FFTA: Revisited 2.0 Beta

[rrs_kai]

The next update will take some time, here is what I was doing since the last one.

-Done equipment changes
-Most skill changes are done (the other races were in pretty good shape to begin with)
-Shops sell most every piece of ability-teaching equipment (except ultima, double sword, etc.)
-Treasure Hunt.
-Revised stats.
-Documentation is being done.

I experimented with many things since the last upadate and fainally decieded to scrap everything. Also undid most nerfs for the following reasons:

hitting things with a nerf hammer isnt called balancing

-most of them just seemed like novelty
-the animations were too good to pass up
-descriptions cannot be edited which is the sole reason half of them got scrapped
-why fix things that are already good

I decided to simply buff the defensive skills to make them more useful (the purpose of this mod) and be competative to the offensive ones.
-Bad-breath, death, toad, break are all still there with only a slightly higher MP cost, no accuracy nerf.
-Summons and Ultima cannot be double-casted everything else can.
-Concentrate's accuracy boost is 30% normal and 10% status.
-All 5 races have 60% base status evasion.
-Wyrmkiller does 3x damage to dragons only.
-Mighty-Guard buffs DEF, RES and adds Protect and Shell.
-Ultima 60MP, 2x damage, weapon range.
-Black mages are lost tier 1 black magick and gained flare, bio and meteor (still deciding where to place those new skills, chill rod teaching bio is wierd but is the easiest way out)
-Gadgeteers have AOE buffs and debuffs
-Gunner's status shots do half damage and have a small MP cost
-Bangaa lost Geomancy and Absorb MP and gained Turbo MP and Strikeback
-Humans lost Turbo MP and gained Mag.Pow+
-No Mou have the strongest spell in FFTA, Alpha
-Blind accuracy loss is 20% and hitting blinded target bonus is 10%

Since soldies/warriors have circle/guard-off which used blue-magic initiation. I wanted to make it use focus+punch initiation but scrapped that because you need a new skill slot to make it work (I did it and it does work) but in a magical world like Ivalice soldiers casting enchantments doesnt seem outlandish, not to mention secondary magic skillsets.

Incase anyone was wondering what got scrapped, here's the list.

spoiler: Scrapped ideas

Souleater - dark damage with recoil, s-flare animation, focus+punch initiation
Shadowflare - MAG dark damage, s-flare animation, purple pallete black magic initiation
Steel stance - AOE mighty guard, aura initiation
Dragon soul - AOE dragon force, aura initiation
Breach - AOE guard-off, focus+punch animation
Intimidate - AOE circle (ATK and MAG down), focus+punch initiation
Phalanx - AOE defending+shell+protect, mod defence animation
Mana Seep - Drain HP into MP (skill description)
Bloodlust - Drain MP into HP ((skill description, the game is still good without these gimmiky skills)
Wind slash
Splash dagger

I also felt like changing many skill/skill-set names but scrapped that as well (as cool as they sound, they only add to the condusion as to why the change was required)
Icewyrm - Dragonfreeze (because the others are Dragonblaze and Dragonbolt)
Wind slash, Splash dagger, Phalanx, Breach, Intimidate, Steel stance, Manashield, Dragon Soul, Mana Seep, Bloodlust, etc.

I vote tedious hacking first, risky decisions later. Partially because that's my style and partially because I love disagreeing with Eternal.

I agree.
Experimenting is fun but first you must have a failsafe so that failure isn't much of a drawback.

[Marche]

Wow another update to look forward to! This will definitely take most of my time this xmas vacation. Looking forward to the update!

[bcrobert]

Wyrmkiller sounds super crazy strong. Make sure dragons are powerful. Like "Make sure you brought your dragoon for this fight" levels of powerful.

I love that Nu Mou have Alpha. Because Nu Mou.

For soldiers/warriors I do like the idea of adding the focus punch thing, but it was probably smart to leave it out for right now. I would just jot that down as a thing to maybe do if you end up with excess slots. But like you said, it's not far-fetched for soldiers to use magic in Ivalice anyway.

Intimidate makes me think of Pokemon. Gotta catch 'em all.

[rrs_kai]

Wyrmkiller sounds super crazy strong. Make sure dragons are powerful. Like "Make sure you brought your dragoon for this fight" levels of powerful.

I hope it turns out that way.

For soldiers/warriors I do like the idea of adding the focus punch thing, but it was probably smart to leave it out for right now. I would just jot that down as a thing to maybe do if you end up with excess slots. But like you said, it's not far-fetched for soldiers to use magic in Ivalice anyway.

I want the mod to be as coherent as possible, and am currenlty un-doing most changs that I did in the previous updates like the elemental bonuses now only apply to firaga, thundaga and blizzaga, focus/cheer is only self targetable, etc.
I will edit the animations.

Of the experiments that did go well is the stat growth. I normalized the stats and made it so that all classes of a race have the same base stats and everyone has the same speed growth of 2.0 (so that level differences matter).
This stat system has its pros and cons and the reason it made itself into FFTA:DE is largely because of advantage no.1.

spoiler: Human and Bangaa

spoiler: No Mou and Viera

spoiler: Moogle

---Advantages---
-1-When you start the game you can change the class of your starting party to whatever you want. Marche as a mage doesnt suffer any base stat problems, Montblanc can switch out from a black mage into something else (hopfully this reduces the Montblanc hate, just because he's a subpar mage doesn't mean he needs to be hated) and anything else which you may like.
-2-Speed isn't that big of a advantage.
-3-In vanilla it was SPEED vs STATS now it ATK/MAG vs DEF/RES.
-4-Gives more flexibility to work on equipment (its more satisfying to see an endgame weapon boost ATK from 400 to 460 rather than from 500 to 530). For those fearing that the Ninja/Assassin suffered a nerf, they regain their edge by equipping katanas which provide a decent a speed boost.

---Disadvantages---
-1-Bangaa mages and No Mou fighters aren't as good as their peers.
-2-Tank classes and mages are faster than expected.

[rrs_kai]

Okay...here's what happened (a month ago).

When I tried to patch Item fix v3.0 onto FFTA:DE v0.65 using NUPS it did not work. The error was "different ROM size".
Now I have these options:
-Start FFTA:DE from scratch using item fix v3.0 as base.
-Continue with FFTA:DE and manually redo the changes from the item fix patch.
-Continue with FFTA:DE and ignoring the item fix patch (DE already has item fix v2.0).
I am not sure which is better, my real also has become more demanding and hence no updates for a while.
I could release DE 0.65 but it has many loose ends.

I will say this, this patch has 124 downloads as of this post which is quite high (something I did not expect).

[bcrobert]

I would say manually add in the changes between item fix v2.0 and v3.0. Sounds like the least work of those options. Unless you can find out why the ROM size randomly changed between patches and fix that.

You could always release 0.65 as a demo version. But I'm not sure offhand what loose ends you're having trouble with.

[Madeen]

Yes please release 0.65, cant wait to try it

Wanted to try older version but since you'll be changing many things, might as well wait for 0.65

[bcrobert]

Yes please release 0.65, cant wait to try it

Wanted to try older version but since you'll be changing many things, might as well wait for 0.65

I know my post is off topic. Sorry about that but dammit...THIS USER IS NAMED MADEEN. I APPROVE.

I felt the need to immediately point out that someone's username is the best summoning spell in FFTA. This is how you choose names people. Right here.

Back on topic: rrs_kai is the difference between your patches one random line of bytes at the end or did you actually expand the ROM at some point to accommodate something? Because I've had patchers arbitrarily add bytes to the end of my ROMs, and have generally found no problems with just deleting the extra bytes.

[Madeen]

I know my post is off topic. Sorry about that but dammit...THIS USER IS NAMED MADEEN. I APPROVE.

I felt the need to immediately point out that someone's username is the best summoning spell in FFTA. This is how you choose names people. Right here.

Lol thanks   My favourite along with Zalera.  Sadly I couldnt find a good FFTA Madeen pic so I'll have to make-do with FF9.

Keep the good work up guys!

[rrs_kai]

I know my post is off topic. Sorry about that but dammit...THIS USER IS NAMED MADEEN. I APPROVE.

I felt the need to immediately point out that someone's username is the best summoning spell in FFTA. This is how you choose names people. Right here.

Back on topic: rrs_kai is the difference between your patches one random line of bytes at the end or did you actually expand the ROM at some point to accommodate something? Because I've had patchers arbitrarily add bytes to the end of my ROMs, and have generally found no problems with just deleting the extra bytes.

The ROM size got expanded when I was testing animations, dont know how.

Lol thanks   My favourite along with Zalera.  Sadly I couldnt find a good FFTA Madeen pic so I'll have to make-do with FF9.

Keep the good work up guys!

The summon wallpapers here are quite nice, all these years I never knew that Ultima was a lady with cannon legs.
FFTA-wiki-wallpapers

---update 0.67---
The most rushed and unorganized update till now (no documentation either)

-Guns have double damage and half range, all status shots deal no damage
-2h weapons are vastly superior to their 1h counterparts
-1h weapons now boost speed
-Staves and Rods boost magic
-Light armour boosts speed
-Heavy armour gives a lot of defence while robes give lot of resistance
-Monkey grip and Shieldbearer are worthwhile support abilities

P.S. If you want to test this update start a new game, its worth it

[Madeen]

Thanks for the release I shall try it out in a bit

Those wallpaper are cool, Madeen actually looks better than in FF9! But.. they are wallpaper, I cant use that as forum profile pic   And no I cant resize pics or cut them :/

[bcrobert]

-Guns have double damage and half range, all status shots deal no damage

I am going to shoot so many things.

[Madeen]

Hello   Some feedbacks if I may:

I like the challenge so far, battles take much longer.  It's quite tedious early on because of mp costs (I started with 3 black mages) and enemies tougher, but it's manageable. More exp per battle is nice too. However I noticed some inconsistencies...

During the Gelato mission (the ice mage and his pillars) there were two enemies that didnt attack at all, one panther and one floating eye... they would stay near pillars and wouldnt attack even if I ended turn next to them, needless to say they were easy to kill. They would move though, but just one or two tiles and always near pillars, or they wouldnt move at all.
I appreciate the AI change but yeah... something is off there

Fira/Thundara/Blizzara: I dont mind them not being aoe, but I find range 3 quite low, mages are ranged for a reason, they're squishy. It doesnt make sense they have to stay so close to melee action, and with enemies' move increased, they are quite screwed.

Cure: an oddball, I could swear it was range 3 as well at first, but somehow since Gelato mission it became range 4... which is better of course, but maybe there's a bug here?

First aid: Quite overpowered, I'm not sure but I feel it's range got messed up like cure too, it is now range 4 and better than cure (heals more and removes status) a soldier shouldnt be able to heal better than a white mage. If it's no bug, I'd put it range 1, makes sense to me to "put bandages" on someone...

That's about it for inconsistencies, I only played a couple missions, will do more later

I must say the thesis mission was the hardest so far, oh I hated that soldier... his backdraft hurts, and his first aid... so yeah.  And I had to berserk the white mage or he'd revive everyone lol.

All in all quite fun and challenging, keep up the good work

[rrs_kai]

Hello   Some feedbacks if I may:

I like the challenge so far, battles take much longer.  It's quite tedious early on because of mp costs (I started with 3 black mages) and enemies tougher, but it's manageable. More exp per battle is nice too. However I noticed some inconsistencies...

During the Gelato mission (the ice mage and his pillars) there were two enemies that didnt attack at all, one panther and one floating eye... they would stay near pillars and wouldnt attack even if I ended turn next to them, needless to say they were easy to kill. They would move though, but just one or two tiles and always near pillars, or they wouldnt move at all.
I appreciate the AI change but yeah... something is off there

Fira/Thundara/Blizzara: I dont mind them not being aoe, but I find range 3 quite low, mages are ranged for a reason, they're squishy. It doesnt make sense they have to stay so close to melee action, and with enemies' move increased, they are quite screwed.

Cure: an oddball, I could swear it was range 3 as well at first, but somehow since Gelato mission it became range 4... which is better of course, but maybe there's a bug here?

First aid: Quite overpowered, I'm not sure but I feel it's range got messed up like cure too, it is now range 4 and better than cure (heals more and removes status) a soldier shouldnt be able to heal better than a white mage. If it's no bug, I'd put it range 1, makes sense to me to "put bandages" on someone...

That's about it for inconsistencies, I only played a couple missions, will do more later

I must say the thesis mission was the hardest so far, oh I hated that soldier... his backdraft hurts, and his first aid... so yeah.  And I had to berserk the white mage or he'd revive everyone lol.

All in all quite fun and challenging, keep up the good work

First aid was means to be range 1
Cure range 4
Fira/Thundara/Blizzara range 3

Mages are better in FFTA-DE than in vanilla because rods and staves now boost magic.
Black magic zero AOE
Illusion 1AOE (without friendly fire)
Summon 2AOE

[Madeen]

Some feedback in case you still work on this...

Seems clan exp doesnt raise at all, intended?

I know you evened stats but, when recruiting, their stats are also evened, that means you get a plain average unit instead of a unit who had stat gains.
Basically, the later you recruit, the worse they get I guess.

Oh also, first aid is definitely range 4.

Edit: My bad, clan does get exp.  However it looks like some dispatch quests give 0 point.  Maybe that's normal?  I dont remember how it was in vanilla...

Edit2: Aphonia isnt working. Upon selection, no green tile appear, means you cant target anyone.
Also, game feels quite easy, especially vs non-monsters. It would be nice if you could give them better gear and skillsets at least.

[rrs_kai]

Some feedback in case you still work on this...

Seems clan exp doesnt raise at all, intended?

I know you evened stats but, when recruiting, their stats are also evened, that means you get a plain average unit instead of a unit who had stat gains.
Basically, the later you recruit, the worse they get I guess.

Oh also, first aid is definitely range 4.

Edit: My bad, clan does get exp.  However it looks like some dispatch quests give 0 point.  Maybe that's normal?  I dont remember how it was in vanilla...

Edit2: Aphonia isnt working. Upon selection, no green tile appear, means you cant target anyone.
Also, game feels quite easy, especially vs non-monsters. It would be nice if you could give them better gear and skillsets at least.

Thank you for playing
I have updated the hack and have fixed the bugs which you have reported.

I have made all jobs of a race have the same base stats but have different growths.
The earlier you recruit the more average-ish and the later you recruit the more diversified.

e.g: A lv1 soldier recruit will have the same stats as a lv1 white-mage recruit, but a lv20 soldier and a lv20 white-mage will have different stats.

[Marche]

When you say semi secret characters which one are not recruitable?
Gonna playthrough this game now..

Edit: Also will you provide a documentation in the future?

[rrs_kai]

When you say semi secret characters which one are not recruitable?
Gonna playthrough this game now..

Edit: Also will you provide a documentation in the future?

Semi-secret characters are Eldena, Lini, Quinn, Cheney, Pallanza and LittleVili.
I changed their recruit chance with the nightmare editor and then reset to vanilla values but its not working. The only way I got it to work was to have this set to "yes" and it seems to have a 100% recruit chance; but it randomizes their names.

spoiler: this

I am writing the notes on ability changes, its not quite done yet. I will update the main post with a few of them.

Also, I got earth render to work exactly 4 panels straight, this maybe a fun addition to the next patch.

spoiler: earth render

[drownduck]

i downloaded your file at the bottom of your post ( the .rar file) how do i patch it? i don't see any "included" NUPS patcher beside that one file you have for download 0.0

[drownduck]

ok so i downloaded the NUPS from the original website
and tried to apply the patch
the process was aborted then i got this message:

"the patch doesn't match the file. patching canceled."

wtf???

do i have to convert your patch file to .ups format or what? because it's (FFTA_My-hack-0.85.rar ) a .rar

I'm a noobie at this, please explain the the step by step for me.
would love to play your hack