FFT: ASM'D main info/discussion

[RavenOfRazgriz]

But lancers with sticks and oracles with spears, by default?  Nah, a bit unweildy and really messes with the <random> equipment option for enemies.

Lancers with Sticks, I can see being weird for <random>

If anything though, enemy male Oracles (which there are a lot of in 1.3, iirc) benefit from such a change.

[iopyud]

How about you just give Equip Long Weapon to Oracle?
Oracles can run around with spears and sticks but we can't have Lancers with sticks.

And here's a thought: Instead of female only equips being unisex...

Bard: (Support) : Sexual Security : Be sexually secure and equip female-only accessories.
To compensate, female-only headgear should give a massive MP boost to complement MP-Switch? (This reaction skill is worthless for me, it only blocks 2 attacks at most).

Clothes would be a boost to Knight because it gives SP which they gravely need or PA which they already have lots of.
Doesn't make sense that they can wear robes to begin with...
I hope this will make Knights less... worthless. I really like Knights.

EDIT:

Dominic made a comment regarding Main Gauches and I agree.
They're parrying daggers, man. They need their WEv back. At least some of it...

[philsov]

If anything though, enemy male Oracles (which there are a lot of in 1.3, iirc) benefit from such a change.

Barely.  But not enough to justify it.

How about you just give Equip Long Weapon to Oracle?
Oracles can run around with spears and sticks but we can't have Lancers with sticks.

Are you seriously suggesting that Lancers lose the equip spear support?

And here's a thought: Instead of female only equips being unisex...

No.  Males should not sacrifice a support slot to get perks like status immunity and perfume buffs while females don't have to.  That's the entire thing making them unisex is trying to fix.

MP Switch is getting removed from the generics, so I can give wizards Move MP Up and not recreating that awful combo.  Also MP Switch + Angel Song was borderline just as bad.

Clothes would be a boost to Knight because it gives SP which they gravely need or PA which they already have lots of.

Not going to happen.  If Knights want to wear light armor, they can slap on the support ability.

Doesn't make sense that they can wear robes to begin with...

MP Based skillset + grants ability to be an effective status caster hybrid.

Dominic made a comment regarding Main Gauches and I agree.
They're parrying daggers, man. They need their WEv back. At least some of it...

Or I can just change their name.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

]Clothes would be a boost to Knight because it gives SP which they gravely need or PA which they already have lots of.
Doesn't make sense that they can wear robes to begin with...
I hope this will make Knights less... worthless. I really like Knights.

Unisex accessories and Equip Clothes alone give Knights a bit more use, since you can get Auto-Haste or Auto-Protect/Shell while wielding male PA... or combine a Knight's high PA / HP with Thief Hat / Secret Clothes / etc to compensate for its Speed.

Plus, this game will see more clusterfucks and units that only run 2-3 tiles, while Knights have 3-panel debuffs and some of the best melee power in the game if they stay in range.

I'm pretty sure they become better by proxy.  But then again, a lot of things become better by proxy in this game, so it may all balance out.

Look at a Knight's sprite.  It's actually wearing a robe with a piece of heavy armor over it, so the sense is in the visual.  Plus, Knights are regal.  Robes are regal.  1 + 1 = Papaya.

EDIT -

Random thought.  

Implement Fury hack and lower all Brave values by 10 across the board, save the already low-Br units such as Rafa and Beowulf.

So Soldier's Office caps at 60 Br, etc.  Your main qualm before seemed to be 40 Br + Auto-Potion... but you nerfed Auto-Potion down a rather good sum, so that doesn't seem to be an issue anymore.  The main problem would be Reactions being a bit less consistent, I suppose.  Could lower Faith by 10 if you do this to keep things 'fair', if you wanted, but I don't know if that's exactly necessary.

I just really hate how the ONLY thing low Br gives you is better Move-Find Items... to the point where I think if the Fury hack ISN'T implemented, you may as well take out the bad-get Move-Find Item since good Move-Find Itemers besides Rafa / Beowulf are pretty much worthless for anything else, making the mechanic of low Br = better Move-Find Items pretty damn stupid.

Either that, or reverse Move-Find Item to work with high Br, if you can.  Though I really would like the Fury hack added somehow.  I just hate how little strategy goes into determining your Br/Fa values as it is, save deciding whether or not you want male unit X being good with Time and Yin-Yang Magics or not.

[philsov]

but you also have to consider the opposite side of things.

Take queklain for example.  I like him with Critical Quick.  But do I want him to take 40% more melee damage as a result of it?  The same can be said for anything with a reaction I'd like to see trigger every time.  

No, my main qualm was numbers I had no desire to mess with, because its implementation WILL cause severe balance issues, on both sides of the field.  Now, on top of this, I cannot change the rando-range of anything in the first place.  

MFI can't be swapped around, but the loot itself can.  However, the only MFI's that actually matter, DD and Nelveska, are 100% regardless.  Is finding an iron sword instead of a potion at Zeklaus really an issue?

[RavenOfRazgriz]

MFI can't be swapped around, but the loot itself can.  However, the only MFI's that actually matter, DD and Nelveska, are 100% regardless.  Is finding an iron sword instead of a potion at Zeklaus really an issue?

No.

But not getting my god-be-damned Blood Sword during the Adramelk fight is.

There's a couple other good Move-Find Items as well, iirc.

[Dokurider]

I hate it when I miss my Transparent Mantle.

Anyways, I think Truth and Un-truth's Vert only needs to be 2. I think Vert 3 is overkill.

[iopyud]

@Truth-Untruth: My Rafalak hardly hits anything. I try to reduce the squares as much as possible, but...

Are you seriously suggesting that Lancers lose the equip spear support?

I just don't want AI Lancers with sticks. *Shrugs*

[Gotwald]

You could just force a support onto every lancer in the whole game....

[philsov]

well, most supports are already set as is.  The only things random are very very early enemies and most of the Random battle enemies.  

Also text edits can diaf.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

I just don't want AI Lancers with sticks. *Shrugs*

So what you mean to be saying is that you don't want a Lancer coming in with the Equip Spear Support Ability equipped and a Stick due to <random>.

It sounds like you want the ability removed from their Skillset, which is why people are like wtf.  I don't think a lot of Support Abilities are set to <random> anyway in 1.3, at least in the areas it'll begin to matter / Lancers show up as consistent enemies.

[iopyud]

Oh. It's fine then.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Odd thought, Philsov.

Since males will now be able to use Setiemson, what are we going to do about Excalibur?

It's completely outclassed since bigger Knight Sword + Setiemson will usually > it, or at worst be 1 point behind it but offer Always: Protect.

This seems like quite a shame for a technically 'unique' weapon.  The only time I'd see myself using it now is if I wanted to do a Knight / Special with both Initial: Haste and a Salty Rage.  :/

Got any ideas how to remedy the situation?

And also, since I don't remember if I brought it up before and just want to verify, you're debuffing Secret Clothes to only give +1 Sp in the same manner you debuffed Thief Hat, right?

[Sephirot24]

He's leaving Secret clothes with +2 because it's Rare equipment IIRC.

Also, I'd say leave Excalibur as it is. Not everyone is gonna want to equip that perfume.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

He's leaving Secret clothes with +2 because it's Rare equipment IIRC.

He's allowing it to be poached in Easytype.

Unless he makes it truly 'rare' equipment this time around, I say make it +1.  +2 Speed means a lot more when everything has less Speed.

Also, I'd say leave Excalibur as it is. Not everyone is gonna want to equip that perfume.

Excalibur is 2 points weaker than Save the Queen, and more than 3 weaker than everything else.  And Save the Queen gives Always: Protect, which looks like it could be worth a lot more in ASM'D.

That means other Knight Sword + Setiemson will always be more useful than Excalibur + Bracer, making Excalibur really only useful when you need a Salty Rage or a boatload of HP + widespread status protection since males also have Ribbon access.

The fact a piece of rare equipment gets completely dethroned via Poaching just doesn't seem right.  Especially when it's "Excalibur".

[Aquilae]

Excalibur + Bracer is easier to get than StQ / Ragnarok / Chaos Blade + Setiemson, and as you also mentioned, you can use it with Salty Rage. It does have uses and it's usefulness isn't directly determined by how it matches up against other swords. A Broadsword is useful in the early stretch of the game as it does higher damage than Crossbows and Daggers, but won't be used when better swords start coming out. That doesn't mean we should completely remove Broadsword from the game.

Also, StQ, Ragnarok and Chaos Blade come a lot later than Excalibur, so it's fair to say that they should outclass it.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Excalibur + Bracer is easier to get than StQ / Ragnarok / Chaos Blade + Setiemson, and as you also mentioned, you can use it with Salty Rage. It does have uses and it's usefulness isn't directly determined by how it matches up against other swords. A Broadsword is useful in the early stretch of the game as it does higher damage than Crossbows and Daggers, but won't be used when better swords start coming out. That doesn't mean we should completely remove Broadsword from the game.

Also, StQ, Ragnarok and Chaos Blade come a lot later than Excalibur, so it's fair to say that they should outclass it.

A Broadsword is also the first weapon in the game and isn't unique in any way, so the comparison is kinda skewered.

Though I s'pose that Excalibur + Salty Rage is worth keeping Excalibur as is.

The last line is true, I just didn't like by how much they seemed to do so.  But again, Salty Rage is probably even more amazing than I'm thinking it is in ASM'D, so eh.

That and Setiemson is pretty ridiculous.  It's hard not to be outclassed by a Setiemson combo, though I suppose it'll be easier to do so in ASM'D where that Initial: Haste is working off much lower Speed values.

[iopyud]

What if Excalibur gives Speed (1~2?) instead of Haste?

[philsov]

Excalibur's synergy with other perfumes is pretty badass, imo.

As for secret clothes, I don't really know about their +Sp.  I do know they will be truly rare, however.  Considering clothies get their SP boost from hats and armored get theirs from armor -- if left at 1 Sp it wouldn't be much better than a clothie with equip armor, save a little less health but a freed up support slot.  It'll probably stay 2 for now, but I'll keep my finger on that pulse.

[philsov]

first post updated with most proposed changes to date.

I tried daggers with the gun formula, WP*WP with 100% hit rate (hit rate being the clencher here), but they were either too strong or too weak, pending relative placement.  In that stead, they're going back to their old formula [(PA + Sp) / 2], but will instead have a 25% chance to inflict various status (or multiple status, possibly even seperately for the end-game daggers).