FFT Arena: Balance Discussion Thread

[Dokurider]

Time Mages just don't have very exciting equip options. Everyone's trying out all these updated weapons and shit except for Staves because they're boring for the most part and are mostly just there to have something to have in your hand. Staves just don't do that much for Time Mages for the most part.

[The Damned]

(And I get that. Not that Staves can possibly still be improved [somehow].)

It's just rather...jarring to see next to know one using Time Magic. I could understand if Time Mages weren't be used because "Staves are boring" while Time Magic still was, but even Time Magic is barely being used. When it's only on like 6 of 100+ units, something just seems "wrong" even if again something has to be on the bottom.

...Why are we lowering Battle Song and Magic Song, exactly?

We're not, necessarily. Just don't understand why they were raised in the first place when they were more than fine at 50%. Must have missed memo as to why people thought it was necessary at 66%.

I figure that maybe could stand to be "lowered" against if Last Song goes back to be 50% since, by and large, Sing/Song is already better than Dance. Last Song should go back to being 50% regardless though, so it's not like I'm demanding that other two be changed back as well; it's just like with Ribbons being named changed to Headbands: I don't know why that happened and I don't recall it ever even being discussed on the forums. (Yes, I know things are discussed in IRC as well. That's fine. That's also not the point.)

[RavenOfRazgriz]

So you're requesting two sort of usable Songs be made worse for no reason other than one slightly less usable Song was asked to be made better and not because anything needs to be done?  That's a Bad Idea.  It was buffed to 66% a while ago after Mimes + Battle Song stopped being a problem and it was realized other Battle Song / Magic Song strategies at 50% weren't that great both with and without Mimes.  This was the same time a lot of other Song/Dance hit rates were modified so that Songs generally had better Hit Rates than Dances did because it gave games momentum and because a single hit of any Song usually meant less than a single hit of any Dance despite what initial logic may tell you.  Basically, Sing is better than Dance because things that give a game momentum have to be better than those that take it away.  That's how you prevent slogs, not that they're still not more than possible in Arena - Y U SO DERP still works fine despite Dance having MP costs, being inferior to Sing, etc.

Headbands were changed because FFMaster felt like it.  The names are 2 Pokemon names and 1 bad one because no one else really gave input and it kind of happened.

[The Damned]

(Arggggghhhhh.... [/completely unrelated frustration].)

Well that certainly explains where Chakra Band came from, even if "ironically" that one is the most appropriate name given the class.

It was buffed to 66% a while ago after Mimes + Battle Song stopped being a problem and it was realized other Battle Song / Magic Song strategies at 50% weren't that great both with and without Mimes.

When did Mimes + Battle Song stop being a problem? It's certainly been used less of late, but I must have missed some other change as to why that stopped, which wouldn't be surprising considering I was gone for months.

If that's legitimately not a problem anymore, then I'm fine(-ish) with them staying 66%. I was just confused as to why they changed, especially since I thought it was more recent, i.e. for 138 itself.

[Malroth]

Time magic doesn't get used because  spending MP to have a 39% chance of hasting each one of 4 units is inferior to having an 100% chance of hasting 2 units for free.   

What  Time magic can do  and who else does it better

Haste.   Samurai, Thieves, Bards, and Squires all improve their teams action speed faster, cheaper and more reliably
Prevent the enemy from acting.    Oracles, Mediators, Archers, Thieves,and Ninja   are all better at it
Dark elemental AOE from Demi         Scholars, Summoners Samurai and Ninja
Interupt enemy spells.          Squires, Samurai, Thieves and any class with ranged direct damage
Fast long range antisandbag.     anyone who can equip a bow, crossbow, gun, or has geomancy, punchart, ninjitsu, or drawout
Slow.   


The major problem.
Time magic's has low, faith dependent hitrates that are not significantly boosted by any degree of investment in magic attack. (+3 MA per 1% boost when targeting an enemy with 40 faith)  combined with High MP costs, redundant affects and non scaling damage that is either trivial in the case of comet or horribly innacurate in the case of the Demi spells.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Battle Song Mimes were only ever a problem, The Damned, because of the Fist formula being Fury_PA*Br/100*PA and Mimes having innate Martial Arts, the combination essentially making each +1 PA worth closer to +3 PA or more.  Now Fists use Fury_PA*9 and Mimes have no innate Martial Arts, Attack UP, Magic Attack UP, or Overwhelm in trade for just having a lot of base PA/MA, meaning each +1 to PA or MA is simply a +1 to PA or MA and not exacerbated to higher levels.  It was addressed by fixing the actual problem, which wasn't Battle Song at all since you could replicate the same situation with Accumulate more or less.

[The Damned]

(Oh, right. I keep forgetting Fists aren't quadratic anymore even though it's at the top of weapons. Probably because you don't consciously "pick" the Fist "weapon", even if you elect to use Martial Arts.)

And I concur, Malroth. The question then becomes what to "do" about it considering Time Magic just got a bunch of buffs, which apparently still aren't/weren't enough.

Do "we" try to buff its existing skills again? Weaken Draw Out a bit? Finally kill Quickening? Give it new skills since things like Balance just don't seem to working--it works fine on Moonlight, but as a spell....

*shrugs*

Like I said, just throwing things out there before I do another formal suggestion list over the weekend.

[Malroth]

haste/haste2   Y values should be increased by half of their current value   leaving you with a 52/84 % chance of inflicting status on a neutral compat 40 faith ally.

Slow/Slow2 Y values should be increased by 25% of their current value leaving a 44/66% chance of inflicting slow on a 40 faith neutral compat enemy equiped with no magic evasion gear

Stop/Don't move Duration increased to a value above 25 clock ticks to ensure an affected 8 speed unit will miss more than 1 turn

+1 range for comet/sinkhole

[Gaignun]

Time Magic spells are fine.  They're just so damn expensive.  The big contenders are Haste 2, Slow 2, Stop, and Demi 2.  All cost 300 JP.  If you want your Time Mage to serve an additional role with a second skill set (most do), you get to choose one, maybe two, of these.  There's little room for play.

The Time Mage itself suffers from rotten base stats.  Among the spellcasters, it has the second fewest HP (above Summoner, which is another seldomly used class), fewest MP (tied with Oracle), and fewest MA - all this to match Mediator's 9 SP, which has nearly 50% more HP at the same MA.  Small wonder people put Time Magic on a stronger class when they use it.

Making Time Mage the 9 SP spellcaster is a silly design decision in Arena, to be honest.  You often want your Time Mage to be slowest and in fourth position so that its team members don't run out of Haste's AoE.  If anything, Priest should be the one who has 9 SP, since you want your healers to be as fast as possible.  How does the following sound?

Code Select Expand


Female
            HP  MP  SP  PA  MA
Priest     106  82   9   6  10
Time Mage  125  87   8   3  10

Change      HP  MP  SP  PA  MA
Priest     -19  --  +1  --  --
Time Mage  +19 +10  -1  --  +1


[CT5Holy]

Gaignun's suggestion looks fine.

And yeah, Time Magic is fine. Malroth, how are you getting your numbers? Currently, without considering caster Faith or MA, Haste 2 and Slow 2 have a 75% chance to hit a 40 Faith neutral compat target. Include caster Faith and MA and it goes up to ~86%. Those are pretty good odds. If we use your suggestion, then Haste 2/Slow 2 are more or less guaranteed to hit.
Admittedly, Haste/Haste 2 could probably see an accuracy buff, but not Slow/Slow 2.

+1 range for Comet should be ok, but I don't think Sinkhole needs to be changed. 5 range is plenty.

Not sure what to think about Stop duration going up. It'd certainly make it more attractive, but Stop is plenty deadly as is. But now there's also Chronos Tear. Hmm. I'm inclined to say no to Stop duration increasing, but it's an interesting prospect.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Gaignun's stat changes address the problem adequately.  Reduce the JP costs of Haste 2, Slow 2, and Sinkhole to 200 each as well and you're good to go.  Doing that would make the majority of Time Mage's "good" skills sit in the moderate JP-cost range, with its offensive options being "expensive" at 300 each for the good ones.  Maybe also reduce Comet to 100 JP just because the cost looks weird on this class as nothing else is a multiple of 50 JP cost but that doesn't matter much.  These two changes would help both Time Magic and the Time Mage class work out a lot better imo.

[The Damned]

(Not that it really matters, but you put MA twice instead of MP, Gaignun.)

Otherwise, I can support those changes. I certainly wouldn't mind Priest being squishier or Time Magick being less expensive overall. I'm not sure that Comet needs to be as cheap as 100 JP given it eschews Faith, but considering it's basically auto-screwed over by Auto Potion, I'm not sure I really mind it being that cheap; it certainly doesn't need extra range, though, especially given its CT. Haste spells could use a slight boost, if only because all other instances of speed boosting, sans Cheer Song, are guaranteed to hit; as CT5Holy said, though, the Slow spells are fine aside from Slow 2's JP cost. Nothing else reliably causes AoE Slow and Slow is still pretty damn debilitating at 50% less Speed.

Making Time Mage the 9 SP spellcaster is a silly design decision in Arena, to be honest.  You often want your Time Mage to be slowest and in fourth position so that its team members don't run out of Haste's AoE.  If anything, Priest should be the one who has 9 SP, since you want your healers to be as fast as possible.  How does the following sound?

That's not just ARENA, though. For some reason, Time Mage was curiously one of the faster mages in--or, rather, since--vanilla despite the fact that development staff had to know about the priority of Haste when it comes to the AI's focus. Time Mage being slower, among the other changes, should certainly help things, even as wary as I am of anything with Raise 2 getting slightly more turns.

Lesser evil I suppose.

*makes a note of this for his second wave of formal suggestions*

[Barren]

I agree with Gaignun. switching the priest's and time mage's stats would make perfect sense. especially since I do recall in vanilla that priests were faster than time mages. It would get people to choose time mage more often than previous versions

[Gaignun]

(Not that it really matters, but you put MA twice instead of MP, Gaignun.)

Whoops.  Thanks for catching that.

That's not just ARENA, though. For some reason, Time Mage was curiously one of the faster mages in--or, rather, since--vanilla despite the fact that development staff had to know about the priority of Haste when it comes to the AI's focus.

You mean Square's dev team?  It was Priest that was quicker than the rest in vanilla.  Unless by vanilla you mean 1.3, in which I believe Time Mages were indeed the faster ones.  I don't blame anyone here for keeping Time Mages this way.  It is just one of those things that carried over from 1.3.

[Barren]

In 1.3 Time Mages were quicker. But in vanilla it was priests. So yea like Gaignun suggested just simply switching the stats between priests and time mages around (at least most of them) would make logical sense considering that primarily time mages are only designed to disrupt opponents at the latest opportunity while priests get these quick heals off during cast time (I know I'm paraphrasing Gaignun but still....)

[The Damned]

(As usual, parades are overblown pieces of excrement that I understand neither the point nor the excitement of in most instances. [/completely unrelated])

I could save face, but, no, I was referring to Vanilla as in PSX FFT. Must have been getting confused with Priest, which I definitely remembered being a faster mage, just like I remember Summoner being below average but not as glacial as Calculator.

So, with Time Mage somewhat agree upon already, I figure I'll just continue throwing things out there: Should Time Mage get more equipment options than just using Stave as weapon? Or is it Staves that should change (more)? Or both? (Or neither?)

[Barren]

Are the Bio spells suppose to bypass reflect?

[The Damned]

(No, they're not.)

When did this come up?

[FFMaster]

They are flagged reflectable in Patcher. Maybe Reflect was dispelled before?

[reinoe]

This might seem a little weird but I think Flare needs a boost.  It's not evadable but Flare typically does less damage than Holy thanks to Golden Hairpin, but Flare also costs 20 mp more and has a higher CT.  When looking at the two it is hard to justify Flare.