FFT Arena: Balance Discussion Thread

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Why are we even trying to balance Masamune? It was pretty much designed to be broken in vanilla, but it was "balanced" because it required the player to obtain a very rare and difficult to get piece of equipment and then risk breaking it. Those "balancing factors" aren't present in this hack, so what we're left with is a broken skill that doesn't really fit in with the rest of the Draw Outs anyway.

The Samurai move set seems complete enough without haste and regen, so why not just drop Masamune and leave haste to the Squire and Time Mage, where it actually fits in with the rest of the moves? Will the Samurai move set really be incomplete without this move?

The reason we're attempting to balance it is simple - Arena is a competitive game where flavor and creator intent are secondary to the metagame and mechanical design of the game. The creators made it to be broken, who gives a shit?  Its AoE is now a bit weird, who gives a shit?  Masamune is a big reason people use the Draw Out skillset, so yeah, keeping it around if possible would be nice, so everything else is secondary to making a version that isn't, well, derp.

Also, back bitches.

[Quman]

"Balance isn't my primary concern" doesn't mean "flavor is my primary concern." It just means that I have other concerns besides taking what we have and making it balanced. We both have the goal of making the game balanced, but your side prioritizes preserving the Samurai's ability to add haste and regen, while my side prioritizes mechanical coherence. It seems a bit odd that somebody on your side is criticizing me for clinging to creator intent when I'm the one saying we should ditch vanilla's precedent and focus on giving the Samurai a coherent move set rather than remaining true to the source material.

When I brought up creator intent, it was part of a strategy to encourage people to move away from creator intent, since creator intent for the ability to be broken is so strongly opposed to our goal of having a balanced game. People are trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, and I'm saying that we don't need the square peg.

[FFMaster]

By creator intent, I'm assuming you mean what the developers of FFT envisioned? If so, we've already thrown that out. Look at what has happened to Ninja, for example.

As for mechanical coherence, I honestly don't understand what you mean at all. If you are talking about how most samurai abilities are AoE, then why not also complain about Kiku, which has the same targeting system as Masamune, except that Masamune hits self and is 1 range. If you are talking about about how most Draw Outs deal damage to the enemy, then Murasame gets attacked as well.

And finally, the reason I don't want a mass death attack: It will either be shit or too good. Look at Odin right now. It's a terrible ability, but pumping up the hit% makes it godly. It's an ability that's impossible to balance, which is why these other suggestions are appearing. The same will happen to this new suggestion.

If you read the goals of this patch, it lists balance as the primary goal, bar nothing. Cool abilities are cool, sure, but I'm not going to make an overpowered/underpowered ability for flavour/mechanical coherence/whatever you want to call it.

TL;DR version: Masamune is currently broken, and getting nerfed. If the nerfed version is still broken, we can change it or whatever then.

[Quman]

EDIT: Dang, I am way too verbose. Eh, I'll leave my wall of text in a spoiler in case somebody wants to read it, but the short of it is that I'm getting really tired of being treated like a scrub. My ego probably isn't worth the trouble of convincing you that I'm not some scrub who's all about "cool abilities" and "flavor" and "creator's intent," so I'm hoping this conversation can end now.

spoiler

By creator intent, I'm assuming you mean what the developers of FFT envisioned? If so, we've already thrown that out. Look at what has happened to Ninja, for example.

I've noticed. And yet, people are very resistant to my suggestion of removing Masamune. Well, the first people to respond to me weren't too defensive. It was only after I posted my "I'm going to drop this now and leave you with these thoughts to think about later on" post that Raven got on and I felt the need to clarify that my suggestion to abandon haste and regen wasn't rooted in concern for flavor or adherence to creator intent.

As for mechanical coherence, I honestly don't understand what you mean at all. If you are talking about how most samurai abilities are AoE, then why not also complain about Kiku, which has the same targeting system as Masamune, except that Masamune hits self and is 1 range. If you are talking about about how most Draw Outs deal damage to the enemy, then Murasame gets attacked as well.

Most Samurai abilities inflict damage. One of them has a different targeting system, one of them inflicts harmful status effects instead of direct damage, and one of them is reversed to provide support rather than offense. Then there's one ability that has a different targeting system, adds status effects instead of affecting HP, and focuses on supporting the party instead of harming the enemy. Sorry for trying to use odd terminology to save myself the trouble of explaining this, but you can't tell me that Masamune doesn't deviate a lot further from the standard than the other abilities in the move set.

And finally, the reason I don't want a mass death attack...

I only suggested the AoE death because CT5Holy said he would prefer to change Masamune rather than scrap it, which was my original suggestion. I really don't care about Zanmato.

If you read the goals of this patch, it lists balance as the primary goal, bar nothing. Cool abilities are cool, sure, but I'm not going to make an overpowered/underpowered ability for flavour/mechanical coherence/whatever you want to call it.

I wasn't suggesting cool abilities for the sake of cool abilities. I was trying to come up with an alternative for people who didn't like my original plan of scrapping the ability (like CT5Holy.) Honestly, if the Samurai didn't already have haste+regen, wouldn't anybody who suggested adding that ability be treated to the exact same attitude you're treating me with? But I'm getting really frustrated here because I'm getting really tired of being treated like some scrub who's all about "flavor" or "cool abilities" or "creator intent" when I'm the one who suggested moving away from creator intent to scrap a cool ability rather than contorting it for the sake of... what exactly?

TL;DR version: Masamune is currently broken, and getting nerfed. If the nerfed version is still broken, we can change it or whatever then.

So... you referenced the Zanmato idea from my "I'm just going to leave these thoughts here so you can consider them later if your current idea doesn't work out" post, and yet you're still regurgitating back at me exactly what I already said about waiting for you to test Masamune? You are seriously getting on my nerves, but I'm going to try to calm myself because this is the internet, and text is easy to misinterpret. You probably saw me defending my position to Raven as me actually trying to convince you to change your plan (the square peg/round hole analogy probably sounded too much like an attempt at persuasion.) Also, you probably weren't paying attention to who was saying what when the topic came up on IRC (I wasn't the one suggesting veil or instant death, I just suggested the First Aid ability for the Squire when the subject of making regen useful came up.)

I probably sound just as much like a jerk to you as you do to me, so let's just end this conversation that should already be over anyway.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Draw Out as a skillset is Damage/Support with MA, similar to Punch Art which is Damage/Support with PA.  Draw Out supports via buffs and healing as well as defensive-oriented debuffs (AoE Blind), whereas Punch Art supports via revival/healing and anti-status.  A lot of skillsets fill two roles, and those roles aren't always obvious.  In this case, Kiyomori, despite being reversed from a defensive buff to an offensive debuff, still fills almost the exact same role by reducing your opponent's DPS - just by inflicting Blind instead of passing around Protect and Shell. There's the Poison infliction as well, but Poison is secondary to blind and mostly to allow interesting uses of the move, similar to how the Regen of Masamune is secondary to Haste  You're just seeing Masamune being buffs and thinking it doesn't fit because everything else is HP affective or offensive, but the thing is - it does fit, because the classification of skills on our end is different than the way you're thinking, is all.  (Also, a reason Masamune has kept Regen in part is so that all Samurai moves affect HP, in this case contrasting the way Kiyomori affects HP.)

If you think I come off as condescending and kind of a dick, I would apologize, but I'll be frank - I am highly condescending and very much a dick, so get used to it.  I treat everyone this way, even if they're known "veterans". :U

[FFMaster]

Esuna/Stigma Magic losing Cancel: Charm is fine right? I never expected the AI to heal itself from Charm by using it that way.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

I personally like that interaction, myself.  It's still Cancel: Charging+ by negating things and costing the enemy team at least one turn, more if it goes unhealed.  Unanswered Charm is just so strong, and even answered Charm can be more than enough to change the tide of the game.

I could see maybe losing it from just Esuna and giving it to Heal or something?  Pull people a tad away from White Magic and more toward Punch Art and Basic Skill.

[CT5Holy]

Hmm, how about only one of the two? Charm is just so deadly that, even if it's removed easily, the Charmed unit getting a turn is just devastating. And because it has such tremendous upside, the ease of removal hasn't deterred anyone from using Charm.

EDIT: It's already on Heal I think, Raven.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Seems to be.  Huh.  Oh well!

I still don't see much reason to drop it, but I'd only drop it on Esuna if anything to try to de-centralize White Magic a bit.  I think the shifting in JP costs on a lot of things (namely the flip in costs on Esuna and Raise 2) will already help with that, though.

[iamBQB]

I have sort of a random suggestion to throw out there. I think there might be some use in a -1 movement accessory. There are certain builds that don't really act the way you'd want because the AI marches them forward when they'd better serve their purpose if they held back. Having a way to force certain units to hang in the back without giving them iron boots seems like it'd be useful, if perhaps a little niche in use.

[CT5Holy]

I think that's only possible with the incredibly buggy ALMA, which means we won't be seeing any Stat- items until ALMA gets fixed? (Not 100% sure)

That said, at least in my opinion, 2 move units probably aren't good enough. Like do you really need a unit to stay that far back? It would hurt their ability to do other things, too, like move into range for an attack/spell/etc. Not to mention that when Arena first started, we experimented with 2 move units, and everyone hated it. Of course, it's not like I'm forced to use the Move -1 item, and you might be right in that it would help fill a niche. I just don't see myself using it. (And, this, of course, assumes it's even possible to have a Move -1 item, haha)

[FFMaster]

There's a hack from fdc a while back that allows signed values for stats. So while it is possible, it would require some of our precious attribute space. If there is enough demand, we can kill one of the unloved accessories I guess?

Idea I just thought of:

Move +3 becomes Move = 0 (pretty sure this can work)
Iron Boots loses the Don't Move part and becomes -1 move

Probably overpowered though... Or we can change Move +3 to Move -1 and keep Iron Boots the same?

[RavenOfRazgriz]

I see no reason to change Iron Boots.  It serves a different purpose than a -1 Move accessory would entirely, and we have both the Power Wrist and Genji Gauntlets that currently go 100% unused and have no replacements slated even in our big list of shit.  I'd rather not touch Iron Boots because they actually fill a niche right now helping Dance, Lore, etc. users do their things without sucking, and while a -1 Move accessory is similar, I don't see it being of much use since often getting the correct Move synch honestly isn't very hard at all.  It'd be even more niche than Iron Boots.

I'd rather change Move +3 into Move -1 since Iron Boots isn't OP and a -1 Move / +33% HP item definitely would be far more OP than Iron Boots could ever hope to be since its fairly open-ended to use.  Honestly, I'd rather Jump +3 for Move = 0, Move + 3 for Move - 1, and kill one of the worthless Gauntlets for a Move -1 accessory.  Neither Move nor Jump +3 are even used in Arena so there's no reason we can't have both Movement skills, and the Gauntlets are useless so there's no reason we can't have both Iron Boots stay the same and get a Move -1 accessory assuming space exists.

[SoySauceMaster]

I agree with Raven about Iron Boots. There are already the Perfumes for permanent Protect/Shell buffs. Besides, every single team has ranged/AoE skills and/or attacks. Having to sacrifice move isn't going to change a damn thing to the AI, and could only make for an OP accessory. Ignore Height and Teleport surpasses any Jump+ skill, so I also agree with Raven there. Seeing how easy it is to improve movement with knives and Green Beret, I doubt that anybody would be sad about shoes getting chucked.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

You agree with me yet mention shoes getting chucked... but no one mentioned anything about chucking any shoes.  The accessories I'm talking about editing are the Power Wrist and Genji Gauntlets, two of the least used and completely redundant accessories in Arena. @.@

[SoySauceMaster]

Sorry 'bout that, was reading too fast. But, anyway, they may as well be. If you're going for a unit with high physical evasion, then most likely it will have low Faith. In that case, it'd be better to equip a Vanish Mantle, or even Cherche. It's the same scenario with Battle Boots. Red Shoes are the shoes worth using because of Draw Out. Even then, there's the whole metagame to worry about, and would probably rather prefer status/elemental protection over that.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

You forget Germinas Boots, the only source of Move +2 in the game.  They're the only method for a Move 3 unit to become a Move 5 unit without giving up their Movement slot, at least armored ones.  Cloth ones can use Green Beret, but that means needing to use Green Beret and a second item to reach 5 Move unless you're a base 4 Move unit to start and in turn giving up access to something like Twist Headband.

But... yeah, other than Red Shoes and Germinas Boots, the other Shoes are mostly niche.  The difference is that they're still usable on specific builds, which is all they really need to be - whereas Power Wrist and Genji Gauntlet are just bad.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Though it should be noted that using FDC's hack removes the ability to make Stepping Stone units because Stepping Stone is determined by Jump being over 128 and his hack uses the values of 128-255 to determine negative values instead.  I think this means that anything with a negative Jump score might be able to be used as a stepping stone inadvertently though, but I don't see us making any negative Jump items or skills.

[CT5Holy]

Hmm, what are people's thoughts on a +1 Speed Armor or Helmet? Would give less HP than other Armors/Helms, of course.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Kind of defeats the difference between a heavy armored unit and a light armored unit, personally.  Heavy units get more HP and status guards, light armored units get less HP but better stats and elem absorb.  Most armored units also get Shields by default (I wouldn't be opposed to also giving Samurai Shields by default for those that don't want to make use of innate Two Hands), which gives them even more bulkiness, Elem Absorb, stats, etc, including a SPD +1 Shield in this newest revision.

That's basically my main qualm against it - it reduces the division between Clothes and Armor even further and reduces the aspect of roles between classes by letting every class getting super derp SPD, etc.