FFT Arena: Balance Discussion Thread

In my defense, I didn't say no one could beat it. No build is invincible. I didn't say invincible, I said OP. If you design a team specifically for the purpose of beating one other team, of course you will win. And I still think that the diversity of the skillset and the power of the skill are actually just fine. I only object to the range.

In my opinion, a team with an optimized Holy mage will roll over more builds than it should. There are plenty of balanced builds, which should be able to stand their ground against an optimized magic team and win roughly 50% of the time, if the RNG favors them, but the range puts them at a distinct disadvantage. It's hard for most builds to hold their ground against a unit that can consistently reach and OHKO nearly any non-tank unit, even after Raise 2. This effectively nullifies two units, one dead and one sandbagging, leaving two units to take on the other three enemy units. There are other optimized units that can achieve the same effect, but those units at least have to step into moderate range and expose themselves to potential AoE or other damage.

It's not that optimized mage teams are unbeatable, but that they have an advantage over too many builds. And if you design a team specifically to cut paper, then you will be smashed by rock. A balanced team can't compete against Holy at 6 range. Most balanced builds probably wouldn't have enough power to win even if Holy were at 5, but they could at least make a fight of it. So much of FFT is subject to the RNG in one way or another. And when an ability is not subjected to RNG, it is limited in some other way. Holy has a very liberal amount of power. There are weights on the other side of the scale, but not enough to balance it. I don't think losing one panel of range would make Holy underpowered in any way, but rather balanced.

I'm still failing to see why Holy needs 6 range when it can frak you up with 5.

Kudos on the victory though. That was a very thorough demonstration of how to beat an optimized Magic team and how to turn their Faith against them. Well-played.

People need to stop using theorycraft. As I've said a bunch of times, if you want to show something is OP, abuse it to hell and back until people agree with you. That's the only way to get changes to happen around here.

Berserkers were nerfed because everyone used them and anyone who didn't lost. Ninjitsu was nerfed for similar reasons. Haste status was hit because almost every team needed it ever since FFT AI tournaments. There was even one point where Squire skillset had to be nerfed. The thing they had in common was that people who found how powerful it was abused it until I changed it or gets banned until next version. That is the nature of a competitive game.

On a side note, slowly buffing Geomancy again isn't a horrible idea. It has a lot perks that a lot of skills in other skillsets want (such as ignoring Faith/Fury completely, hence being able to run tanky 40/40 units and 100% accuracy no matter what at potentially 5 range and no charge time) but pays for it in terms of power and the base class is mediocre at best. Here are some options I've considered:

- Buff Y some more, expect maybe +10/20ish damage
- Increase Geomancy range back to vanillas 5 range, 1 AoE which would potentially reach Holy/Flare range
- Increase Geomancer base class move range to 5, making it the 5 move class except for Mime

Quote from: FFMaster

People need to stop using theorycraft. As I've said a bunch of times, if you want to show something is OP, abuse it to hell and back until people agree with you. That's the only way to get changes to happen around here.

I don't know. I think some of the suggested changes here are creative. I can't speak for the ones that say "nerf X", but suggestions that aim to open new designs are legitimate. We'll see what is being abused in a few weeks.

Quote from: FFMaster

Buff Y some more, expect maybe +10/20ish damage

I'm fine with the other changes, but I really don't think the free-of-charge 100% AoE spell that procs status, ignores brave/faith, and can be set as a reaction ability needs to be any more powerful.

Quote from: formerdeathcorps on April 10, 2012, 01:45:07 AM

Gaignun, the way I coded oil makes your suggestions to oil rather impractical: you'd either have to single out fire weakness induced by oil as 1.5x weakness or change elemental weakness as a whole to 1.5x.

This comes late, but what do people think of reducing elemental weakness to 1.5x? The current modifier of 2.0x is a death sentence to anyone who doesn't cover their weakness. There are so few weaknesses that the change won't affect much as of now, but it would give the green light for implementing more oil skills without rocking the boat.

Cover fire is not worth the MP cost because the formula is written wrong. Right now, a martial arts monk with maxPA averages 132 damage (with a 1/3 chance of 198 and 66, respectively). Although it nicely avoids the fury calculation, this is not a worthwhile when spin fist has a bigger AoE, costs 0 MP, and does 243 damage (before fury) and wave fist does 270 damage at good range (before fury).

However, the given formula is broken: a max-PA monk with martial arts averages (18 * 3/2 * 3 + 60) * 2 = 282 damage at AoE, ignoring fury. Thus, I propose cover fire's formula be changed to (PA * 2 + 60) * {1...3},

Couple of suggestions, wondering how others feel.

Haste 2 and Slow 2 should go back to affecting enemies/allies. As is they get high success rate (even from high Faith caster to low Faith target), a large AoE, and can never hinder your own team/help your enemies, so casters can fire it off indiscriminately. Meanwhile Samurais get the exact opposite (which is a good thing, but I think it should apply to the Time Magic as well).

How would people feel about the Stone Gun losing Initial: Petrify and gaining Always: Slow? Currently it doesn't get used very often and when it does, the teams come prepared to heal it, so they only waste the opening round and get a pretty hefty bit of power. I think Always: Slow would encourage more use and also balance out the power a bit. With Always: Slow, it could possibly even stand to gain one or two WP. Or maybe Always: Slow, Protect. Something more like the Iron Boots. It could even be Always: Don't Move, but get a range buff. Just a few potential suggestions. Any thoughts?

Lastly, Faith Up has some weird triggers. Just recently, I saw a unit get missed by an Esuna spell she happened to be standing next to, and then counter with Faith Up. Just an observation, not really sure what to suggest for that one.

Faith Up should be triggered when the unit is targeted by an attack that consumes MP iirc

I'm kinda messed up but just let me say this
The stone gun has been the same since vanilla, and if it hasn't been changed by now, don't expect it to be. Initial: Petrify forces your squad to waste at least one turn trying to restore the unit, which sorta puts you at a disadvantage. Always: Slow would REALLY suck, like "damn why even use this" suck.

Restore MP does stuff like that too, even on spells that help the unit they can still react. Dunno how that works..

Always: Slow would make it unusable. End of story.

And obviously the teams would cure the Initial: Petrify. Why else would someone use it?

To be honest, Absorb MP and Faith Up triggering off anything that uses MP allows you to chain it to stuff like battle song. Since this lets me build better synergies, I see no reason to change that.
Stone Gun isn't really broken right now. The damage is only average, the range is OK, but on a small map, your team loses the tempo of 2 attackers.

Equips:
Madlemgen's proc should be changed to Magic Ruin so it would be more useful (while having the same overall effect)
Change Ultimus bow to 15 WP, +1 PA. This would at least guarantee some level of use.
Change Windslash bow to 12 WP, Wind Elemental, 19% Hurricane (-33% of maxHP, wind elemental)
Change Lightning bow to 13 WP, Lightning Elemental, 25% Don't Act
Change Ice bow to 13 WP, Ice Elemental, 25% Stop
Change Silver bow to 12 WP, Holy Elemental, 19% Holy
Possibly make longbow a 12 range weapon that adds don't move. Alternatively, it being 8 range would work too.
Consolidate Assassin's Dagger with throwing knife. Right now, neither is a good weapon, but combined, they might pose a real benefit to mediators who don't want to learn death sentence. Instead of Assassin's Dagger, add the Rusty Shank (8 WP, 2Sable, 50% +Poison)
Make Diamond and Platina shield 15/15 on evasion.
Give N-Kai null undead instead of confuse.
Give Jade Armlet null ice instead of null chicken.
Give Reflect Ring null berserk instead of silence. (It's currently overshadowing the magic ring a bit too much right now.)
Give Defense Armlet absorb fire.
Give Defense Ring some evasion (8/8 should do, I think).

Status:
Oil should add weak to more (possibly all) elements. Of course, this means it will be dispelled by attacks of all elements.

Abilities:
Secret Fist should be MA + 75% (subject to P-EV) to have any reasonable level of parity with the mediator skill.
Make Wiznaibus add poison (at 50%) so it's not entirely blocked by auto-potion. Make Nameless Dance add oil (see above change) instead of poison.
Similarly, have life song add regen (at 50%) so it's not entirely overshadowed by mimed murasame.
Make nameless song 4 CT and have it add reraise, protect, or shell at 33% chance. This would make it much likelier that it would be used to save a unit's life without causing the AI to never do anything else.

Quote from: CT5Holy on April 27, 2012, 04:35:00 AM

Always: Slow would make it unusable. End of story.

Yeah, Slow is a bit severe.

I guess I was just thinking it should be slightly easier to use, but still with something to balance the power. Just me, I suppose.

Quote from: CT5Holy on April 27, 2012, 04:35:00 AM

And obviously the teams would cure the Initial: Petrify. Why else would someone use it?

I was thinking of running a dual-sex Charm offensive and tricking the enemy into curing Petrify. Too convoluted? =P

One more suggestion: I think it would be neat if Odin became more like Silf. More specifically, like Lava Ball. Low-ish damage, but with a flat 20% chance of adding Dead.

I've got a similar plan for Odin in the works already. Just need some time to ASM edit it.

Quote from: formerdeathcorps on April 27, 2012, 05:16:10 AM

Status:
Oil should add weak to more (possibly all) elements. Of course, this means it will be dispelled by attacks of all elements.

I like this one. Maybe have it add weakness to all but holy and dark. That way we can reserve holy and dark for powerful AoE (of which we already have two: Koutetsu and Cyclops) without having to worry about oil catalysing one-hit kills of entire parties. Reducing the weakness modifier might also be a good idea.

I have another case to make against infinite-duration silence. Teams subjected to a performing Nameless dancer will never cure silence in fear of being afflicted with it again. Mages without silence resistance on these teams become useless once the ailment procs. If silence has infinite duration for a reason, then please tell me why. If not, can we give it a duration to the beat of 20~30 CT?

To be honest, if blind is infinite duration, so too must silence. The only reliable source of silence is silence song. Since a good number faith rod mages use the reflect ring, not nulling silence is a moot point, even if we change reflect ring to blocking berserk (because the oracle would have to then run dispel magic). Nameless Song requires a specialized setup (meaning such a team is less flexible than an elite team) and Bizen Boat is a relatively underpowered weapon these days. The only units that currently need to avoid silence are mediators, but I don't think too many people would oppose the existence of something checking them.
The real reason no one is considering it is because it is fairly difficult to ASM in a feature that does not exist in the game that the game has no space to add.

As for reducing the weakness modifier, since not much gear even adds weakness and the teams that employ it usually run gear that negates weakness by absorbing, halving, or nulling the element in question (which they should be doing anyways), I see little point. Unless we add my change to Fire1 (adding oil), I don't think many people will consciously use oil because it currently exists on suboptimal gear (short edge) or attacks (demon fire, greased bolt). Adding weakness to every element is only meant to give an oil team a wider variety of attacks to work with (though you are right in saying that darkness and holy are stronger than the other elements on average).

Then we give blind finite duration, too. That silence is nulled by a popular accessory does not hold water against the call for change. That's like saying gasoline can be left at $100/L because everybody drives an electric car, when, in truth, everybody might be driving an electric car because gasoline is $100/L. Difficulty in giving silence a duration, however, does hold water. I thought giving ailments a duration was a simple as changing a variable. It seems I thought wrong.

Of course the change to weakness would change little now. I'm thinking of a patch that features more oil (for example, in nameless dance, kiyomori, poison (spell), and fire1 as you suggested).

Quote from: Gaignun on April 29, 2012, 03:12:25 AM

That's like saying gasoline can be left at $100/L because everybody drives an electric car, when, in truth, everybody might be driving an electric car because gasoline is $100/L.

That holds even less water, because in this case we can say with certainty that the "cost of gasoline" isn't affecting people's decision to "drive electric cars". It's just more efficient to "drive electric cars" than to waste time with "gasoline" - the only way you'd change anyone's mind is if the "price" was practically zero.

Its price isn't zero now, yet people drive cars that require it. Electricity isn't free, either.

Quote from: Gaignun on April 29, 2012, 04:03:24 AM

Its price isn't zero now, yet people drive cars that require it. Electricity isn't free, either.

The "cars" aren't very good, tbh, and the "price of electricity" is negligible compared to the benefits.

I don't expect that every consumer wants to buy an electric car knowing it costs about $10,000 more than an economy-sized gasoline-powered car, has a range of a few tens of kilometres, takes hours to recharge, and will become scrap metal once the batteries die out. And every consumer doesn't. My message is about giving consumers a choice.

To put this in FFT's terms, I don't expect every person to want to put a reflect ring on a mage knowing that reflect can be dispelled, ignored by summon magic and lore, and that it blocks friendly healing and support. I want people to freely consider giving their mages evasion, elemental absorption, and status resistance. My suggestion is a modest one: put a duration on silence so that teams without reflect rings aren't hamstrung by an inept AI. Silence will still have its role in shutting down mages, just as gasoline prices have their role in pushing people toward electric cars. Those afraid of silence can still choose electric. Those not afraid can try something else.

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