I don't know about you guys, but I'm excited as hell about using Arena as our next AI tourney! We could use something different than 1.3
I know it's going to take a while for it to happen (meaning probably will happen sometime in the fall or the end of the summer if lucky) and there's still some rules to consider or propose but let this be an open discussion!
I'd like to suggest as an improvent to add a reflectable, evadable dark element spell to black magic that does more damage to low faith targets. example formula would look something like (Dmg = (100-T_faith)* (100 - T_faith) /12) with an accuracy of (40+2xMa). Ideally it would be expensive and slow but would at least give the Wizards an option vs the 40 faith targets
Quote from: Malroth on July 21, 2011, 04:52:24 pm
I'd like to suggest as an improvent to add a reflectable, evadable dark element spell to black magic that does more damage to low faith targets. example formula would look something like (Dmg = (100-T_faith)* (100 - T_faith) /12) with an accuracy of (40+2xMa). Ideally it would be expensive and slow but would at least give the Wizards an option vs the 40 faith targets
Or just use Flare?
Currently the only anti-low-faith is PA-based... would be nice to get an MA one also, though that might ruin the whole point of Faith. As long as good buffs/heals/raise are still exclusively Faith.
Yeah, and Flare will kill 40 Faith units most the time.
(This seems a bit earlier, but eh, might as well.)
So, when exactly would be planning on doing this given that August is almost upon us?
Also, have we made sure there's no problems with skills that are currently around? Like Hawk's Eye? While looking over Archer, it occurred to me that it might have that "the AI is too stupid to realize that moving will cancel this move" problem.
That problem has already been fixed. I just need to implement it for 131.
(Ugh. I should have been in bed hours ago.)
Ah, so it did/does exist. Nice to have confirmation. Almost as nice as to know that it can be fixed.
Quote from: Barren on July 21, 2011, 07:37:27 am
I don't know about you guys, but I'm excited as hell about using Arena as our next AI tourney!
Eh... I'm not. Hope you all have fun anyways :)
Innate Magic Defence up for Mediators? god knows they need something.
I guess so, I mean mediators stats aren't too hot
I mainly look at HP values and Speed, so the way I see it for stats (also considering innates/equips):
Best: Squire, Paladin, Monk, Thief, Scholar, Mime
Good: Priest, Oracle, Geomancer, Lancer, Bard, Dancer, Time Mage
Okay: Archer, Wizard, Summoner, Samurai, Ninja
Bad: Chemist, Mediator
I'll throw up more opinions in stat/ability discussion.
Quickening really needs a CT value
I agree, it has shown that its OP especially since it can be mimed over and over again instantly
(Damn it, I keep forgetting this.)
So, since this has stalled a bit and the other thread for S5 died a while ago, I figure that I might as well bring up a point that Wiz brought up during S5 if we're going to be talking about this: We really need to come to agreement on what qualifies a map as "small", "medium" and "large" because a lot of the time, those descriptions are...less than accurate even with normal Move.
Well for starters, I think we need a list of maps again and someone needs to specify what is a large/medium/small map
plus i think the large/medium/small map order for rounds 1 2 and or 3 is perfect
the other way around can work too
I know this discussion has been dead for a while, but when Arena is ready for possibly another release (since there are errors to fix in spreadsheet) We could hold a tournament in the winter like everyone discussed on IRC chat several weeks ago.
Maybe we can use the No JP Cap rule and 1 copy of equip/ability rule only like we did in season 5 or we can go back to seasons 1-4 rules with the JP Cap rule and 2 copies of equips/abilities. I'm fine with either one
Sticking with Arena's current rules for its first real tournament outing seems best, personally. "Season 6" may as well be Season 1 since Arena's not really /had/ much of a definitive tournament yet, FDC's small grab-and-go from posted teams aside, at leas that I can recall, and it's now far different from the 1.3 release it was based on.
Shaking the rules up in later tournaments would be cool, but the first outing really should be with the standard rules, to me, since those are a large part of what Arena is actually balanced around.
For rules, I think sticking to the "standard rules" should be the method. As Raven has said, this will basically be the first real tournament for Arena, the others basically another way of generating videos to help balance.
I have however, thought up of a plan to get this tournament under way without any trouble:
1) Version 135 will be used for a league until the tournament. Like what fdc did before, we should set up a league. I can post videos now, and if possible, ask for help from others as well. No commentary is needed, if the uploader wishes to do commentary though, he/she may do so. The main purpose of this is to seed the players, say top 8. The number will depend on number of competitors for the actual tournament. The duration of this should be about 3-4 weeks.
2) Knowing what is too strong, we will either ban those items/skills or release a SMALL patch decreasing the effectiveness of such abilities/items. Complete remakes/reworks will not happen. If a concept is deemed overpowered, it will have to be banned.
3) Signups will begin. I suggest that we leave about 1-2 weeks for signups, testing and any errors in submission.
4) Just my opinion here, tournament should NOT be Single Elimination. Double Elimination is probably best. Swiss will take forever. If you have a better format, please suggest.
And now, here is a problem I have found while typing the above. If all this were to happen either immediately or 1 week after, we would be going through Christmas, and I'm sure many will be visiting relatives/friends/whatever, me included. The best solution that comes to mind for me is to run the league until about a week before December 25, give 2 weeks to form a team, and then run the tournament on January. Once again, if you have a far better idea, once again please post here.
If you can help with anything like bracket setup, videos, updating posts or whatever else is needed to make this run smoothly then you can also volunteer here.
I can run videos if you need my help FFM. I have enough time on my hands to do so
If anyone wants to give me a quick run-through (unless "quick" is impossible) on how to get videos running as they are set-up for the tournament, I would be willing to help. Yes, I have a legitimate copy of the game, yes I have the ISO, and yes I have video capture software. I'm not particularly knowledgeable when it comes to using the patches (which ones I should be using and so on). But I am willing to learn and set it up on my system. Just throwing that out there.
Quote from: FFMaster on November 11, 2011, 07:27:57 am2) Knowing what is too strong, we will either ban those items/skills or release a SMALL patch decreasing the effectiveness of such abilities.
Luckily, I don't think we'll need to do much of this... just that one thing I mentioned to you on iRC and adjusting some damage-based Spell Ys is all I can expect, really, since the other side of the tree didn't get many huge buffs.
Well, I think it's time for that small patch to appear. Most of the changes are what Raven suggested. I'm not going to be adding abilities or remaking anything so I've removed those changes for now. For the tournament map listings, we can use the previous arrangements unless someone has a valid reason not to.
Changelog
General
- Fixed a minor error with Weapon/Ability proc hack
Classes
- Chemist MA down to 8
- Priest MA down to 10
- Wizard MA down to 11
- Time Mage MA down to 9
- Summoner MA down to 11
- Mediator MA down to 9
- Oracle MA down to 10
- Scholar MA down to 12
Skillsets
- Cheer Up becomes 100% Hit
- Earth Slash JP down to 350
- Regen AoE increased to 2, Vert increased to 3
- Regenerator JP down to 200
- Meiton/Fuuton/Suiton Y down to 10, MP increased to 10
Items
- Ninja Knife WP increased to 11
- All Axes lose 1 WP
- Ivory Rod gains Two Hands
- Whale Whisker gains Two Hands WP, down to 10
Statii
- Regen now lasts 96 ticks
I'm sure I'm missing something, so just tell me sometime soon. We are going to need to find hosts and shit now as well. I think in the end, Me/fdc/Raven settled on Double Elimination, but my memory is hazy and I don't want to scroll through logs right now. /lazy
Well I got time to host so I'm your man FFM whenever you need me
Steal heart now is terrible on thief without MA * 2. (Recall how you said that all the formulas that were MA * 2 would be downgraded back to MA * 1 only if you raise the base hit by 10.) Can the base hit be raised to 50?
The only things I can think of that aren't listed there are covered by your disclaimer, but from the percents FDC has fed me, Steal Heart needs that Y buff he mentioned.
As for maps, doriantoki had a quick starting summation he made about distance between units to better determine size but no one followed up on that. We should use that to try and get a better divide between Small/Medium/Large, then run each match at either Small/Large/Medium or Large/Small/Medium. There's also some really atrocious maps that need either new starting positions or to be tossed into the crap pile. I know the old map list had a crap pile but I don't know if it covered all the really bad ones or not.
Well the maps the should be edited or scrapped imo are 31 - dorter trade city, 49 - fort zeakden (make it a large size map where both teams start off further away), 107 NOGIAS, and 114 END. Everything else seems fine to me. Other than that just re balance the starting positions on other maps like 17 Underground Cemetery of Limberry Castle
Oh, is this starting before Christmas or after? I'm getting a little swamped now as Christmas approaches :?
Dorter and Zeakden I think can be saved. Both are tricky though due to height advantage whenever an Archer appears. Nogias and End aren't savable imo.
And yes, a few starting positions are still messed up.
I don't mind for NOGIAS and ENd to be scrapped because it does give a team an unfair advantage considering the units are usually too far away from resurrection or the first mistake is the last one kind of scenario
Quote from: Barren on December 05, 2011, 07:47:27 pm
I don't mind for NOGIAS and ENd to be scrapped because it does give a team an unfair advantage considering the units are usually too far away from resurrection or the first mistake is the last one kind of scenario
But that depends on the team. Some teams are better with autonomy on each unit than other teams. That should be a design decision for the player, though such maps shouldn't appear frequently (maybe once per bracket in Winners and Losers)?
Here are the new start locations for Map 17.
(http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/jj174/FF255Master/Map17.png)
I'm just not sure where to move the units in some maps though, like Dorter(both of them).
The way player 2's positions are looks fine to me...if I recall Wiz did the same thing with this map
Hmm if you do the league I'll make a team for it. AKA come out of retirement.
That'd be awesome Mando :)
EDIT: Finished map edit of Dorter Slums.
(http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/jj174/FF255Master/DorterFinished.png)
*notices the lack of a building only after looking at the image three times*
What's sad is I was going to suggest doing exactly that to the map to make it more balanced for use.
Here is a more or less complete version of Dorter Trade City.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=my-bBpSwwNM
The top part of one of the buildings near red team's starting position looks weird. The entire side-face of the topmost two squares is almost entirely the window texture instead of a wall texture, and it almost looks like the building's wearing a visor or something. It looks far more balanced, though yes, vision gets obscured a lot.
Personally, I'd lower the raised side with the tree and one building down to ground level or mostly ground level so that it can be seen over more easily, and add some means for the green team to get onto the rooftop sprawl on the opposite side. The rooftop sprawl is good since it gives another map where Longbows actually have a reason to be used, but it has a big design flaw still - the red team starts right next to the only means of getting on top of the rooftops without a high Jump score. If you could sneak a similar set of steps near where the Green team starts, then both teams would be equal in that they'd both be able to access the rooftops as needed. Alternatively, you could remove the steps from Red team's side, but that just locks the rooftops out from any unit that doesn't have Ignore Height or a high Jump score, and that doesn't sit well to me since it feels like it'd lead to teams winning/losing solely due to whether or not they have 4 Jump or not. Much prefer just giving the Green team a similar set of steps that Red team has, since it wouldn't leave low-Jump units locked off the rooftops but high Jump units would still have superior mobility both up there and getting to/from there.
Yeah, I know the topmost 2 squares are a problem. I just got lazy and wanted to show a working map before I got the absolute details perfect. I'm glad that you think it's far more balanced at least, which was the main goal of such an annoying task. There is also a missing texture part on the bottom of one of the houses, so I have to fix that up too.
Adding extra steps for the green side isn't too much of a problem. I'll just have to raise/lower the roof a bit, which may take a bit of time. As for lowering the building on the tree side more, maybe making it a flat roof? the doorway is basically half the height of the building already. It just might look a bit different since all the other buildings have curved tops.
Quote from: FFMaster on December 08, 2011, 01:45:10 amAdding extra steps for the green side isn't too much of a problem. I'll just have to raise/lower the roof a bit, which may take a bit of time.
You could just toss a small step in front of the building and call it a day, honestly.
Either that, or move that entire small building one square south so that it ends where that alleyway on the Green side currently is, then add a set of stairs of some kind between the two buildings (the small Green side one and larger Red side one) in the space left between them, make it look like a stack of crates or something being stored in the alleyway between the two buildings. Just have it tall enough that it can be used to access either building and it should be good.
Quote from: FFMaster on December 08, 2011, 01:45:10 amAs for lowering the building on the tree side more, maybe making it a flat roof? the doorway is basically half the height of the building already. It just might look a bit different since all the other buildings have curved tops.
Nonono. Don't alter that building. I mean, lower that
entire raised area. There's the building, then the bit that juts out to the side with the tree resting on it. The whole thing, just lower it down so that it's either level with the ground or 1h above it, that way people can see over it. Leave everything as-is layout wise there, just have it be level with the ground.
So it looks like a building made for midgets? No thanks.
EDIT: Revision 2.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8D-oJduE3O8
That building looked much bigger than it was in that first video, I swear.
That's much better, I think.
Just saw the video myself just now, the grounds are balanced out better plus there's no unfair advantage for either team which is good