• Welcome to Final Fantasy Hacktics. Please login or sign up.
 
March 28, 2024, 02:09:08 pm

News:

Use of ePSXe before 2.0 is highly discouraged. Mednafen, RetroArch, and Duckstation are recommended for playing/testing, pSX is recommended for debugging.


FFT mixed with a bit of FF10?

Started by thechancellor, October 13, 2013, 05:02:38 pm

Zotis

Quote from: thechancellor on October 14, 2013, 10:55:54 am
I'll consider that, if I decide to go with charge times. On that note, Toshiko's input on MP really got me thinking about doing away with Charge Times altogether and just using Delayed Next Turns. The stronger/more useful the spell/skill is, the longer the wait until that character's next move. Again, just throwing thoughts out there.
Maybe like going crit, after casting a spell they have a decrease in speed/atk or other penalties and effects depending on the spell and how powerful it is.  When I think about actual witchcraft in history things like incantation and blood magic come to mind.  Charge time would be the character reciting the incantation, or they sacrifice HP by cutting themselves to draw blood like a Baal worshiper.  Casting straight off of scrolls in some games consumes the scroll instead of MP.

Myrmidon

as a fellow RM maker, I see a few minor flaws (ones that stopped me form porting FFT to RMVX)

1) WP and defense
FFT uses WP*PA=DMG
default Attack in RMVX is 4*C.STR-2*T.DEF

2) Jump, Throw, Geomancy, and Math are all very difficult without delving deep into Ruby

3) Job Change systems are a pain in the ass in general, actually...

4) Ramza's Ultima

5) skill learning in general

also: accessories are fine, you still get Weapon/Sheild/Heat/Body/Accessory in VX, unless you were planning on removing accessories for a different reason..

thechancellor

Quote from: Myrmidon on October 15, 2013, 01:34:09 pm
as a fellow RM maker, I see a few minor flaws (ones that stopped me form porting FFT to RMVX)

1) WP and defense
FFT uses WP*PA=DMG
default Attack in RMVX is 4*C.STR-2*T.DEF

2) Jump, Throw, Geomancy, and Math are all very difficult without delving deep into Ruby

3) Job Change systems are a pain in the ass in general, actually...

4) Ramza's Ultima

5) skill learning in general

also: accessories are fine, you still get Weapon/Sheild/Heat/Body/Accessory in VX, unless you were planning on removing accessories for a different reason..


Well whaddya know! Nice to see someone else here that's familiar with the engine. I'm glad you brought this up. Hopefully you'll share the same enthusiasm as me after reading my reply. I had a LOT of hurdles to overcome in order to reproduce the effects of a lot of the FFT skills. I hope the following answers will help get rid of the skepticism.

1) I'm using RMVX Ace, which allows you to use your own damage formulas. I'm also using a Ruby script that allows you to use custom hit formulas. I can factor any statistic into either formula.

I also have a Ruby script that can assign damage formulas to specific weapons. So the differences in Knight Swords, Swords, and Poles can be accounted for.

2) To me, Jump is expendable. All ranged abilities are, as there will be no grid or movement. As far as jumping in the air and avoiding attacks until you drop, that effect can be reproduced. This hasn't been fully tested by me, but I've seen it done already.

With Throw, I already have a Ruby script in place that I've fully tested to reproduce the effect. You can choose from your inventory of weapons, and when a skill is used, your inventory will be reduced each time as you throw the items. The best thing about this is that you can remove the limits on what type of items you can throw. Wanna throw a bottle of potion and break it over someone's head to inflict damage? I can make it happen.

Geomancy is definitely expendable. Where there's no grid, I can't really change the effects of the skill because the terrain doesn't change in battle. I think that takes away from the appeal of the class. If I did include Geomancy, It would have to be more like Mog's Dance skills from FFVI, without being automated. This has already been reproduced and tested by me.

Math is by far the easiest. I have a Ruby script that assigns levels to enemies. And I can use those enemy levels as values in the damage formula and hit formula. Btw, enemy levels can scale with the party. Either match the highest level of the character in the party, or the lowest. I can set it to have a random value within a particular range as well. The possibilities are huge.

3) The Job System has already been fully tested. JP is earned from executing actions in battle. Earn enough JP and you can raise class levels. Then you can unlock classes based on the levels of prerequisite classes. This is fully tested by me, and working flawlessly.

4) Do you mean Ramza's Ultima as in learning skills that you're attacked with? That's done. As a matter of fact, I have already fully tested a Blue Mage class, which I have plans on including in my game as a unique class.

5) As I mentioned in #3, the JP system is in full effect. The ONLY thing I can't reproduce (yet) is the formula that determines how much JP is gained. That's not really important to me, as I could just do something like Kokojo's COP and have a static number for JP gained per action.

I've really done my homework guys. I wouldn't reach out to you based on a "theory". I've managed to literally reproduce almost all of FFT's mechanics. And with some creativity, we can really create those classes that you never thought you'd ever see in an FFT game.

The discussion really turns into...

"What changes would you like to see in FFT? -- Yeah? How would that translate to a traditional battle system that had no movement? -- Does it make sense? -- Good, it's done."
Don't really have anything witty or interesting to put here...

Philogosten

Alright. looking forward to seeing the future release of this. If you need help I am always willing to lend a hand.
Now taking bets on which kills me first. lung cancer or liver failure

thechancellor

Much appreciated. Still working at this day by day. The only problem I have is making sure the game is balanced after removing/changing key components of FFT's mechanics. This has really become a FFV game, with FFT abilities/damage formulas and FFX10's battle system.

The other part of this is the size of the game. I'd really like to keep this project small for now. If it gains a considerable amount of interest then I'll take it to the next step. My main focus is cutting down on the amount of classes, because the variance between them really only shows when movement/ranged/AOE attacks are involved.

For instance, Summoners have a great variety of spells and their man appeal is the large AOE of their attacks. Since AOE isn't really a factor in a traditional battle system, I feel that the effect of the Summoner spells can be split up between Black Mage and White Mage skillsets.

Another example. Lancers. Their entire skillset is basically one move where vertical and horizontal reach determines how effective the skill can be. In a traditional battle system, this can simply become one skill. Same goes for Ninjas' Throw, in this case.

Bard and Dancer skill effects can be split up too. In FFT, the best way to use these classes is by keeping them away from the front lines of battle. Kinda hard to do in a traditional battle system.

So you can kinda see where I'm going with this. It's not so much about porting the classes as it is about porting the abilities. I'm basically looking at a pool of abilities and assigning one to the appropriate class as I go.
Don't really have anything witty or interesting to put here...

Myrmidon

hah, glad to know just how much I have to learn when it comes to Ruby.  perhaps I'll have to look into seeing just what Ruby can accomplish...

also, static JP sounds good, and less abusable, but you'll have to lower JP costs to match, since we can't gangbeat for JP anymore.

also also:Lancer doesn't need to be scrapped, it can be made Kain style.

Geomancer does sound difficult, though.   you'd either wind up with FF5 style, which was crap, or FF6 style, which is slightly less crap.  seems a waste to waste it, though - perhaps a "terrain" skill that offers a choice of 3-4 spells based off current battle terrain?

thechancellor

Quote from: Myrmidon on October 16, 2013, 05:51:50 pm
hah, glad to know just how much I have to learn when it comes to Ruby.  perhaps I'll have to look into seeing just what Ruby can accomplish...


Definitely. The coders who are making these scripts have improved after working with Ruby for years and years. RMVX Ace is a great engine and a lot of people got behind it. The quality of scripts that were released are fantastic. Not to mention I had to shell out a few bucks to have some made for me.

Quote from: Myrmidon on October 16, 2013, 05:51:50 pm
perhaps a "terrain" skill that offers a choice of 3-4 spells based off current battle terrain?


I like that as an alternative.
Don't really have anything witty or interesting to put here...