "Conviction"

Zaen

Is there a typo on Cure 4? It says AoE 0 but still has Vert 3.

Also, Repeating Fist is worthless, as it's completely outclassed by Wave Fist.
"Oh, God!! The Hokuten!!" ~Guard, Sand Rat Cellar

CT5Holy

Unless it's 100% hit like in 1.3. Which I assume is the case.
Winner of the 1st FFT 1.3 AI Tourney

PX_Timefordeath

Whoops, my error. It is 100% hit. And Cure4 should have have infinite vert... I think.

Kaz

Can anyone explain the limitations on throw? i.e are all items that are on the list available to be thrown?
to hell with you mustadio haters

FFMaster

No limitations. Anything on the Weapon Lists pretty much. Except Knight Swords, which I removed.

EDIT: Removed the Random Hits flags for Nameless Dance and Nameless Song.
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philsov

Few notes about the new sage stuff:

1) Its set to persevere; intentional?
2) Silence doesn't stop it.
3) Evadeable, although not noted above
Just another rebel plotting rebellion.

FFMaster

1) Intentional
2) Silence stops it now
3) They weren't supposed to be evadable. Fixed now.
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philsov

minor theorycrafting points, that I'd like to be watched for in this beta tourney:

1) Lore is... lackluster.  It -barely- edges out Wiznaibus in damage-per-tick, but is marred by MP cost so it can't be sustainable forever (even on a summoner / half MP unit and such).  Its best use basically requires an entire team setup around it, with one of two facets.  The first is elemental absorbing (black costume + flame shield, e.g.) to make it basically BOTH life song and wiznaibus at the same time -- which is pretty sick in one sense, and I'm sure with some tweaking with MP restoration (2x both with absorbed use MP?) it can sustain itself for a long duration.  The second would be using the party damaging facet and slap all your own people with stuff like Speed and MA save and just go to town with it, probably coupled with poor compat and/or low faith on some units and/or half:element options.  Which, also, is quite effective in the theoretical sense and I almost submitted a team to that tune.  I just don't like a skillset being both borderline broken or a liability given the rest of the group, with Lore itself being the archstone.  

1a) Suggest gutting it and inserting something like a blue mage, red mage, gladiator(?), Mystic Knight, or other job-like from the spectrum.

2) While I am a bit proud that y'all are incorporating many things from ASM'd into the PvP patch, the movement thing really needs to be addressed.  One, in that the current pool is waaay too small and/or ineffective, with move HP and move MP probably being the best of the bunch.  ASM'd includes both move+1 and move+2 in its repitoire, and tbh half-expects the user to have them on many units which is why the 2 move is present in the first place.  If you remove movement-buffing abilities, I highly suggest going back to the 3/4 scheme.  

3) Masamune is too awesome, but I don't know how to fix it.  With the given range/movement/map size, its reasonable to expect 3/4 of the team to be both hasted and regened (with awesome synergy) once the fighting actually starts.  Plus its instant with no MP cost.  It completely replaces Time Magic and offers healing and offensive action all in a single skillset.  Maybe there's something we can do with the seperate flag?  25% Regen and 25% Haste might suck too much, though.

4) I don't think Silf needs to spit out that much damage and have a status proc on top of it.  

5) Given the current unlock scheme, oracle seems like an awesome combo as far as JP goes with both Def Up and Move MP-Up.  Suggest giving Move MP-Up to summoners as an ability.

5a) Possibly re-adjust the unlock price/JP costs/JP cap.  I was able to get primary, secondary, and R/S/M from five different jobs for many prelim builds, complete with 1-4 action abilities per slot.  Is that the target?
5b) 500 JP for Ultima?  too high imo.

6) Bards and Dancers shouldn't have 3 movement.  High mobility means you run into the enemy headfirst.  These classes don't need to do this, but do it anyways thanks to AI.  2 movement is far more fitting, unless the 3 is specifically because you don't want them to be fully effective.  

Think that's it for now >_>

edit:  7) Always:protect and shell are too good, imo.  coupled with def up or MDU, that's an effective hp boost of 50% (I think I did the reverse math right?).  So on a knight with a knight sword and coupled opposite has an effective HP pool of... 718.  But with  479 base HP this also means he's regenning 48 HP a turn with move HP Up, and 60 HP with regen thanks to masamune.  That... is a literally a brick wall.

I did the same thing with my dancers for this tourney :)  330 HP with both protect and magic Def up?  Its awesome.
Just another rebel plotting rebellion.

Kaz

*hides from philsov's brick wall dancers*
to hell with you mustadio haters

philsov

hee.

Also!  back to the movement thing.  

Exhibit A:  Cluster of death, and 2 movement units can't go through a stack of corpses.  Thankfully everyone had range in some form or fashion, but that's because all the melee killed each other.

[attachment=0:3b8sw80c]movement.PNG[/attachment:3b8sw80c]
Just another rebel plotting rebellion.

The Damned

Out of curiosity, what ability slots did you use for Lore? I'm asking this because the Charging animation for them looks...interesting.
"Sorrow cannot be abolished. It is meaningless to try." - FFX's Yunalesca

"Good and evil are relative, but being a dick cannot be allowed." - Oglaf's Thaumaturge in "The Abyss"

"Well, see, the real magic isn't believing in yourself. The real magic is manipulating people by telling them to believe in themselves. The more you believe, the less you check facts."  - Oglaf's Vanka in "Conviction"

AeroGP

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.

philsov

Quote from: "The Damned"Out of curiosity, what ability slots did you use for Lore? I'm asking this because the Charging animation for them looks...interesting.

Looks like the ones immediately after Parasite.
Just another rebel plotting rebellion.