Final Fantasy Hacktics

Since most patches are moving too far afield of the original FFT, I proposed an idea for a patch in channel that is a very basic overhaul of FFT that only really includes the most essential fixes, balances and changes. Part of this idea is embracing the flaws of the game and not doing anything drastic like ripping out the calculator and shoving something else in. The goal is to make a slightly improved, but harder and more balanced game. Basically what 1.3 was supposed to be when it was first conceived. This thread is for discussing what the best, most essential changes, fixes and balances to the game would be without changing it too radically. My current list:

My list of important stuff:

Blade Grasp only vs blades
Text error correction
JP Scroll Glitch fix
Best Fit Glitch fix   
Global C.ev
25% PD undead
Weapon Guard innate all
Oil Fix
Broken equip buyback (if possible)
Controllable guests
Better br & fa for starting generics
Consolidated move-find (always get 1 item)
Enemy equips set or random (no "nothings")
Swordskill changes (MP/evadable)
Drain/%-based attack change (less damage to lucavi)
Charge skillset PA*WP+Y and MA*WP+Y (same sort of thing)?
More enemy unit variety (fewer battles made up of Wizards, Knights and Archers)
No perm br and fa changes
Special characters can do propositions
Mighty Sword hits monsters?
Death sentence ignores cancel: dead
Soldier office rename any unit
Formulas that use (MA+X)% become (MA*2+X)%? (MA is more important for status effect success)
Secret hunt not required for fur shop
party level cloud
Regen/Poison change (capped)
Party level story enemies
Gear scaled to story (Glain's ASM) (These last 2 are for added difficulty)
Remove Degenerators - FFMaster
Malak Formula Fix - FFMaster
Engineer learns equip gun
Swordskillers learn equip sword
AI cant learn skills that it can't use
Perhaps allow for Elemental to be evaded
Perhaps make Summon Magic do slightly less damage, but let it keep smart-targeting and instead boost other Faith-based magic.
Either completely kill Golem or let it add Protect.
If Knight gets ranged breaks, then it should be the stat breaks ala 1.3.
Knight's equipment breaks should become more likely hit, but should NOT become unable to be dodged.
Thief's equipment steals should become unavoidable.
Lessen the amount spells that Math Skill has access to.
Kill the CT Parameter.
Give Calculators better stats or, at least, close-to-average speed.
Make Speed Break/Speed Ruin add Slow or -20 CT if possible.
Make Speed Save add +CT rather than +Speed.
Kill all other speed-stat increasing or decreasing abilities like Cheer Song, Slow Dance and Ramza's Scream.
Kill Hamedo (turn Hamedo into firststrike?).
Separate MP switch and Move mp by gender
Cap WP for all weapons at 20.
Give Cloths less W-EV.
Give Aegis Shield less M-EV so it doesn't single-handedly shut down Magic with Abandon.
Strengthen weak weapon (types) that aren't Bags, specially (Long)Bows, Staves and maybe Rods.
Weaken all gender-exclusive equipment.
Make Knightswords and Katana's damage formula PA*WP.
Change or kill Level Blast and Please Eat. (Heh. Completely forgot about Please Eat.)
Fix AI flags on some skills

As for PA/MA/SP - Xifanie has a hack that buffs Maintenance to block breaks on these and puts an upper/lower cap on how much they can be boosted or broken.  For something meant to embrace vanilla's faults while making them less outright dumb, this seems perfect here - you can keep Accumulate, Yell, Speed Break, etc. in all their vanilla deliciousness while removing the cheesier strategies most of them created in one masterful stroke.



More dubious stuff:

100% knockback throw stone
Ranged knight breaks OR unevadable
Lower range Lancer jumps
Limited calc skillset
Nerfed Orlandu

I think that Meliadoul should have a unique skillset, in that Orlandu doesn't get those abilities. Also, balance out WP. Nothing should have much more than 20 WP, especially given Throw and how high SP and PA can get.



Edit: Orlandu:
Stasis Sword
Split Punch
Lightning Stab
Icewolf Bite
Blastar Punch
Night Sword
Dark Sword

More:
Speed Break/Ruin -20 CT
Less W-ev for cloth? It's currently 50%.
Stronger bows
Perfumes/Bags? What to do with them?
PA*WP for Bags, Knight Swords, Katanas?

Remove all Degenerator Traps.
Malak formula fix (Innocent and Faith)

Equip Change Innate All should definitely NOT be included.

It gives the player an "easy out" to any enemy unit relying on the Battle Skill, Mighty Sword, or Steal Commands.  It adds no depth and just generally makes the game easier.  Part of what adds depth is restriction - if the player fucked up and brought the wrong weapon, or had to compromise on what weapon to bring, getting around THAT is part of the difficulty.  Making it easier for the player to have all their options at once makes the game easier, not harder.  More is not better 99% of the time.

I'll comment on more later tonight.

Here's a project I started. I weeded out changes I made that didn't apply without ASM and such. It mainly has ability, skillset, and ENTD changes at this point in time. Also, I forgot to take out Golem. I might have changed it, though...

It could be a nice baseline for the project.

This would be awesome

Celdia consolidation patch
http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=6450.0 (http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=6450.0)
Download this, and apply the changes Asmo suggested

It would be a perfect FFT "Bug free" version and starting point for patches

P.s:
I'm against those
- Samurai hit self?
- Summon no smart targeting?

And equip change as Raven said

P.p.s:
Phil said somewhere that this "Broken equip buyback (if possible)" allows item duping, IIRC (That's why it's not implemented in FFT: Plus)

Yeah there are some bugs with that hack at the moment. If it's ever fixed though, I'd like to have it because I am adamantly opposed to permanent item breakage.

Quote from: Asmo X on July 08, 2011, 04:17:19 am
Yeah there are some bugs with that hack at the moment. If it's ever fixed though, I'd like to have it because I am adamantly opposed to permanent item breakage.

IIRC, if we somehow disable the possibility for charmed units to steal your own gear, item duping will no longer be possible

Also, what about reducing the money you get from battles? (I did this in FFT: Plus, giving some extra money for story battles)
And reducing item range to 3? (Item is so overpowered...)

P.s: Specials can do propositions is bugged as well...if you don't have at least 1 generic in your party, you cannot send specials doing propositions

P.p.s: Since enemies get equipments based on how far are you in the story, why not making all enemies "Party level"?

And apparently you can buy your enemies' weapons when you break them or something to that effect.

Less money might be a good idea and we need input for jp costs since I know basically nothing about that.

Quote from: Asmo X on July 08, 2011, 04:40:36 am
And apparently you can buy your enemies' weapons when you break them or something to that effect.

Less money might be a good idea and we need input for jp costs since I know basically nothing about that.

Reduce all jp costs by 25%/33% (And FFS make fly cost 500 jp), remove gained jp up and give move exp up and move jp up to the chemist job

As a general rule of thumb, level 8 in a job should allow you to master it, IMHO
(That's what I did for FFT: Plus)

I started with this intent in my patch, but i just kept going... in case that happens to you try to keep the bugfree fft with the fewest changes possible as a ppf on your op alongside your more modified one, im sure a lot of people would be happy :)

Like dome said definitely make fly around 500 JP. I reccomend checking out fft1.3 or fftplus' jp levels and use those, no reason to do the math over!
As for the money, i went the route of making everything more expensive. In chapter 3 in fftretouched, armor and weps are around 20000 so you cant go crazy but you still get enough money to buy items. you can always reduce the money gained by levels by half or to 10, and then edit the entd to give different amounts of money after story battles.

Summon should definitely have smart targeting, keep it like other final fantasies.

Quote from: FFMaster on July 08, 2011, 02:36:42 am
Remove all Degenerator Traps.
Malak formula fix (Innocent and Faith)

definitely do that as well, and take of the squid monsters levelblast.

Quote from: Zaen on July 08, 2011, 02:31:03 am
I think that Meliadoul should have a unique skillset, in that Orlandu doesn't get those abilities. Also, balance out WP. Nothing should have much more than 20 WP, especially given Throw and how high SP and PA can get.



Edit: Orlandu:
Stasis Sword
Split Punch
Lightning Stab
Icewolf Bite
Blastar Punch
Night Sword
Dark Sword

More:
Speed Break/Ruin -20 CT
Less W-ev for cloth? It's currently 50%.
Stronger bows
Perfumes/Bags? What to do with them?
PA*WP for Bags, Knight Swords, Katanas?

Anything more than balancing WP goes beyond the necessary balances and fixes (imho orlandu was put there to be beastly!)

(Hmmm...that's a decent rule of thumb, Dome. Not sure if it can or should apply to everything, though.)

Hmmm...that's definitely a simple yet "needed" goal for a patch, though I have to wonder if it and FFT: Plus will run into conflict. Anyway....

Quote from: Asmo X on July 08, 2011, 02:28:51 amMy list of important stuff:
Increase jump damage by 3/2 regardless of weapon?

I don't think this should be done, personally. Spears are iffy enough as it is to take away one of the two things they're good at completely.

At present, this is the only "certain" change you're making that I don't agree with for the record. Well, I disagree with your PD does Demi damage to Undead, but not as strongly as the above.

Quote from: Asmo X on July 08, 2011, 02:28:51 amMore dubious stuff:

100% knockback throw stone

It seems like it would a nice yet subtle boost to Squire since by definition of your goals, you'd be forbidden to give it anything else.

Quote from: Asmo X on July 08, 2011, 02:28:51 amSamurai hit self?

Eh, that probably won't accomplish much, especially with access to Murasame and Kiyomori. If anything, it just seems like it'd make the AI even easier since I'd see it killing itself with Draw Out pretty much all the time.

Draw Outs just need to be evadeable and probably lose smart-targeting since we can't have them cost MP or give them CTs unfortunately. I'd argue the same goes for Elemental, though it's a much lesser offender.

Quote from: Asmo X on July 08, 2011, 02:28:51 amSummon no smart targeting?

And make the only Faith-based magic that not named Raise (2) even weaker from vanilla? Uh....

Summon Magic perhaps needs to hit less hard than it does, but it doesn't need to lose smart-targeting, especially how much MP everything costs. The only drastic change to Summon Magic that needs to be made is to Golem, which either needs to die or become like mass Protect like it was in the other games. It probably shouldn't become mass Shell because a) physical attacks will probably still be ultimately better than magical ones if we're sticking this close to vanilla, b) Priest need something over Summoner besides just revival (unless you're going to change Fairy too, which I don't think you should even as redundant as it is; at least don't change it to Revival I'd argue you) and c) as aforementioned, it has historical precedent IIRC.

Quote from: Asmo X on July 08, 2011, 02:28:51 amRanged knight breaks OR unevadable

This is probably the thing under the "dubious" section that I'm most divided about. On the one hand, making Knight breaks have a fixed range allows Knights to at least do something from range and makes them better at using their skills than classes that have longer reaching weapons. On the other hand, fixed range would probably be...strange-looking, especially if we're talking about the equipment breaks and if we're talking about the stat-breaks, then arguably they should just become like 1.3's Ruin Spells.

With regards to the inability to be dodged, I'd argue you know, at least for equipment breaks, which probably need it the most unfortunately. However, due to the fact that equipment breaks happen to do damage if used against a unique that isn't wearing (that type of) equipment, you'd basically be giving Knights innate Concentrate. Just looking at 1.3 Thieves should show you how stupid innate Concentrate can end up being, especially on a unit that already hits rather hard and can tank well.

Speaking of Thieves and Concentrate, I'd argue that Steal [Equipment] should become unevadeable, though. It's bad enough that all of its triggers the Countergrasp ability. Being evadeable and having low vertical tolerance is just adding insult to injury, especially since enemies didn't scale in vanilla & using Glain's (necessary) ASM takes away the level-up exploit and there wasn't much to steal in vanilla that was unique anyway. (There was only like, what, six things between Blood Sword and the Genji Gear? Everything else that was rather either had to be poached or found using Move-Find item.)

Quote from: Asmo X on July 08, 2011, 02:28:51 amLower range Lancer jumps

Kill Level Jump8. There. Done.

Hell, I'd argue that you should kill Level Jump2 and Level Jump4 as well, but you can just make those so that the AI doesn't bother wasting time on them.

Quote from: Asmo X on July 08, 2011, 02:28:51 amLimited calc skillset

Not sure why this is under "dubious" when it is pretty much mandatory to balancing the game unless you just plan to replace all of the Math Skill, which seems rather counter to you wanting to change as little as possible. It's just a shame that we can't restrict certain spells--CT5Holy--to certain parameters.

As such, I think that all the "big" spells that Math Skill can affect probably need to no longer be accessible to it. I'd also argue that the CT parameter needs to die out right considering how 99% of the time it's used, it's used with the 5 parameter.

Quote from: Asmo X on July 08, 2011, 02:28:51 amNerfed Orlandu

Pretty much needs to happen. I think the 1.3 version of him is more or less ideal in most instances.

Quote from: Asmo X on July 08, 2011, 02:28:51 amSpecial boco?

As hypocritical of me as this will seem given how big a role (relatively) I'm trying to give Boco in Embargo, I'd say "no". Or, rather, "No, unless you also made Rad, Lavian and Alicia special classes", which I doubt that you would want to waste room on, at least ability-wise.

I suppose you could just buff Boco's stats but otherwise keep him a Yellow Chocobo, but that seems kind of half-assed.

Quote from: Asmo X on July 08, 2011, 02:28:51 amEquip change all

As RavenofRazgriz explained, this is a horrible idea.

Quote from: Zaen on July 08, 2011, 02:31:03 am
I think that Meliadoul should have a unique skillset, in that Orlandu doesn't get those abilities. Also, balance out WP. Nothing should have much more than 20 WP, especially given Throw and how high SP and PA can get.



Edit: Orlandu:
Stasis Sword
Split Punch
Lightning Stab
Icewolf Bite
Blastar Punch
Night Sword
Dark Sword

More:
Speed Break/Ruin -20 CT
Less W-ev for cloth? It's currently 50%.
Stronger bows
Perfumes/Bags? What to do with them?
PA*WP for Bags, Knight Swords, Katanas?

I agree pretty much agree with all of this outside of Meliadoul absolutely needing a unique skillset that's completely independent of Orlandu and that Bags should become PA*WP. Simply put: Screw bags. If anything, the gender-exclusive equipment needs to be weakened, not strengthened.

Quote from: maugustus1 on July 08, 2011, 05:40:04 pm(imho orlandu was put there to be beastly!)

Orlandu can still be the strongest special character overall without being able to fly around the map, OHKOing everything in his path. Heavenly Knight or not, the vanilla version of him dumbs down the game almost as much as things like Speed Save/Cheer Song/Slow Song and other stats stuff, Hamedo, MP Switch and some other things, which says a lot (even as inevitably broken as Final Fantasy games always are).

TL;DR Suggestion List:

• Keep Spears as the only weapon to boost Jump.


• Make Throw Stone 100% Knockback.


• Don't make Draw Out hit the caster. Just make it non-discriminating and allow it to be evaded.


• Perhaps allow for Elemental to be evaded.


• Perhaps make Summon Magic do slightly less damage, but let it keep smart-targeting and instead boost other Faith-based magic.


• Either completely kill Golem or let it add Protect.


• If Knight gets ranged breaks, then it should be the stat breaks ala 1.3.


• Knight's equipment breaks should become more likely hit, but should NOT become unable to be dodged.


• Thief's equipment steals should become unavoidable.


• Kill Jump Level8.


• Lessen the amount spells that Math Skill has access to.


• Kill the CT Parameter.


• Give Calculators better stats or, at least, close-to-average speed.


• "Nerf" Orlandu to his 1.3 self or at least use that as template skill set-wise.


• Don't bother making Boco a special character unless you're going to do the same for Rad, Lavian and Alicia.


• Do NOT give everyone innate Equip Change.


• Make Speed Break/Speed Ruin add Slow or -20 CT if possible.


• Make Speed Save add +CT rather than +Speed.


• Kill all other speed-stat increasing or decreasing abilities like Cheer Song, Slow Dance and Ramza's Scream.


• Kill Hamedo.


• Kill MP Switch or, less preferably, do the 1.3 thing of having it separated by gender from Move-MP Up.


• Cap WP for all weapons at 20.


• Give Cloths less W-EV.


• Give Aegis Shield less M-EV so it doesn't single-handedly shut down Magic with Abandon. Alternately, kill Abandon.


• Strengthen weak weapon (types) that aren't Bags, specially (Long)Bows, Staves and maybe Rods.


• Weaken all gender-exclusive equipment.


• Make Knightswords and Katana's damage formula PA*WP.


• Change or kill Level Blast and Please Eat. (Heh. Completely forgot about Please Eat.)

Math Skill Idea:

QuoteHeight
Exp
Level

4
5
Prime

Fire
Bolt
Ice
Poison
Cure
Regen
Reraise
Esuna
Slow
Don't Move
Float
Demi
Blind
Pray Faith
Zombie
Dispel

It's meant to be a bit edgy, and includes Pray Faith to help empower the weaker Fire/Bolt/Ice/Cure Spells, but also fully embraces the two-sidedness of Math Skill by trying to make it difficult to easy-out the backlash.  This encourages element absorb to try and block the damage spells, and a status list that's both powerful but can easily backfire if used incorrectly.  It also excludes some skills intentionally, such as Raise, Haste, high end damage, and Don't Act - meaning if the player wants a lot of one thing instead of a mix of everything, there's still huge reason to use the sourced skillsets.

Everything on the basic change list looks okay, given what you're trying to do.  As far as Orlandu goes - I think his 1.3 skillset was fine, but his stats were too heavily nerfed.  If he couldn't match Setiemsion + far-weakened Chaos Blade via Excalibur + Bracer, there wouldn't be much making him better than the ladies outside of Night Sword.

As for PA/MA/SP - Xifanie has a hack that buffs Maintenance to block breaks on these and puts an upper/lower cap on how much they can be boosted or broken.  For something meant to embrace vanilla's faults while making them less outright dumb, this seems perfect here - you can keep Accumulate, Yell, Speed Break, etc. in all their vanilla deliciousness while removing the cheesier strategies most of them created in one masterful stroke.

Knight Breaks - this is again one I think 1.3 did right, except if you do the above Speed Ruin can actually ruin their Speed instead of adding Slow.

Samurai hitting self seems like a bad idea.  Then the Draw Outs mostly just become Self-Destruct like skills that all eat consumables, and Samurai have innately low HP.  The problem is that hardcoding prevents any real elegant solution from working, so the best route is to just weaken them by a noticeable margin, personally, probably more than 1.3 did considering their unevadable instant area damage with only a Gil-related cost, which is pretty sweet.  Aside - Katana, Knight Sword, Bags should all be PA*WP, yes.  I've even got FDC's Formula Hack rigged in a Spreadsheet in my Shoppe to do that for you.

Summon losing Smart Targeting makes it too much like Black Magic for my tastes, considering how close it already is to being Black Magic.  Golem needs to die in a fire though.

100% Knockback Throw Stone is fine considering how little use it gets even with that.

Special Boco is meh.  Why?  You get 16 character slots.  Usually that's Ramza, 4 of the 6 starting Generics, and all your primary Specials and subquest Specials, assuming you get Byblos.  There's just no room for new Specials without removing an old one unless you want to tell players they either need to give up one of their lovingly crafted Generics or not be able to have every unique unit.  That's not a good thing.  

(Lol at Raven and I posting walls of text so close to each other.)

I pretty much agree with everything that RavenofRazgriz said outside of Golem needing to die; it can easily just be changed to something far, far less stupid that still has historical ties to other Final Fantasy. It's not terribly necessary for it to be saved, true, and I will admit that Summoner has a close place to my cold heart considering that I was almost the first person to finish a Summoner SSCC--freaking Altima and Zodiac compat--just on how stupidly powerful Golem was. That said, I figure if something has a historical form that's less broken, then that should be at least considered before it's eliminated, especially it doesn't step on something else. Golem inflicting Protect steps far less on Priest's toes than Fairy being made to inflict Revival as in 1.3., even as much as FFT perhaps needs more revival skills.

Anyway, I strongly support his proposed changes to Math Skill, especially given that he's killed CT Parameter as well, as well the Maintenance thing. I was aware of Xifanie's Maintenance hack, but I thought the stat break aspect was still acting wonky so I didn't want to mention it. If her hack works completely, though, then sure, go for broke with that.

Why was 4 taken out of Math Skill? CT is gone, 3 is gone. It's not that OP really to use 4 still.

Quote from: Zaen on July 08, 2011, 06:54:06 pm
Why was 4 taken out of Math Skill? CT is gone, 3 is gone. It's not that OP really to use 4 still.

For some reason I thought they had 2 instead of 4.  (Notice my factors are 2-5-Prime and not 4-5-Prime, lol leaving in 2 but not 3.)  Fixing that.

What was the reason for removing 3 again? If it was to remove Level 3 <spell>, then i think 3 can come back. Once your team hits level 99, the only thing left on the Calc skillset is Height, making him extremely weak at that point. I personally would favour Calculator still having some power at level 99.

As an alternate route to removing Degenerators (and Level Blast, thanks for the catch), we can make all stat growths equal. I have no preference to either method.

For the stat breaks, I'm not sure about. Speed breaking needs to go, imo, no questions asked. For the other stat breaks, they are strong for longer battles (Zodiac battles) but otherwise, I find them quite meh. We could extend Maintenance to block Stat Breaks and give it to all the ??? Monsters I guess?

Speaking of Lucavi, they'll need to be given immunity to some debuffs they can currently be vulnerable to. *glares at Ultima II*

Quote from: FFMaster on July 08, 2011, 09:25:36 pm
What was the reason for removing 3 again? If it was to remove Level 3 <spell>, then i think 3 can come back. Once your team hits level 99, the only thing left on the Calc skillset is Height, making him extremely weak at that point. I personally would favour Calculator still having some power at level 99.

Could always remove 5 instead of 3.

Quote from: FFMaster on July 08, 2011, 09:25:36 pmFor the stat breaks, I'm not sure about. Speed breaking needs to go, imo, no questions asked. For the other stat breaks, they are strong for longer battles (Zodiac battles) but otherwise, I find them quite meh. We could extend Maintenance to block Stat Breaks and give it to all the ??? Monsters I guess?

Doing that just makes stat breaks pointless.  "They're only good against ???, make them useless against ???."

I brought up Xifanie's hack because it BOTH extents Maintenance to that AND allows for an upper cap, meaning you can say "PA can't be reduced more than 5 levels" and not need to Maintenance the ??? units and still have a failsafe to not make it lolbork.

Well, there are other places to use them. I can see myself using stat breaks against Wiggy or any battle where I want to specifically drag out the battle to steal equipment(Elmdor and Balk off the top of my head). We could possibly add some good poachables to a few units along the way as well. Any method works for me personally.

(I'm against making all stat growths equal, personally, at least at present.)

Hmmm...yeah, it's probably best to remove 5 if you bring 3 back, especially since between 3 and 4, you only miss out on about half of what 5 could affect itself. FFMaster has a point in the Level 99 regard, even if I never understood the point of grinding to Level 99 anyway.

Quote from: Eternal248 on July 08, 2011, 09:29:39 pm
Speaking of Lucavi, they'll need to be given immunity to some debuffs they can currently be vulnerable to. *glares at Ultima II*

Oh, yeah, completely forgot that Altima/Ultima is originally vulnerable to Don't Act. I still find that rather hilarious.

But, yeah, that should probably change too. Or, at least, that particularly vulnerability should be removed. I'm not too keen on Lucavi being immune to EVERYTHING under sun, really. I'm also not to keen on making Lucavi completely immune to stat breaks, though that one I could get behind more easily considering half of them fight alone.

A lot has already been removed from this list via consensus; i just havent updated the OP yet. The equip change thing, boco, changes to sam. and sum. etc have already been dropped. I suggested something ages ago for another patch (cant remember which one) about dropping all the speed growths down so magic didn't become more and more useless as levels progressed. Any thoughts?

Also, I'd like to take away a bare minimum away from the player. I know how bad the +spd on "yell" can be at times, but it doesn't seem like top-tier problem. I'd like to see how it plays out after the other changes are in place.

OP now updated with some other suggestions

I agree with dropping speed growths down 100%. something from 6 speed(starting) to about 9-10 speed would be good. Something will need to be done to equipment though, such as Thief Hats, Secret Clothes and the Haste equips. Dropping the Charge Times on higher end spells would also be good. Charge I know needs an overhaul instantly (3 speed C+20 rofl, good work Square).

I'm willing to give Yell being the only +speed spell a go. It would keep Ramza unique and not so outshined once other people appear.

Mustadio could use some help I think. He is so pitiful in vanilla. Any ideas?

Quote from: Asmo X on July 09, 2011, 12:40:34 amI suggested something ages ago for another patch (cant remember which one) about dropping all the speed growths down so magic didn't become more and more useless as levels progressed. Any thoughts?

9001% concur'd.

Quote from: Asmo X on July 09, 2011, 12:40:34 amAlso, I'd like to take away a bare minimum away from the player. I know how bad the +spd on "yell" can be at times, but it doesn't seem like top-tier problem. I'd like to see how it plays out after the other changes are in place.

This is why I proposed using Xifanie's PA/MA/SP boost-restricting ASM.  When Yell can only boost SPD by 5 max, you can observe how it is in a slightly less abusive context and make a better decision on it.  You remove the high-end abuse (lol50 SPD, as well as lol99PA/MA) while still making the option exist in high enough quantities to be well-worth using if done correctly.

As for Abandon, there is an ASM hack that only makes it Evasion x1.5 which you can use as a very simple fix to the problem.  I'd highly recommend it because Abandon has a lot of issues and baggage that a 1.5x lessens without needing to do huge amounts of number juggling, which this patch seems to want to avoid if possible.

Any objections to the name FFT: KO? :P

I like it.

just waiting to get the allclear from a virus scare I had a couple of days ago and then I'm going to learn to insert some of these ASM hacks.

In the meantime, I thought of something else: making it impossible to remove all of gafgarion's items before he turns on you at Zirekile falls.

Any plans for squires? IIRC, in 1.3 they got buffed with a few of Ramza's unique skills (including Wish, which was a poor fit IMO).

IMO, squires should stay fairly bad. It fits the theme, they have just started out, and have no combat experience. If you still want them buffed though, maybe Heal could cover a few statii that White Magic Esuna doesn't cover like Stop. Dash/Throw Stone could be reworked to be a bit stronger as well I guess (simple formula edit). If we want to add new skills...

- 100% Hit for physical damage, some charge time (requires FDC's weapon rewrite and some other ASM)
- Self inflicting Berserk skill? To me, it fits the theme of Squire

I like the idea that squire has a few unique abilities but nothing battle turning, and staying squire should not be good. You shouldn't be able to pwn with squires in chap 2/3 but still being able to utilize their skillset as a secondary should warrant a fair gain.

i think the same way as generalStrife does; Staying squire can't have any gains, but their skillsets can be a secondary option in your party. Maybe something an unevadable attack and somes regen or acumulate. just 1 or 2 unique abilities.

Something needs to be done to Concentrate/2 Hands/2 Swords as well. No ideas though. Tweaking 2 Hands to be 1.5x damage is easy enough though.

Quote from: FFMaster on July 12, 2011, 10:58:46 pm
Something needs to be done to Concentrate/2 Hands/2 Swords as well. No ideas though. Tweaking 2 Hands to be 1.5x damage is easy enough though.

If the problem with concentrate is that it's OP, maybe just make it ignore one or more of the forms of evasion (mantles, shields, class evasion).
2 swords maybe just make swords unusable as 2 swords, leaving knives and ninjaswords. If there's some ASM that makes it so you can't equip 2 of the same item on one unit, that might be an idea as well? Who knows.

Quote
Also, I'd like to take away a bare minimum away from the player. I know how bad the +spd on "yell" can be at times, but it doesn't seem like top-tier problem. I'd like to see how it plays out after the other changes are in place

AS fun as it is to discuss mechanics, Asmo's right.  The purpose of this hack is to ONLY fix what was blatantly broken, not insert the community's (or those with the loudest voices in this community's) pet ideas into every pore of this patch.  Some may argue then it's not "balanced" enough, but I don't quite think that's the only factor Asmo's going for.

That being said, if you all want my opinion....

Concentrate isn't OP, to be honest.  It's strong, but only when used in the context of concentrate + ATKUP or concentrate + 2 Swords or concentrate + break or concentrate as a specific setup counter.  Notice that as long as you don't follow 1.3's path and make concentrate innate on a job class, you should only have the latter two as "problems".  But Strategy 3) is hardly OP, and Strategy 4) is more of a means of countering what you otherwise can't hit thanks to abandon/weapon guard + high weapon/shield evasion + high mantle evasion.
Similarly, Abandon needs to be reworked.  I personally dislike how making your reflexes faster affects how big your shield is (and how knights, who are already very good, are the main beneficiaries of abandon) so I prefer a straight addition to C-EV (on top of the global C-EV hack), but I know others would disagree.
Lastly, for damage control reasons, just like how concentrate shouldn't be innate, neither should Two Hands, Two Swords, or Martial Arts.

Make the base accuracy on Two Swords 75% (not affected by concentrate) for all attacks flagged with ranged weapon.  This makes Two Swords effectively 1.5x but risk-tolerant players might adopt it for the occasional double hit (and the occasional double miss).

Quote
I suggested something ages ago for another patch (cant remember which one) about dropping all the speed growths down so magic didn't become more and more useless as levels progressed. Any thoughts?

Personally, I see no need.  A variance of between 10 to 15 base speed is usually enough at Level 99 provided:
A) Haste is changed to a fixed +SPD boost
B) No speed gaining skills are possible (with maybe a special job exception)
C) +SPD gear should not include weapons.  +SPD gear cannot grant more than +1 SPD or initial haste.  SPD should not influence most damage formulas.  +SPD gear should be crap at granting all other types of stats, but especially in granting HP/P-EV.  Similarly, the fastest classes shouldn't have high PA/MA growth or high HP (i.e. Ninja needs a PA nerf, monk needs to be slowed down and/or take a HP nerf...)
D) Charge times on spells are lowered to approximately 1.3 standards.
E) If you balance speed as between 10-15, you probably should equally set PA/MA (whichever stat is intended as maximal on a unit) to 10-15 as well.  Personally, I'd retard the C values a bit (i.e. range for humans is 50-75 for PAC/MAC and 85-120 for SPC) on all classes and leave the multipliers alone, but the alternate approach works too.  However, you probably don't want to mix both approaches because it increases the potential for min-maxing stats.

As for calculator, here's my idea:

Quote
Height
EXP
Level

4
5
Prime


Fire2
Ice2
Bolt2
Cure2
Demi
Regen
Zombie
Poison
Reflect
Dispel Magic

Obviously, stat growths will be normalized (normal SPD, decent HP).

(Eh, I don't think much needs or can be done to Squire without drastically changing it. Just buff Throw Stone and Dash and...I can't even remember vanilla Squire originally has, actually.)

I agree that we probably shouldn't go overboard on the changes just because they could be changed for the better, but that raises the obvious question/problem: Where exactly should we (read: Asmo) draw the line? Obviously things can be detrimental to the game without breaking it--see Monk--but where exactly does the line to change potentially detrimental/braindead end?

Quote from: FFMaster on July 12, 2011, 10:58:46 pm
Something needs to be done to Concentrate/2 Hands/2 Swords as well. No ideas though. Tweaking 2 Hands to be 1.5x damage is easy enough though.

As much I've spoken out again Concentrate at times, nothing needs to be done to it's not innate for a generic class (that isn't Mime) like it is in 1.3.

2 Hands should be balanced out to 1.5 damage, while 2 Swords should have the 75% accuracy penalty if possible, which is still arguably probably less than it deserves given Ninja have it innate, but it's a start.

Quote from: Pierce on July 14, 2011, 08:16:51 pm2 swords maybe just make swords unusable as 2 swords, leaving knives and ninjaswords. If there's some ASM that makes it so you can't equip 2 of the same item on one unit, that might be an idea as well? Who knows.

That doesn't really change anything, though, especially since I'd argue that Ninja Swords are the most abusive of all weapons with 2 Swords, at least with the stupidity that is Spell Edge likely to stick around. (Since, unfortunately, Spell Edge doesn't "need" to change if Asmo is changing as little as possible.)

Re: Concentrate, Two Swords, Two Hands:  I'll go on record and say that because of the mission statement, none of these skills need mechanical changes.  The only exception would be possibly having Blind override Concentrate, but otherwise.

Now, how to fix their issues?  First, remove innate Martial Arts from Monk and innate Two Swords from Ninja.  Why?  Whenever most people think of Martial Arts (or Two Swords) as broken, who do they think of?  They think of one of these classes equipping the Support from the other, "stacking" Two Swords and Martial Arts for a huge damage bonus.  (Or "stacking" either with Attack UP, but same difference.)  The common denominator is that these things are becoming broken because you're able to stack two huge bonuses together.  Remove the ability to stack, 90% of the problem is solved.  (Yes, this also means Samurai should NOT have innate Two Hands, etc.)  The only real repercussion from this change is that these classes may need their PA factors increased slightly to compensate, but that's nothing 5 seconds with a calculator can't fix.

The other problem that relates only to Two Swords is that Two Swords is "always" better than Two Hands.  This can be fixed by simply making things more distinct between them.  Weapons with higher WP (Spears, Knight Swords, Katana) should remain one-handed, but not be compatible with Two Swords, meaning the user's options with those weapons becomes Weapon + Shield, or Weapon alone.  This allows Two Hands to be focused as being the "power" Support of the pair.  This leaves weaker weapons - Daggers, Ninja Swords, Swords, etc. to be compatible with Two Swords.  You again forego your Shield, and because these weapons are weaker, you're getting less net bonus than using Two Hands in terms of damage, but you gain variance in proc, higher overall accuracy, and slightly more evasion due to two W-EV scores. 

Combine both of these with the fact that WP is in general seeing cuts (WP not exceeding 20) and both Two Hands and Two Swords are very much "fixed" with little actual work done - and because Two Swords and Martial Arts can't be stacked, Two Swords fists also become far less of an issue while Monk setups suddenly gain a ton more depth.

Working on FFT: KO now. Chapter I enemies have been set to Party Level already. Doing skills now. This is what I have for skills so far. Thoughts?

(My, you've been busy since 4:30 A.M.)

It shows how out of it I was when it took me a while to realize what FFT:KO meant despite the title. Although that might partly due to the fact that KO will ALWAYS stand for "Knockout" to me, so....

1. Squire: I'm guessing everything past Heal is still Ramza-only? Otherwise, all these changes seem reasonable.

2. Chemist: I can't say that I like Potion being free and Elixir being so cheap while Phoenix Down & Move-Find Item both cost 50. I'd say to make Potion cost 50, make Phoenix Down & Move-Find Item free and make Elixir cost 600. Even before my dislike of Elixir kicks in, I just find it quite odd that Auto-Potion and Elixir cost exact same amount.

3. Knight: Honestly, it seems like Weapon Guard should be free if it's not innate. Otherwise, I guess all changes fine--I'm glad to see that Speed Break is Slow-only now (even if Speed Save is still around). You have Head Break down twice, though; I'm guessing that the second instance is Weapon Break.

4. Archer: This is fine. I can't say I like it much that Speed Save is sticking around, but I doubt it's going anywhere unfortunately.

5. Priest: This seems fine from a glance, though that's a lot of changes smushed together. I'm surprised that you didn't make Holy unable to be evaded, though I guess that's because Priests shouldn't really be attack mages....

6. Wizard: This seems fine from a glance. I'm not really sure why you bothered making Death Dark elemental, though. I don't remember it working on Lucavi in vanilla and the only thing that would really affect would be having N-Kai Armlet halve its success rate. Then again, Death was like 900 JP in vanilla, right? I'm not sure I ever bought it or, at least, tried to use it more than once.

7. Monk: These changes are largely fine with me, though others might not like the changes to Stigma Magic and Chakra. Speaking of which, with regards to Stigma Magic, having it only target the self means it can't heal about half of the things it's "supposed" to heal, but given that I hate Monk and its free, I don't really care, personally. However, I just figured I should point that out.

8. Thief: I'm sure that people who try to steal from Elmdor will appreciate Steal no longer being affected by Blade Grasp. Damn that was annoying. Otherwise fine.

9. Oracle: Always good to see some love given to Dispel Magic. Maybe other people will use that thing now. Life Drain dying is...still annoying but needed, I guess. Need to see Paralyze become single-target only and Sleep get a decrease, I'm guessing because of Mediator; it says "not" instead of "now" by Sleep's percentage, though. Foxbird causing Oil now is good. It's going to need a name change, though, to something besides just "Oil" I hope.

10. Time Mage: Rather surprised that MP Switch would stick around (as available to both genders) and that Don't Move would be reduced to single-target, though I suppose can see the symmetry. Otherwise, I guess these changes are fine.

11. Geomancer: All necessary changes.

12. Lancer: I'm not really seeing why Jump Vertical 7 & 8 were removed or why Ignore Height is even more expensive now, but otherwise is this fine I guess.

13. Mediator: Increasing all of Talk Skill's ranges? I'm...not sure I agree with that, but I can see why you did that. I agree with the RSM changes at least.

14. Summoner: I'm going to assume you mean all offensive summons are affected by Counter Magic & Counter Flood and not things like Moogle, Carbunkle & Fairy. Golem being removed is necessary, though it makes me wonder even more why MP Switch gets to stick around.... I don't really agree with Salamander hitting everything or Odin having a chance of Death, though I can see why you did those things; the same with Silf being Wind elemental, but that's more because that hardly does anything aside from 108 Gems boost, though I guess it's something. Also, wasn't Cyclops already non-elemental? RSM-wise, I agree with MP Restore's change, but I think that Half of MP should cost at least a bit more. It might be fine at 500, though.

15. Samurai: I'm not sure why these are still unable to be dodged when Elemental becomes evadable, especially given that you barely nerfed Kikuichimo(n)ji. The other changes are fine, though I forget if you can get other Masamune. If not, then Haste OR Regen seems rather underwhelming for something will break on you almost a fifth of the time.

16. Ninja: Hmm...I guess you can't get more Masamune if you took away throw Katana from Ninja. While I can understand the reduction of its skill set, it seems odd to have kept Books around as throwing items over more pointy objects like Axes as amusing as throwing dictionaries in people faces is. RSM changes are fine.

17. Calculators: All these changes seem fine. Are Calculators going to keep their abysmal speed, though?

18. Dancer: I'm rather surprised you're letting Slow Dance stick around after the change to Speed Break. Not much to say besides that those it's weird to see Wiznaibus/With Knives become 200, even if I can understand why.

19. Bard: I'm rather surprised you're letting Cheer Song stick around after the change to Speed Break. Not much to say besides that those it's weird to see Life Song become 200, even if I can understand why.

20. Holy Knight: These changes all seem part for the course, though the fact that these are evadable makes Draw Out's continued lack of evasion seem even more weird.

21. Divine Knight: See above. What do you mean by "not allow elements"? Do you mean found a way for it not take the element of the sword even with the fix?

22. Dark Knight: See above.

23. Ark Knight: This is Zalbag, right? I guess these are fine.

24. Heaven Knight: I guess these are fine.

25. Hell Knight: I guess these are fine.

26. Assassin: That change to Stop Breath is probably necessary, though I'm somewhat surprised you didn't change Shadow Stitch or reduce its range given that Assassin's use it a lot more compared to Seal, which I think was glitched for them in vanilla due to AI Behavior. Otherwise, I guess these are fine.

27. Byblos: I guess these are fine.

28. Lucavi: That range on Hold Tight might be a bit much, especially if you're reducing normal Don't Move. Darkness probably needs it, though I can't recall Zalera ever using it, so something might be wrong with it. Otherwise, I guess these changes are fine.

29. Impure King: 0 MP is fine. 0 CT is...probably bad since it has the side effect of making the Gate of Limberry castle and Elidibs fights impossible what with the Apanda now having instant attacks. Just give Cuchuulain Non-Charge.

30. Angel of Death: These seem fine. You'll probably need to give Zalera a reason to use Darkness over these, though, evadable aspects aside. What was the range and AoE of Flare 2 again? It was AoE 1, right? (I don't have FFTPatcher currently open right now, obviously, and I can't open it for a bit.)

31. Regulator: These changes seem good, though I can rather easily see Melt backfiring given how idiotic the AI is when it comes to Death Sentence.

32. Bloody Angel: I'm...not really sure about these, mostly Return 2 and Mute being instant, though.

33. Engineer: These changes make sense. Won't they have the "act and then cancel by moving" problem, though?

34. Temple Knight: These seem fine. Although, I must admit that I'm curious why you just didn't make Chicken add Oil if you made Foxibrd do so. Was it allow Oracles to have at least one advantage over Beowulf?

35. Dragoner: These fine I suppose. Linear Holy Breath is a lot better than random Holy Breath in my opinion.

36. SOLDIER: The changes to Climhazzard and Finish Touch were necessary, especially if nothing has a CT anymore. I'm not sure about anything else, though, especially Cherry Blossom and Cross Slash having a chance to cause Stop.

MP Switch/Move-MP Up:
MP Switch and Move-MP Up would be seperate if this were my patch alone... but since this is trying to stay true to Vanilla, I hesitated in breaking them up.

Foxbird:
Foxbird would probably be remain the same name just to stay true to Vanilla. Elsewise, I'd probably rename it "Unction" or something to match FFTA2.

Lancers:
Vertical Jump 7/8 were mostly removed so that mages wouldn't be outclassed in reaching high-up enemies. I was tempted to keep them, and I don't see them really changing too much, so I wouldn't be averse to putting at least 7 back then. I like the idea of keeping 8 as Izlude-only, though.

Summoners:
Salamander is hit-all namely to keep it from being just a stronger version of Ifrit, and to differentiate it from Ifrit. Silf is pretty different now that it damages, instead of just adding Silence, and it gives Wind much needed representation. Half of MP could probably stand to be 600/650 JP. I'm undecided on it. We'll see what the others have to say.

Samurai:
IIRC, Draw Outs are hardcoded not to accept evasion, MP costs, and CT. I've run into the latter two issues when working on PW. If anything, maybe another nerf in damage would be in order? For Masamune, I was thinking of making it something like Haste/Reraise or something, but that seems a bit much.

Calculator:
As per FDC's suggestion, I wouldn't be averse to giving them normal Speed now that their skillsets are a bit more balanced.

Slow Dance/Cheer Song:
I'm fine with actual Speed modding on these simply because of how long it takes for the effects to stack up, as opposed to making them inflict Slow/Haste, which will almost always be good no matter when you use them.

Assassin:
You're absolutely right. Among other... oddities... Vanilla had Seal checked off as "Cancel Status" instead of "Add Status" under the AI flags. They should use it more now, hopefully.

Impure King:
I'm more worried about the MP costs than the CT, honestly, since we're trying to stay true to Vanilla here. I'd be okay with restoring the CT, if others here also agree with it.

Bloody Angel:
Mostly made them 0 CT so the AI wouldn't always be a sitting target for extra damage. Same reasoning for giving Bio 0 CT. She is the final boss, afterall.

Engineer:
I think FFM found a fix for that bug. I'll ask him later.

Temple Knight:
Oversight on my part. If we weren't sticking to Vanilla, I'd likely give him Swordskills using Geomancy's formula with the debuffs as a bonus or something.

SOLDIER:
I wish we had a decent PA formula we could use for these instead of MA. It'd make life much easier. Cherry Blossom is FFT's reference to Kjata, which is why it's tri-elemental now. The animation backs that up. Cross-Slash inflicts Paralysis in VII, so I wanted to not only reference that, but try and distinguish it a bit from Braver.

EDIT: Apparently Asmo's list has seperation of MP Switch/Move-MP Up, as well as killing Hamedo. I think I'll do those afterall then. Move-MP Up switched to Dancer (They move, afterall. They're dancers) MP Switch moved to Bard.

Quote from: Eternal248 on July 31, 2011, 04:32:38 pmLancers:
I like the idea of keeping 8 as Izlude-only, though.

The only map Izlude appears on has a max vertical difference of like 6 and a mean vertical difference of about 3-4.  Derpy Hooves...

Quote from: Eternal248 on July 31, 2011, 04:32:38 pmCalculator:
As per FDC's suggestion, I wouldn't be averse to giving them normal Speed now that their skillsets are a bit more balanced.

I don't like this Calculator set for a few reasons.  

1.  Calculatable tier 2 magic results in a lot of hurt still.
2.  Cure/Regen/Protect/Shell all but obviates White Magic.  

My recommendation for fixing this is switching the tier 2s with tier 1s, switching Protect/Shell with the far lesser used Reraise, and switching Doubt Faith with Pray Faith.  This allows the Calculator to boost itself if it wants to inflict more damage via Fire/etc., use of Reraise allows Priest to keep distinction with the more commonly used Protect/Shell, and the tier 1 innate magic is works well because it keeps the job controlled but also opens up combo potential between elements and Pray Faith.  I'd also toss Esuna in there to keep the 4-4-4-4 parity, since the fact it hits both teams lowers how much it obviates Priest drastically since a bad-status based team can't make good use of it, just as a positive-status based team can't make good use of Dispel.  Basically, keeps the Calculator with parity and having things for everyone, but makes only some of the Swiss Army Knife worthwhile based on your own team and forces you to think outside the box some to get the most bang for your buck, which is really the best way to balance out Math Skill personally.

Quote from: Eternal248 on July 31, 2011, 04:32:38 pmSOLDIER:
I wish we had a decent PA formula we could use for these instead of MA. It'd make life much easier. Cherry Blossom is FFT's reference to Kjata, which is why it's tri-elemental now. The animation backs that up. Cross-Slash inflicts Paralysis in VII, so I wanted to not only reference that, but try and distinguish it a bit from Braver.

Hey, you know Eternal, we do have a formula that makes perfect sense for Cloud and his Limit Breaks.  It's called 2D Dmg_PA*(WP+Y) 100% Add Status as Indexed.

Won't giving Mustadio's skill CT make him even more useless?

("Didja get that...thing I sent ya?")

Hmmm...I was thinking about that, but apparently I can't see 1.3 abilities to compare. I know that in Vanilla, Mustadio's abilities weren't able to evaded and that's why I'd imagine they have CT now (especially considering the "aim" that's necessary). Given the changes to Oracle's Paralyze and Time Mage's Don't Move, making it so that 8-range, unavoidable Don't Act and Don't Move has some CT seems like the least one can do; Seal Evil has always been hideously unfair to Undead--let's not pretend otherwise. I say this even if Mustadio has always been a bit underwhelming compared to most of the other (actually) special characters.

Quote from: Eternal248 on July 31, 2011, 04:32:38 pm
MP Switch/Move-MP Up:
MP Switch and Move-MP Up would be seperate if this were my patch alone... but since this is trying to stay true to Vanilla, I hesitated in breaking them up.

*skip a few*

EDIT: Apparently Asmo's list has seperation of MP Switch/Move-MP Up, as well as killing Hamedo. I think I'll do those afterall then. Move-MP Up switched to Dancer (They move, afterall. They're dancers) MP Switch moved to Bard.

Yeah, that seems like it needs to happen, even if it still means that male magical classes get the shaft. Then again, Move-MP Up being on the male side in 1.3 didn't exactly help them either and the separations make more sense and seem like they would be more helpful to the respective genders/sexes than that division.

Quote from: Eternal248 on July 31, 2011, 04:32:38 pm
Foxbird:
Foxbird would probably be remain the same name just to stay true to Vanilla. Elsewise, I'd probably rename it "Unction" or something to match FFTA2.

It just seems like it would need to change to "Unction" then unless you want to imply that a "Foxbird" is, like, crapping a magical egg on you or something to generate the oil. That would seem...odd. I'm not even asking for the animation to be changed and it's not like you're not going have to change the text anyway.

Quote from: Eternal248 on July 31, 2011, 04:32:38 pmLancers:
Vertical Jump 7/8 were mostly removed so that mages wouldn't be outclassed in reaching high-up enemies. I was tempted to keep them, and I don't see them really changing too much, so I wouldn't be averse to putting at least 7 back then. I like the idea of keeping 8 as Izlude-only, though.

Even before what Raven pointed out, that seems rather unnecessary given that you're keeping Teleport & Fly around and, off the top of my head, I can only think of three, maybe four, maps that have sharp enough vertical differences that AI will actually move to for Lancers to have the "advantage".

I mean, I don't really care either way--and, if anything, Izlude should get Jump Level 8. I just find the reasoning for their removal really odd. If Lancers out distancing mages was a concern, then wouldn't Jump Level 5 be far more important to kill than really niche, overly expensive verticals?

Quote from: Eternal248 on July 31, 2011, 04:32:38 pm
Summoners:
Salamander is hit-all namely to keep it from being just a stronger version of Ifrit, and to differentiate it from Ifrit. Silf is pretty different now that it damages, instead of just adding Silence, and it gives Wind much needed representation. Half of MP could probably stand to be 600/650 JP. I'm undecided on it. We'll see what the others have to say.

Ah, I miss that Silf actually did damage now. That was my mistake.

Half of MP probably needs to be 600. It's good, but not as good as Short Charge (usually).

Quote from: Eternal248 on July 31, 2011, 04:32:38 pm
Samurai:
IIRC, Draw Outs are hardcoded not to accept evasion, MP costs, and CT. I've run into the latter two issues when working on PW. If anything, maybe another nerf in damage would be in order? For Masamune, I was thinking of making it something like Haste/Reraise or something, but that seems a bit much.

Really? I thought Elemental and Draw Out had the same hardcoding, so if Elemental could evasion then Draw Out could. I might be remembering incorrectly.

As Masamune, I'd say Haste AND Regen would be fine for something can break and that you can get one of.

Quote from: Eternal248 on July 31, 2011, 04:32:38 pm
Slow Dance/Cheer Song:
I'm fine with actual Speed modding on these simply because of how long it takes for the effects to stack up, as opposed to making them inflict Slow/Haste, which will almost always be good no matter when you use them.

Oh, I just meant removing them completely like in 1.3 rather than making them inflict Slow or Haste, respectively. It just seems odd that you would boost the JP for Life Song and With Knives for what I assumed was because of Mimes while you would keep Cheer Song & Slow Dance despite the fact that just one of them of those makes those abilities exponentially more abusive. I mean, everyone knows how all-important Speed is....

Quote from: Eternal248 on July 31, 2011, 04:32:38 pmAssassin:
You're absolutely right. Among other... oddities... Vanilla had Seal checked off as "Cancel Status" instead of "Add Status" under the AI flags. They should use it more now, hopefully.

Yeah, I remember not even being aware that Assassins had Seal until the first I opened FFTPatcher.

Quote from: Eternal248 on July 31, 2011, 04:32:38 pm
Impure King:
I'm more worried about the MP costs than the CT, honestly, since we're trying to stay true to Vanilla here. I'd be okay with restoring the CT, if others here also agree with it.

0 MP is fine. 0 CT is fine, but for Queklain-only. Making Bio 0 CT makes the Gates of Limberry nigh-impossible unless you're going to force people to like, I don't know, bring a party of low-Faith Ninja with Angel Ring so as not to die.

I kinda think we should be avoiding 1.3's arbitrary "you must have this type of exact set-up to survive" points if we're trying to stick as close vanilla as possible.

Quote from: Eternal248 on July 31, 2011, 04:32:38 pm
Bloody Angel:
Mostly made them 0 CT so the AI wouldn't always be a sitting target for extra damage. Same reasoning for giving Bio 0 CT. She is the final boss, afterall.

Oh, I was aware of why you made most of them 0 CT. I'm wary of those two spells in particular since Mute destroys all MP and I can't remember how fast Altima/Ultima (II) is in vanilla, so I can't remember how much, if any, benefit she'd get being able to spam Return 2 until she could double turn you.

Quote from: Eternal248 on July 31, 2011, 04:32:38 pm
Engineer:
I think FFM found a fix for that bug. I'll ask him later.

He did. He hasn't made it public yet and I doubt he will until 131 ARENA comes out.

Quote from: Eternal248 on July 31, 2011, 04:32:38 pm
Temple Knight:
Oversight on my part. If we weren't sticking to Vanilla, I'd likely give him Swordskills using Geomancy's formula with the debuffs as a bonus or something.

Well, it wouldn't be entirely bad for him and Oracle to be slightly different, really. I could see him getting Chicken back as a -minus Brave ability, especially since unlike generic Oracles, there's only one of him. I'm unsure how much Brave you could subtract for it to be worthwhile yet not overshadow generic Mediators though.

Quote from: Eternal248 on July 31, 2011, 04:32:38 pm
SOLDIER:
I wish we had a decent PA formula we could use for these instead of MA. It'd make life much easier. Cherry Blossom is FFT's reference to Kjata, which is why it's tri-elemental now. The animation backs that up. Cross-Slash inflicts Paralysis in VII, so I wanted to not only reference that, but try and distinguish it a bit from Braver.

Oh, you were referencing Kjata with Cherry Blossom. I thought you were just referencing the animation. I suppose it's fine as a tri-elemental attack thinking of how little elemental reaction there is in vanilla. I guess I'm just used to automatically thinking of things in Embargo terms now, where the current way absorb (and strengthening and nullification) works would make such a technique next to useless.

As for Cross Slash, I had forgotten about that despite using Cross Slash a bit. Perhaps because I don't really like Cloud and Aeris/Aerith's Seal Evil was the primary Limit Break that paralyzed I remember.

I guess it's fine then, though it would have to compete with Stasis Sword if you use Raven's suggestion of 2D.

Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on July 31, 2011, 05:23:34 pmI don't like this Calculator set for a few reasons. 

1.  Calculatable tier 2 magic results in a lot of hurt still.
2.  Cure/Regen/Protect/Shell all but obviates White Magic. 

My recommendation for fixing this is switching the tier 2s with tier 1s, switching Protect/Shell with the far lesser used Reraise, and switching Doubt Faith with Pray Faith.  This allows the Calculator to boost itself if it wants to inflict more damage via Fire/etc., use of Reraise allows Priest to keep distinction with the more commonly used Protect/Shell, and the tier 1 innate magic is works well because it keeps the job controlled but also opens up combo potential between elements and Pray Faith.  I'd also toss Esuna in there to keep the 4-4-4-4 parity, since the fact it hits both teams lowers how much it obviates Priest drastically since a bad-status based team can't make good use of it, just as a positive-status based team can't make good use of Dispel.  Basically, keeps the Calculator with parity and having things for everyone, but makes only some of the Swiss Army Knife worthwhile based on your own team and forces you to think outside the box some to get the most bang for your buck, which is really the best way to balance out Math Skill personally.

I suppose thinking about it, I agree with everything here except for maybe Reraise, but guess there's not really anything else you could take from Priest if you already have Cure, Regen & Esuna as well.

I can't say I really agree with Reraise. Reraise is pretty damn good, and there'd be no doubt that the player party would utilize it better than the AI would, so it wouldn't be much of a "drawback" if the enemy got hit with it. I'm good with Pray Faith if we decide to take the Tier II magic down to Tier I.

("I'll take that as a yes, Birdman", he said before just realizing he had a PM.)

I concur. However, a 4-3-4-4 parity is just...weird for those of us like Raven and myself who have pseudo-OCD when it comes to needing things to be "even".

Thinking about it a bit more, perhaps make it a 3-3-3-3 parity by getting rid of Poison, Don't Move and Blind Rage as well given those could also make matches with Math Skill rather silly or at least Blind Rage would--Don't Move might and Poison probably wouldn't.

That might make it Calculator too weak, though I doubt it consider they cast things instantly and don't need to be anywhere near the enemy to do so.

This reminds me: Asmo X, are you planning to leave the ENTD completely intact? I ask mostly because there's a disturbing amount of Knights everywhere in vanilla, even if that sort of makes sense for a pseudo-medieval society. That and I'm pretty sure a fifth of the classes--Mime, Calculator, Bard & Dancer--don't ever show up in-battle as enemies, even in random battles.

Quote from: Eternal248 on August 01, 2011, 12:01:01 am
I can't say I really agree with Reraise. Reraise is pretty damn good, and there'd be no doubt that the player party would utilize it better than the AI would, so it wouldn't be much of a "drawback" if the enemy got hit with it.

The AI is almost always better with Math Skill than the player - they'll rarely deal with the "drawback" of hitting their enemies with Reraise.  If the entire field is getting Reraise, that's also far less powerful than you're inclined to think it is unless you hold back and kill all the enemies at once because /every/ team is getting Reraise.  Hell, even the Priest's Reraise spell is rarely used... hell, the only usable source of Reraise is usually an Item or Dragon Spirit.  Shouldn't that say something about Reraise if all the sources of it that consume an Action aren't worth using if it's as badass as you're scared-ness makes it out to be?

Hooooly fucking shit I have been busy lately. Good to see someone picked up the ball that I dropped. Just a couple of quick things I've noticed:

-Yeah the ENTDs should be different. There are boatloads of wizards, archers and knights everywhere. I'll see if I can find time to actually work on this.

-Beowulf might as well keep chicken. Not only is there only one of him, but he appears late in the story, removing one of the main issues with the calculator which is that you can grind for them early and steamroll the game. Is Drain still an issue? I thought there was a hack that capped the amount of damage it could do to lucavi.

-Generally speaking, there are loads of tiny changes here that don't strike me as "core" issues. Like the slight AOE on stigma magic and chakra. Yeah, they're good abilities, but it's not a huge deal. Similarly, I don't think Mustadio's skills need CT attached to them.

-Also, is weapon guard being innate to everyone not a thing that's going to happen now?

Worked out some balance kinks with Asmo today. Things are progressing smoothly.

My patch is kind of like this.

If you have an ASM hacker handy, then maybe stat buffs (+Sp/PA/MA) should cost HP?

Any update/Eta on this patch?

I've been working on and off on it lately. Most stuff is done except for ENTDs and item descriptions.

But if this patch actually does its job right, then why am I working on Orlandu?

EDIT: Why didn't anybody tell me about this?! >.> *cryface*

Quote from: Dunkelritter Luna on January 29, 2012, 07:28:46 pm
But if this patch actually does its job right, then why am I working on Orlandu?

EDIT: Why didn't anybody tell me about this?! >.> *cryface*

I tried to tell you about this patch many times, but you kept ignoring me

...Dome. Don't make me spank you.

Two questions.

1) Should the Lucavi be Party Level or Party Level +5?
2) Should enemies be given +1 job level worth of JP?

My 2 cents
All enemies at Party level
"Bosses" (Like Lucavi monsters, or special enemy units) Party level +5
Monsters in randoms at party level +3 (Easier to grind)

I'm not touching randoms. They're fine, IMO.

If everything is at party level - Random, grinding or just levelling will become a huge pain

Nor do I want enemy monsters to be able to piledrive the party, either. Plus two levels just seems like it'd be a lot, especially early on.

That's what I did for FFT: Plus (Don't know if it could work for KO)
All Ch 1 randoms have 3 monsters only, set at party level
All Ch 2/3/4 randoms feature more monsters at party level +3

Why?
Because at the beginning of the game you usually suck, and randoms should allow you to train without much difficult
From Ch2 and onward you should have gathered enough abilities to beat more monsters (And efficiently grind, if you wish)

Possible fix for Chakra: it reduces PA by 1 every use, but it now has a vertical of 1 or 2, and is allies-only.

...No.  Just no.  That's stupid as hell.  Chakra doesn't really even need to be "fixed."  You heal the equivalent of being hit by a Longsword with it.  The only thing making it close to "OP" is Monk having both high base PA and innate Martial Arts.  Lower base PA or remove Martial Arts, any "problem" with Chakra is fixed.

Still need feedback about levels.

Dome gave your feedback, which I think we all agree on.

Chapter I ENTDs done. Moving onto Chapter II now. Still a lot to do, but it's coming together. :)

Cool! I can't wait Ety~! ^.^

Quote from: Dunkelritter Luna on March 26, 2012, 11:20:31 pm
Cool! I can't wait Ety~! ^.^

Pretty much this, without the "Ety"

You're in luck! It's being released today. :D

EDIT: Being released tomorrow! It's all done, but I'm giving it a playthrough to see if anything needs fixed/changed. Up to Chapter III now, going to do Chapter IV tomorrow.

Testing is done through halfway through Chapter IV. Sorry about the delay, but I really want to make sure the gameplay feels good before I release it.

(And my Internet is finally back.)

Heh, figures that you posted right after I convince myself not to post earlier this morning and just wait instead.

Anyway, I don't see why you're apologizing for testing of all things. Testing needs to be always needs to be done. Better having at least some, if not most, of it done before it's released than none of them.

What did you do end up deciding anyway? I looked back through the entirety of the thread earlier, but I'm guessing there have been at least some changes from that or, at least, ones that haven't been posted about other things not-related to class or Asmo's list in the first post.