(Ugh. I made a Delita-mistake with "seem" in the last post. Whatever.)
Well, I'm suddenly semi-glad that I waited (read: fell back asleep when someone didn't get back to calling me) to post this huge thing. Now I can answer (life, the universe and) everything all at once rather than needing to have posted again a mere two hours afterwards.
With regards to the latest two developments, I'll get those out of the way first:
1.
Katana 3.1: Ah thanks for your input Raven. Outside of Muramasa being 100% Faith still, which is literally
not a change, and being
slightly wary of the self-boost & MA +2, which I all understand, I rather like those, my initial input aside; it does make me feel less stupid about it though. That said, even Muramasa can still be dropped later if need be; it probably shouldn't go below 50%, though. As such, I also agree with the changes; I just would like to think it isn't making innate Two Swords more potentially obnoxious. Regardless,
Lord Anubis will be pleased. 2.
Speed Save: Yeah, as much as I loathe to admit it, it needed a boost even before Tsumazuku's proposed change. It needs to at least boost by +25, though +30 is kinda pushing it, especially with Lore around. I'm going to think about this more, but for now I'd rather err on the side of caution as I usually do and just say that +25 CT be enough, especially since Tsumazuku isn't going to be universally used even if actually sees use now.
Now onward to the other posts:
They shoot the bullets harder when they're angry. Either that or they curve them to hit more organs at once. Haven't you seen that movie "Wanted"? The protagonist shot guns better when he was angry. Hard rock played in the background, too. I don't know how he pulled that one off, though.
Sorry. As much as I like James McAvoy at times, I like good movies better.
Yes, I am still alive.
I've skimmed through most of the posts and here is some shit.
@Damned: I was there discussing most of the proposed changes for the next version. There are still a few things I disagree with, of course. Summon Magic becoming evadable, for example. However, some of the additions/changes that are proposed and would like to see it in action, whether it will be good or not. I would like if auto-potion becomes 70 for a version or 2, just to see how it goes, but it's not likely going to happen I think.
*snip*
Yes, I figured you were still alive. Doesn't mean you aren't legitimately busy, though, especially since I have no idea what the hell Australia's "schedule" in general, much less this time of year and much less your schedule.
1.
Auto-Potion going to 70: I personally wouldn't mind it myself, but I at least concur with Raven that it's a really minor issue. It should probably wait until next version, if only because the sheer amount of changes being proposed for this version are the most yet I think.
2.
"Bad" Names: Meh, names are fine by and large and the poorer ones can always be worked on.
3.
19% = 20%: More than fine with that, especially since it makes things less confusing for newer people.
4.
Water's Nonexistence: I don't think anyone will object to that, especially since I don't think Natural Selection has been used more than literally half a dozen times since ARENA started more than a year ago; it's certainly better choice than screwing over Earth Dragon as I had proposed long ago. The name "Maelstrom" as Eternal suggested is fine, though that's normally only related to Behemoths and does something entirely different. As you brought up potentially trying to implement monsters, I still suggest "Big Wave", as underwhelming as it might be, or even "Tidal Wave" since all of the summons are named after themselves (and it's not like most people currently use Leviathan); other Water-element names can be found
here, though of course feel free to make up names rather than feeling like you're bound to history.
5.
Geomancers Getting Move 5: Doesn't seem necessary and it would step on Mime's toes a bit. Also seems like it make them get themselves killed more easily and I always figured that Geomancers should be distance units since they get what's essentially free, if conditional, magic(k). Not sure how other people feel about this though, since no one else commented (in this thread at least).
6.
Patch Style Change: Large, infrequent patches are best. You have a life, things need to be allowed to work themselves out and I don't think anyone wants you to become one of the many game companies that rapidly patches things (and makes them worse just because people visibly bitch) before that can happen.
Prepare -> Phalanx
Glitter Shield -> Divine Shield
Sinkhole -> Flux
*cut*
I still think "Iron Will" should just be used for Prepare and one of the unused Shield names should be used for Glitter Shield, but these are fine too I suppose. I like "Flux", but I'm not why it's necessary; that said, now that I think about it, I've yet to see Sinkhole's animation, so maybe it is better. (Or it just fits better with Time Magic[k], especially since Sinkhole tends to be Terrain/Geomancy-related.)
Now for my random thoughts with regards to your random thoughts:
1.
Bio's Elemental Properties: I concur that they all be Elemental if one of them is, hence why Geomancy still bugs the hell out of me, but that's a different issue. However, they need not be the same element, which is why I was pushing for at least one of them to potentially become Water or even Earth just because they're some of the less represented elements. That said, with Raven's point about elemental parity (which I was never pushing for...in ARENA at least) and the fact that Natural Selection is becoming Water now and your own Tier 4 suggestion,
I think that all Bio spells should just become non-elemental for now. We need at least a few non-elemental, faith-based spells that are a) quick and b) don't do fixed damage or are based on other conditions. At least a couple of people have used Bio 1 to great effect because of its non-elemental nature and I'd hate for yet something else to be absorbed/blocked by the ever-popular Black Costume.
That said, I've never really liked Bio 2 adding Frog. Can "we" just give that Oil or give it Poison and give Bio 1 Oil? Even if Frog will wear off now, multi-target changes to add Frog just seem like trouble, especially when they're not subject to terrain's whimsy. It's not a huge deal, but I figure I might as well admit that while talking about it.
2.
Water Becoming Part of Black Magic at Tier 4's Expense: I can agree with this, as can other people apparently.
However, I think the other gimmick should follow the flow of your Water element in Parted Ways and thus that these spells should be exempt to Reflect. Given that Tier 4 dying means that everything else that Wizard becomes subject to Reflect (unless the Back spells suddenly aren't), then it seems like Wizard would still need abilities that get past Reflect and it's not like these spells have to be horribly damaging or anything. So....
3.
Paladins Purposely Immobilizing Themselves: I vaguely recall someone telling me that the AI won't use a negative statuses on itself even if they're packaged with other benefits. However, I can't remember who that was and I've yet to test it myself. That said, it could potentially be interesting, though knowing the AI, it would probably just lead to trouble....
4.
Weapon Suggestions: Most sound decent enough. However, where is the room for Tonberrian, Lionheart, Ultima Weapon and Gladius coming from?
5.
Possible New Guns: I'd rather not kill off Magic Guns entirely before we get to test them with their new fixes. Besides what Raven pointed out about the Option C gun being Romanda Gun, Option A Gun (Opera Gun?) would obviate the already barely used Healing Staff & Murasame as much as I also like the idea and Option B Gun is just bad news. You remember what a pain in the ass Spell Edge was when it was still like its vanilla self, right? You really want to give the potential to cause Disable/Don't Act to an otherwise unavoidable weapon? Immobilize/Don't Move won't be much better due to the sheer range on the thing, even if it were "only" 4, since then it would completely screw over Hunting (cross)Bow.
6.
Blightbane: ...I kinda agree with Raven's eloquent rebuttal here. That said, it's at least a start name-wise, so thanks.
*prune*
@Auto Potion: I'm still not sure why this even comes up. (Well, I know, sup The Damned and your irrational hatred of Chemists, Monks, and Priests. :v) There really is no reason to touch it, especially with us again looking to push up the low-end damage of weaker weapons, skills etc.
@Monsters: I'll be dead honest. I see no reason to include monsters in Arena. They're a 100% pre-packaged unit that will never see variance, even moreso than how Gaignun called Berserkers "gimmicks." They're the ultimate in linear gimmick units and literally anything they could add to the game could be added better via a class, item, skill, etc. being added instead. Even with gimmick human items with Salty Rage or Cursed Ring, you still get control to add variance to your units on at least some level. Monsters you get absolutely nothing, and you have to make what few skills (3-4) that they can do so ridiculously strong to compete they just ruin everything. Yeah, they're "cool", but that doesn't change the fact they're overly linear wastes of space that could be better suited to adding more things for human units.
*prune*
Hmmm...oddly I thought I had more to say about your post, but it's only two rather minor things; I'm not sure how I feel about the Holy March & Warpath thing, though I'd totally be done for dropping the JP if they became only +2.
Oh well. It at least spares your eyes a bit:
1.
My Irrational Hatred: A slight correction, dear sir. It is
Raise 2 I loathe, not Priests themselves, religiosity of the name aside.
2.
Monsters Being Gimmicks: While you have a point about that and while monsters aren't exactly a priority, I have to disagree quite a bit with your other issues:
a. There's more than enough space unused to in ARENA to give them more than a mere 3-4 skills. "We" would just have to make sure that human classes all require 1 Level of Squire rather than 0. Thought I suppose it wouldn't to be to try screw around with giving monsters' (human) Secondaries given the validity of your linearity comment.
b. Given the amount of people that have wanted monsters (and Mimes) to get around their inability to use equipment. Most of the people that have expressed this are either working on other aspects of their own patches or just other miscellaneous things in general, so it's possible that having only to take care of aspect of it for an otherwise functioning, basically communal (at this point) patch might "encourage" them.
c. Similarly, people have been trying to get the AI to learn to mount monsters (read: Chocobos), so it serves the same point there as a sort of testing ground.
d. In a far less important but still semi-valid point, some monsters can also be used as stepping stones, which is something humans can't be used for at all. Not much, but still something, especially on some of the more cluttered/clustered maps.
e. It would give something for Monster Talk to rather than be mockingly there, gathering dust. Similarly, it would make primary Mediators more valuable rather than just having Talk Skill be used more as a secondary only.
f. Similarly would give Steal Heart a bit of boost, though it's arguable whether that's a good thing or not.
Admittedly, some people just want to use monsters and while that's not exactly a good enough reason, we also shouldn't outright dismiss them as you seem to be doing.
That said, I also wouldn't mind perhaps focusing on adding more human classes before that. First, however, we need to make sure that ones we have now are equally usable rather than somewhat conspicuously lopsided, if not as egregious as vanilla or 1.3.
Hell, I'd probably be the first person behind adding a usable Blue Mage class if people really wanted to "use" monsters.
@Dia
The thing with Dia is that, it would be good if it were like unfury, but currently it's faith. And when you are build for DPS, you are building damage against melee units most of the time, since none of the mages can have armors without equip armor and tanky melee units tend to have 40 faith and 40 fury. So of course you are going to take unfaith skills instead of Dia.
*castrate*
I can't recall if I've ever directly replied to Shade before, at least via quote. First time for almost everything I suppose:
1.
Dia: Dia is already good. In fact, I'd argue it's too good for how little it costs, even if it's not outright broken and it's on the "wrong" set, though that's probably what keeps its overpowered aspect from being as apparent. That said, despite disagreeing with you most of your reasoning, I concur that it would perhaps be better as going off of Unfury. Not that Priests need to become better at attacking, though.
2.
Monsters and Space: Not exactly sure what monster drafts you're remembering/mentioning, but as I did with Raven, I'm calling bullshit on the space thing. Considering we "only" have 20 classes at now, one of which, Mime, doesn't even have skills at all, we have
tons of space left. Even counting the like half-a-dozen skills that are weapon procs only, ARENA has left over space from
all Special characters & units, all Lucavi and all monsters. That easily has to be 150+ spaces, which means that "at worst" we could "only" give 16 monsters 9 skills if we really, really wanted to.
Yeah, we're totally strapped for space right now.
3.
Holy & Raise 2 needing To take more MP: Agreed.
4.
Carbunkle needing to take more MP: Kinda agreed, if only because I haven't seen it used more than twice. Admittedly, I'm terribly behind on matches. So perhaps 5 MP does seem a bit cheap. Then again, it does have to compete with Angel Song, which costs 5 MP as well and hits the entire map.
5.
Demi spells getting buffed Giving Demi 1
AoE 3? Hell no. Same with giving Demi 2, even if it were lowered to 50%, AoE 2. Time Magic might not be used much for damage, but it's not supposed to be; even then, though, it's already being used half of the time for damage since after Haste it sees use, "if only" because of Slow (2), Comet and Sinkhole. Guess what. Two of those do damage, even if one of them is conditional and the other is fixed; Balance is also somewhat used, but it's infrequent since it's inaccurate (which it should be) and depends on higher HP units, which tend to have lower MA & MP and vice versa.
Both Demis see seldom use more a) Dark is absorbed so often as to often not be worth it unless you're absorbing it yourself and b) Demi 2 is rather inaccurate at present due to its sheer power. Still, they're used more than Lich
because they can be absorbed and Dark-absorption really doesn't need a boost. Besides, Immobilize/Don't Move is getting strengthened definitely at least and while Stop is getting a bit of an indirect nerf due to Geomancy, it's still dangerous.
So Time Magic still has more things than "just" Haste (2), especially when (more than) half of one's skill set being used semi-regularly is more than a few other classes can claim at present.
I'll leave the sword talk for later since my computer decided to be utterly slow.
That said, I don't agree with CT5Holy's versions being mostly compatible with Two Swords. We hardly need Ninja to become the best all melee weapons that use PA sans Axes and Knightswords; same with Two Hands and Samurai, though in that case it would be Knives rather than Axes that would be exempt alongside Knightswords.
As for Raven's, at this point the ones that stand out as the most objectionable are Two Hands-compatible Blood Sword and Lionheart's PA +2 and superior WP when it can also be used with Two Hands.
Still, I'll talk about those in a separate post.
