[Old] FFT Plus 1.02 upcoming changes

[Shao]

Hi Dome=P
Just wanna tell ya that my thoughts for FFT is just simply to amazed the fft community with new and cool things as many would have played tons of the original version or even the other patches.
Honestly speaking im really happy to see skills like HOLD THE LINE! it made me laugh! i didnt really care about the skill but the name of it just make me feel so refreashed. So after reading the skill i laughed the 2nd time...that moment make me feel like i'm off for a FFT with new experience.
the part for fair difficulty will be a challenge for you>.< and im just gonna enjoy the patch which im already doing so.
New,out-of-the-box ideas will make FFT plus unique(and the opening scene is really awesomeXD)
i dont really think i can help with the development but i may have some ideas along the way...oh..do you have Gain-JP-UP in the game? or just walking around for extra JP? haha^^

[Neophyte Ronin]

It gets spammed by grinders.  Superior abilities means easier time.  You'll have to get creative with what you got.  Fortunately, whatever the AI tries on you, you can (eventually) try on them.  Try an Archer and get Train, then have a Squire accompany the Monster into battle.

[Dome]

Guys, WizDaddy suggested this in one of his videos:
Do you think Reaction % of activation should be changed to (Br+Fa)/2 % ?

[HebrewToYou]

Seems like a decent change.

[TrueLight]

Sounds good. Now you actually have to worry about faith if you want a higher reaction %.

[Neophyte Ronin]

Given that Brave and Faith do not carry over, you'd need some altered Br/Fa-adjusting Abilities that will make characters very likely to react.  Brave and Faith, if set to random, fluctuate between 45-74 for in-battle and 40-70 for out-battle (eggs and soldier office).  Given that, the mean Reaction rate becomes somewhere around 55-59.5%.  This is a feature used in the Arena Combat battles that the Pimp holds on the same YouTube page.  In Arena Combat, it's meant to prevent characters from being high-octane Br against low-grade Fa for defensive purposes, in addition to accompanying rules such as minimums and maximums for Br and Fa across each of the four characters.

It's a shot towards ameliorating some of the depravity of the RNG when handling various amounts of Br and Fa.  At first glance, it sounds okay.  You could even bring back Shirahadori/Blade Grasp because Br and Fa are not transferable after battle and thus you have to pump up Br and Fa to promote frequent Reaction usage.  The decreased reliability of that translates to greater use of Parry and Abandon/Reflexes, since they don't give a damn about the amount--they're just filling the slot.  But what else could you apply such a concept?  I mean, you got rid of one of the unique processes for Brave and altered weapons that once favored the courageous (Knight Swords and Unarmed).  Why not extend this kind of thinking to Magic as well?  Perhaps we could have a formula like this:

Mg = [(A+35)+(X+35)+(B+35)+(Y+35)/1000000]

Where A & X = Caster Br and Fa and B & Y = Target Br and Fa.

This means that Morale is pretty much homogenized to an extent that it doesn't really matter which one you got.  It's just two separate numbers that do the exact same thing.  Any situation that calls either for a Br-based check or an Fa-based check then becomes a Morale-Based check.

There are some radical issues with this.  The first is that characters with high brave can become good mages.  However, characters with low faith can still be mages.  Magic, however, has even less power than previously because you need both to generate top-form results.  Also, the status effects Faith and Innocent/Atheist (I prefer Heathen for the latter) suddenly have diminished effects.  Of course, they also prevent them from being totally overwhelming.  Character concepts such as Worker8 suddenly don't work.  The thing can get nailed by Magic!  Also, what the hell do we do with Malak's Un-Truth/Nerakayana technique?

Frankly, I am of the camp that says, if you want something better, then keep what works.  Don't mix Brave and Faith into an end-all about one's Reaction Ability.  Instead, consider another possibility, based on the Critical Hit/Knockback formula.  The Knockback is one's Brave turned against another; if one is superior, the other has a lesser shot at suffering a normal hit.  That is [CBr(100-TBr)] so, if applied to Reaction Abilities....

Suppose Ramza nails one of those goddamned Blackthorn goblins (the black ones) and risks setting off its repulsive Strength Save ability.  That will just raise its ire.  However, if the Blackthorn is 70 and Ramza is 70.  The Blackthorn has an equal 70% shot at getting his proc.  What if Ramza was temporarily Doomguy Berserker-Packed with 100 Brave?  Well, then the Blackthorn will have a reduced chance at getting his Reaction Ability done.  If it was lower, then the Blackthorn gets a slightly improved chance at it landing.

Here's what the breakdown would be:

70*70=4900, 100*70=7000; 4900/7000=70% (obviously)

80*80=6400, 100*70=7000; 6400/7000=91% (holy shit!)

40*40=1600, 100*60=6000; 1600/6000=27% (God damn...)

60*60=3600, 40*40=1600; 3600/1600=+100% (Oh, dear)

Oh wait, wait... let me try that again:

60*60=3600, 100*40=4000; 90% (did that one in my head).

Even if the Caster had superior Brave, the odds of provoking a Reaction Ability is still below 100% certainty.  Hey wait a minute!  That solves all kinds of problems with game-breaker Reactions, even if you redid their variables in orgasm.  (Oh, man, I should just hit Post on this thing already).

Well... that didn't go quite where I expected.  Even if you make a rival formula, the outcome would not be so different.  This could be a horrifying experience if your Brave was lower than your enemies.  You'd freeze in the wake of their positive attitude.  This would make Morale-altering stats a nightmare to behold.

[CB*TB/10000]

Okay, lets try the obvious avenue and see if we get somewhere else.

70*70=4900/10000 = 49%

Wait, what?  You have a decreased overall likelihood?

90*90=8100/10000 = 81%

Well, that's not too bad.

30*30=900/10000 = 9%

Okay, that one's just fucked up.  Ignore the alternative.  It's also ridiculous since that 100- with the Target Brave should have been the grand balancing act.  100*100 is just plain wrong and goes against every iota of common sense in my psyche.

Yeah, well I'd love to share more insights but my idea is: don't go forward by mixing Brave and Faith together with Reactions.  You can mix Caster Brave and Target Brave with a hundred thrown on the Target's side and divide by ten thousand, resulting in near-perfect but never absolute numbers, paired with a change where Blade Grasp doesn't cover all weapon types, if you're really ambitious (one exists), but other than that, don't get cocky changing up Reaction Ability procs with Faith.

[Luc]

A few questions about 1.02 patch;
This thread was created over a year ago... any ETA (sorry I know thats a jerk question that probably gets asked a lot)?

When you say that we'll have to steal "Rare items" during ch. 4 fights-- are you referring to story fights (meaning there will be only one of said items) or random fights (meaning you could farm as many of them as you want)? If it applies to randoms then thats awesome, I've always hated the idea that there are items that can be missed or only obtained one of, although chantages need to be changed to 'on start' instead of 'permanent' for sure lol, those are too overpowered.

Level cap 50; why? does this include monsters being capped at 50, and again why?

no more move +3? i don't get this at all, if anything shouldn't move +3 be added (for females), I mean its not overpowered since height and terrain restrictions still apply.

All the other stuff sounds great, but the above I find to be kind of odd changes...

[Dome]

A few questions about 1.02 patch;
This thread was created over a year ago... any ETA (sorry I know thats a jerk question that probably gets asked a lot)?

Can't give you an ETA, sadly, because I cannot start working on 1.02 until "Vanilla plus" is out (And vanilla plus won't be out until Jot5 ch1 is released)

When you say that we'll have to steal "Rare items" during ch. 4 fights-- are you referring to story fights (meaning there will be only one of said items) or random fights (meaning you could farm as many of them as you want)? If it applies to randoms then thats awesome, I've always hated the idea that there are items that can be missed or only obtained one of, although chantages need to be changed to 'on start' instead of 'permanent' for sure lol, those are too overpowered.

Yep, you have to steal them during story fights

Level cap 50; why? does this include monsters being capped at 50, and again why?

Actually, I think that idea might be scrapped: Setting the level cap to 50 might alter the stat balance

no more move +3? i don't get this at all, if anything shouldn't move +3 be added (for females), I mean its not overpowered since height and terrain restrictions still apply.

A unit moving 7 panels trivializes the concept of strategy

All the other stuff sounds great, but the above I find to be kind of odd changes..

Thanks :-)
If you have any other question/feedback, feel free to post :-)

[Luc]

what is vanilla +? Didn't see any page for it anywhere.
I'm assuming Jot5 is the "Journey of the 5" Mod? You're working on that too?

In any event I'm really looking forward to FFT+ v1.02 -- I've already been thinking about starting to make a psp document.dat manual like I did for 1.3 but with more info in it, but not sure exactly which bits I can get from your master guide (still missing poach list) that would apply to 1.02 vs 1.01c Beta

[Dome]

This is vanilla Plus

- No, I'm not working on Jot5; But Elric will start working on Vanilla plus after Ch1 of Jot5 is out :-)
- 1.02 is a PSX only patch at the moment, unless I decide to work on a PSP version (Unlikely, since I hate the PSP, but not impossible)

[Luc]

I realize its psx only, but you can play psx games on the psp (if you have CFW, which I do), the document.dat would be for that!
I actually have 1.3 psx version loaded onto my psp atm, but FFT+ sounds better so I can't wait!

[Shao]

sorry for the delay i'm busy with other stuffs lately
so...i try to contribute to the FFT community by being a frequent FFT player..but im a newbie to all these FFT hacking and changing pls bear with me.
I saw the wizard job and it is something very striking to me.
Other than the naming of spells which is fine, the creator gave 'character' to each type of spells..thunder being faster etc. which is cool!...but the problem comes when i saw my dmg could go as low as 7 for a charged skill like thunder(being fast but low dmg)
i'm one that loves fresh things, and if possible some graphic changes to those few USEFUL skills used by many people who love fft> one eg could be the knightsword skills.
That being said, it does make one feel annoyed if new 'character' given to for eg. thunder, can result in 7 dmg(when you hope the reduced charged time could still do some decent dmg). Should there be some changes to the dmg equation for wizards?
The way i play FFT will normally question the 'fun-ness' in the game...perhaps im not the hardcore tactic guy....i couldnt stand the whole game based on tactic. i daresay most who 1st played fft love knightsword skills because it does heavy dmg and cool animation. And more love the idea of i-can-own-the-battle-with-my-ultimate-party(after hours of grinding)
Grinding should, in my view, reward players, like having access to better jobs(nowadays jobs are all well balanced and there's not a single OUTSTANDING job, after hours of grinding) because it makes players happpyyyyy
I would have to also say that it is important to balance both approaches be it to make the game more tactically-inclined or fun at the same time.
thanks for reading!

[Dome]

About the damage, the formula considers various things: Faith of both characters, MA, weather, abilities, equipment, compatibility...you should give us more info

About the end-game stuff...there still is powerful stuff: Most of the special characters, end-game equipment...and a special surprise

[Luc]

Will being able to steal from randoms be back in 1.02 because not being able kind of makes thieves steal ability not nearly as useful.
If you made it so black mages could only use black magic spells during story fights they'd be pretty useless too, see what I mean?

[Dome]

Yep, in 1.02 enemies in randoms will bring the same equipment you can buy in stores, and you will be able to steal it

Enemies will only be able to use skills from their class skillset and the 2nd skillset equipped...like every unit in the game xD

[Luc]

awesome!

[axfelix]

Speaking as someone who hates the WOTL script and really likes 1.3, this is the most promising Hacktics project for me right now. Can't wait to see it come to fruition -- hope you toughen up Chapter 4 despite wanting to keep the game "fair"!

[Dome]

Speaking as someone who hates the WOTL script and really likes 1.3, this is the most promising Hacktics project for me right now. Can't wait to see it come to fruition -- hope you toughen up Chapter 4 despite wanting to keep the game "fair"!

Of course it does, don't worry ;-)

[dices543]

Hey Dome,

Just registered to make this post. I usually just lurk and read the forums but i'm an avid fan of FFT and the remakes. After many years after playing the original on PSX i heard about 1.3 and played it and loved it.

I recently started playing your game, about 6 hours in and i must say i'm impressed. Keep up the good work and im looking forward to 1.02.

How is Monk fist damage calculated?

[Dome]

Hey Dome,

Just registered to make this post. I usually just lurk and read the forums but i'm an avid fan of FFT and the remakes. After many years after playing the original on PSX i heard about 1.3 and played it and loved it.

I recently started playing your game, about 6 hours in and i must say i'm impressed. Keep up the good work and im looking forward to 1.02.

How is Monk fist damage calculated?

Thanks for the kind words! You made me blush :-)

Fist' formula is
(PA/2)*PA