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Nerfing SwordSkills

Started by RetroTypes, May 28, 2019, 08:20:32 am

RetroTypes

May 28, 2019, 08:20:32 am Last Edit: February 25, 2020, 04:24:16 pm by RetroTypes
So you beat FFT:WotL. Now what? DD? Too easy, we're all Dark Knights with secondary SwordSkills, we murder everything in our path with ease..

I've officially joined this community for one purpose: making a patch that normalizes most classes in FFT. And that, unfortunately, means nerfing most SwordSkills. I get it, they're supposed to be OP, right? But for the sake of replayability, and having more fun, they have to get brought down to more standard levels. They should still be powerful, and have their unique talents and usefulness, but they shouldn't be the best option every time. With that in mind, here's the beginning of my idea of a more balanced FFT:WotL, the product of a few days of brainstorming and messing with FFTPatcher (and WAAAYYYY too many tabs open to these forums lmao) combined with many hours of playing FFT over the years. Keep in mind this is a (probably very) basic vanilla mod, I'm learning as I go here lol.

-SwordSkills changed/moved around to make all special Knight classes unique
     -Holy Sword (Agrias) has Divine Ruination REMOVED
     -Fell Sword (Gaffgarion) has Duskblade REMOVED (really, does he ever even use this? lol)
     -Unyielding Blade (Meliadoul) has new "Crush Barriers" (reworked Duskblade) ADDED, uses same damage formula as Holy Sword abilities (to give her a move that hits non-human targets), removes Protect/Shell/Wall/Reflect if applicable
     -Swordplay (Orlandeau) ONLY has Judgement Blade, Hallowed Bolt, Divine Ruination, Crush Weapon, Crush Barriers, and Shadowblade
     -Also, all SwordSkills are now evade-able

-Nerfs to all Holy Sword abilities, since you get access to these really early on
     -Judgement Blade effect area reduced to 0 (only hits 1 tile)
     -Cleansing/Northswain's Strikes range reduced to 2
     -Hallowed Bolt damage reduced to Y=2 in formula[/highlight], maybe make this hit like Triple Breath instead of a cross?

-To compensate for nerfing Holy Sword skills, any bosses who utilize these abilities will now scale to party

-The Dark Knight class, while my absolute favorite thing about the WotL version of Tactics, is simply too OP to be available to everyone, even with how much grinding it takes. It will be getting replaced, likely with a Paladin class of sorts if I don't make ch4 Ramza turn into that instead
Here I'm looking to make the Knight more like the warrior he should be, a skilled swordsman with good damage but also a few tricks up his sleeve

-All Rend abilities removed except for Rend Weapon, which is renamed to "Disarm", would love to have this not attack or do damage if there's no weapon to break but I haven't learned ASM hacking yet, which I've seen can fix this

-New "Assault" ability, going to be one of a few things, haven't decided yet
     -Uses Barrage damage formula and animation, costs 20MP to use, is evade-able (seems OP for such a low level class to have)
     -Uses Abyssal Blade damage formula, maybe Barrage animation, not evade-able (more balanced but doesn't fit a Knight's lore, to hurt himself in his attacks)
     -A double slash of sorts, preferably only doing up to 1.5x a single attack's damage, costs 10-20MP (a %MP cost would be AMAZING but I have no idea how that would work as I don't see that listed in the formulas); if anyone knows how to make an ability simply use the attack animation twice, please let me know!

-New "Shield Bash" ability, uses Rush animation, uses damage formula 32 Dmg_(Rdm(1..X)*(PA*3+Y)) NS where X=4 and Y=5 (subject to change), can knockback, not evade-able

-New "Sweeping Blade" ability, hits front and side targets, uses 3Directions/Triple Attack flags, damage formula from spin fist for now (goal is ~50% reduced damage per target compared to normal attack), not evade-able

-New "Rally/War Cry" ability, AOE instant spell that adds Haste to and/or increases Brave of all adjacent allies (not self), costs 20MP

-New "Fury" ability, instant self-cast berserk and haste, maybe an MP cost?
Basically looking to make the Archer class useful, and since it's hard to make them worth using via damage output, I figure I'll make their utility worth a lot more

-All Aim +X abilities removed (I've read you cant use these as well as non-aim skills in the same skillset, so to the curb you go!)

-New "Poison/Sleep Arrow" abilities, need to find a damage formula that doesn't make these OP, but I do want them to deal minor damage as well as inflict the statuses X% of the time

-New "Volley" ability, have to work out the logistics of this one still but basically fire 4+ arrows into the sky and have them hit randomly across an area around target for reduced damage per arrow (using Mantra type randomness)

-New "Ethereal Arrow" ability, crystalize undead

-New "Staggering Shot" ability, does lower damage but has decent chance to move target back one space (like stone/tackle)

-Given Leg Shot ability
As mentioned above, I want to work a Paladin class into the game, either to replace the Dark Knight or to give to ch4 Ramza and maybe Alicia and Lavian. I see so many duplicate jobs in FFTPatcher, I could easily change some things around in the ENTD to free a lot of them up and rework them for custom things.

Lots more to come, like I said this is just a few days' worth of work and I want to accomplish these before trying to tackle changing the whole game haha. Let me know what y'all think!
  • Modding version: PSX
  • Discord username: RetroTypes

3lric

You will need to remove abilities to make new ones. There are no extra slots left in WoTL. Unless there is maybe 1 or 2 im forgetting, but i doubt it since the unused ones in the psx version were used to make Dark Knight in WotL.

Several patches have done similar to what you are proposing. Not trying to dissuade you, but maybe check them out and get some inspiration from them
  • Modding version: PSX

RetroTypes

Yeah I'm replacing each classes original abilities with the new ones as I go, any left over I can use later on lol. And I've seen the other patches, all are great in their own way but not quite what I'm looking for. Plus, I enjoy doing this! If I can make my own personal version of the "best" FFT and also learn stuff, and maybe even share it with others along the way, well, count me in lol.
  • Modding version: PSX
  • Discord username: RetroTypes