Final Fantasy Hacktics

discuss

I believe Vanya has that planned as Ramza's final class change. Don't quote me on that though.

Yeah I have thought about it a lot and still have an Ashley sprite in the works. That I will hopefully be much more motivated to do now that I am playing Vagrant Story again.

Riskbreaker: Innate Reequip, and needs to be able to equip all weapons and armors (if you wanted to be true to the game he would have like no stat growth at all haha). As far as actual skills I don't know, Ashley can pretty much do anything (because he is a badass) so I guess you would just have to pick and choose. If you could have his special skills use HP instead of MP that would be a good start though.

i would like to see this riskbreaker too, sounds like a nice idea for a job but im not sure if ill do it for ramza

Riskbreaker?

yeah, that was Ashley Riot's "job" in Vagrant Story

Risk Break: 50+PA chance of breaking Risk.

Of course he'd have to be broken as fuck

and equip any weapon

You are correct LD. My idea is to have Ramza be the original Riskbreaker. I'm going to let him use any equipment, give him some unique innate abilities (that is unique for my patch), and give him skills that I feel are signatures of the job.

the thing is

riskbreaker has 2 types of abilities

spells (cost mp)

and break arts (cost hp)

they would probably have a multi hit move too

heh

so broken

I was planning to use mostly break arts and certain spells.

No one asked me, but I think Ramza's job in Chapter 4 ought to be Lord, like Denim from Tactics Ogre (or Destin from OB).  I mean, TO is much more similar to FFT than VS is, and he is the actual Lord Beoulve by the end, with his brothers dead...

Unlike Riskbreaker, TO's Lord could actually be well represented in FFT.

Something like 4 move, innate walk on water, innate two swords, a skillset like White-Aid, or maybe a custom set with some white magic spells and some basic Holy Sword stuff...  and stat growth something like

PA: 120/40, MA: Same as squire, Sp: 110/90

I beg to differ a lot of the skills & spells used by Ashley can be recreated to a reasonable extent in FFT.

Also, since Ramza is branded a heretic and thought to be dead at the end of FFT he is effectively never named Lord of House Beoulve despite the deaths of his brothers.

While you are correct that VS is dissimilar to FFT game play wise, the fact of the matter is that VS is part of Ivalice. The reason for FFT being so similar to TO is that both games were created by essentially the same group.

VS is similar as fuck to FFT

they even talk funny

I do concede that story-wise, FFT is more closely related to VS than TO.  Gameplay-wise, however, no one can deny that FFT is much more similar to TO...  Ashley Riot is a do-everything character, and he simply has too many abilities to be accurately represented in FFT.

First off, he shouldn't be able to equip every weapon:  Just Knives, Swords, Knight Swords, Ninja Blades, katana, Spears, Flails, Axes, and xbows.

He has:  36 break arts (4 each for Dagger, Sword, Great Sword, Polearm, Axe & Mace, Great Axe, Heavy Mace, Crossbow, and Fist).  An FFT character can only have up to 32 skills total, so there's an issue right there.  There's also no way to weapon-limit skills except with swords.

He also has 4 spell sets.
The whole enchanter set can't be implemented because it changes Ashley's elemental properties, which can't be done by any FFT skill.
The warlock set can be implemented in some sense.  It has:
- one single panel attack spell for six elements, plus physical- 7 spells there.  
- one multi-pael attack spell for six elementa, plus physical, each ranging level one to four - 7-28 spells there
- Plus Banish (Death), Drain Heart (Life Drain) and Drain Mind (Spell Absorb) and Exorcism (no way to implement in FFT unless it's also basically Raise 2).  
The shaman set is no problem:
- Heal
- Restoration (cancel don't move/act, Stop)
- Antidote
- Blessing (cures curse, no comparable ailment in FFT)
- Clearance (Esuna)
- Surging Balm (Add: Regen)
Sorceror set:
- Herakles (no real good way to implement a temporary PA increase)
- Degenerate (same problem but with PA decrease)
- Enlighten (same problem but with MA increase)
- Psychodrain (same problem but with MA decrease)
- Invigorate (same problem but with Sp increase)
- Leadbones (same problem but with Sp decrease)
- Prostasia/Tarnish (no real way to make spells affect equips)
- Silence
- Magic Ward (I'd love to hear how this could be implemented in FFT... it's a very important spell for Ashley)
- Stun Cloud/Poison Mist (obvious)
- Curse (would need to create a new status effect)
- Dispel
- Fixate/Unlock (no application to FFT)
- Eureka (no mechanic to make traps visible)
- Analyze (maybe this could make ??? bosses' stats visible?  no mechanic in FFT to do this though...

I'd love to hear how somebody could get Ashley's 50+ abilities into a coherent FFT skillset...

I don't want to represent Ashley anyway. I'm doing Ramza as the originator of the Riskbreaker job. That in itself gives me a lot of creative liscence. =)

Quote from: "townknave"tl;dr

No one here is saying that an Ashley Riot representation in FFT would need to have ALL of his abilities.

You are assuming an awful lot with that post!

He'd probably only need 1 break art per weapon type, and that's just the weapon types in FFT he actually has break arts for, ASM coded to only be use-able with the specific weapon type.

A Riskbreaker job in FFT would obviously be much more simplified than the actual Ashley Riot. No one's pretending he's gonna be a direct copy of the real thing.

That would be ridiculously redundant and unnecessary as far as a FFT job would be concerned...

I thought that would be obvious just from the fact that this post is in a FFT site.

I still fail to see the problem of anyone wanting to re-create Riskbreaker in FFT. It can be represented just fine.


 

Quote from: "townknave"There's also no way to weapon-limit skills except with swords.

This is false, ASM.



 

Quote from: "townknave"I'd love to hear how somebody could get Ashley's 50+ abilities into a coherent FFT skillset...

You won't be hearing that.

No one here is claiming that they can (actually, I don't think anyone even wants to) reproduce every single break art, along with every single offensive chain, every single defensive chain, every single spell, and EVERY SINGLE LEVEL of spell that ashley has (4 levels each for the offensive ones).

Again, I would have thought this was obvious.

Just like Cloud doesn't have EVERY SINGLE THING he can do in FF7 in his FFT representation, neither would Ashley Riot. Same concept.

Voldemort, I'm not saying nobody should do it.  Go ahead, knock yourself out, it's a cool idea.  I'm simply saying that it isn't clear what exactly a Riskbreaker as a class specializes in- he does everything, and that makes him a challenge to represent in FFT.  I'm not saying Vanya or whoever isn't up to the task, I'm sure they are.  He's designed for a one-character game where the player needs to have access to all the abilities in the game as one character.  He's essentially a special Knight plus an Oracle plus a Priest plus a Wizard and he equips everything...

As for Cloud, every single thing he himself can do in FF7 is in his FFT representation- his limit breaks.  Characters in FF7 are differentiated only by those ability-wise.  Everyone can use materia and Cloud presumably just didn't bring any.

This is a shit idea. Ashley is the only character you have so he uses a huge, versatile skillset. This completely antagonises the job system which by definition partitions skills into their own meaningful and distinct sets. And if you try to do that with Riskbreaker, well it isn't a Riskbreaker any more.

Also, its kind of silly to say something is doable because it can be ASM hacked. That presumes an awful lot of Zodiac's ability or desire to do that. Unless someone else is ASM hacking in which case the same thing could be said about them.

Zodiac was never mentioned, and anyone willing to learn mips can do virtually anything with FFT. The only presumption I'm seeing here is that "Ashley" was being recreated at all. Everything created by man starts somewhere and goes from simple to complex.

Also, I'm seeing a lot of presumption, as to what constitutes a riskbreaker. If, as townknave says, the materia skills are disqualified from Cloud because anyone can learn them, then ALL of the spells Ashley can learn have to be thrown out as well. There is no reason to suspect that the spells that Ashley learns from a tome can't be learned by anyone else. I could say the same about the break arts. From studying Ashley and his skills the thing that really defines a Riskbreaker is the fact that he has to deal with the risk mechanic which is rather similar to the Faith stat in FFT. One could also argue that Ashley's crafting skill could be related to being a riskbreaker, but that'd kind of stretching it. I think what defines a Riskbreaker is the exploitation of 'risk'.

What I am thinking of doing is concentrating on break arts and certain chain skills I feel are unique to Ashley in a broad sense. There are a couple of formulas that cause damage and cost the user HP or rely on the user's HP being low. These will be sufficient to recreate some of Ashley's more unique skills while preserving of the job relying on 'risk' to be more effective. I feel this would make Ramza more interesting while simultaneously creating a tighter bond to VS. =)

Quote from: "townknave"As for Cloud, every single thing he himself can do in FF7 is in his FFT representation- his limit breaks.  

No way!

You seem to be forgetting Materia.

Materia can not only do nearly everything in FF7, it could probably make everything in FFT useless.

The actual Cloud can do everything, probably more than Ashley Riot ever could.

Is Cloud's representation in FFT problematic or something because it lacks a Materia system?

No.

Then why would Riskbreaker's?

It obviously wouldn't and especially not in a patch designed for him to be in, which is what the post is about.

The more I look at your text the more I start to think you just shoot down ideas randomly for fun without actually thinking up valid reasons. HOLES HOLES HOLES!!!!

Quote from: "townknave"I'm simply saying that it isn't clear what exactly a Riskbreaker as a class specializes in- he does everything, and that makes him a challenge to represent in FFT

Read above.

Not a challenge at all for whoever decided to use such a job for a patch.

Again, I fail to see any problems whatsoever with anyone who goes for this idea.

It's totally feasible, and just like Cloud, will not be a perfect replica of the original job, limited by FFT's boundaries and what one is willing to put in the skillset.

You do not see FFT's Cloud with his own mini-materia system do you?

Then why does Riskbreaker need the full 28,291 abilities?

"OR ELSE IT' WONT BE A RISKBREAKER!!!!" is BS.

Quote from: "Asmo X"This is a shit idea. Ashley is the only character you have so he uses a huge, versatile skillset. This completely antagonises the job system which by definition partitions skills into their own meaningful and distinct sets.

It's no more of a shit idea than Square putting Cloud in FFT.

Sometimes you have a good sense for what is a feasible idea, but this is not one of those times for you.

Quote from: "Asmo"And if you try to do that with Riskbreaker, well it isn't a Riskbreaker any more.

Says who? You?

Is Cloud any less of a Soldier just because he can't use all his abilities in FFT (Materia and the thousands of combinations and skills you can execute with it)?

No.

Your argument is the only shit in this thread bro.

Quote from: "Asmo"Also, its kind of silly to say something is doable because it can be ASM hacked. That presumes an awful lot of Zodiac's ability or desire to do that. Unless someone else is ASM hacking in which case the same thing could be said about them

How is it silly?

Zodiac has said many times that weapon reqs for skills is one of the things he is trying to do first.

I do not doubt at all that he will pull it off. Unless did already and just hasn't updated the ASM thread.

Quote from: "Vanya"Zodiac was never mentioned, and anyone willing to learn mips can do virtually anything with FFT. The only presumption I'm seeing here is that "Ashley" was being recreated at all. Everything created by man starts somewhere and goes from simple to complex.

Also, I'm seeing a lot of presumptio, as to what constitutes a riskbreaker. If, as townknave says, the materia skills are disqualified from Cloud because anyone can learn them, then ALL of the spells Ashley can learn have to be thrown out as well. There is no reason to suspect that the spells that Ashley learns from a tome can't be learned by anyone else. I could say the same about the break arts.

Exactly. Couldn't have put it better myself.

Wait , yes I can... GTFO of my beautiful thread you trolls!

Yeah... I have to agree with Vanya and Archeal on this one. Just because you can't mimic it 100% doesn't make it a bad idea or something silly and not even worth trying. Besides, Vanya has said at least twice that he's doing a FFT-version of this class in a general sense rather than trying to mimic detail for detail. I don't see much of a problem with this. I say go for it Vanya!

I will. It'll be part of my classics hack. =)

i really can't understand why it would be difficult to recreate any character FFT-style...even if they aren't SE type characters. hell, you could even create capcom and konami characters if you wanted...

Quote from: "Voldemort7"... GTFO of my beautiful thread you trolls!

HAHAHA!

Quote from: "Voldemort7"No way!

You seem to be forgetting Materia.

Materia can not only do nearly everything in FF7, it could probably make everything in FFT useless.

The actual Cloud can do everything, probably more than Ashley Riot ever could.

Is Cloud's representation in FFT problematic or something because it lacks a Materia system?

No.

Didn't I specifically mention that the reason Cloud's limit breaks represent the full exctent of the abilities is that he has no materia?  The actual Cloud can do the following in and of himself:
-Attack
-Item
-Limit Break
-And that's all!  When characters in FFT use abilities, it's because they have LEARNED them.  Throughout FF7 Cloud never actually LEARNS any magic or special abilities.  He equips materia and uses stuff, and then when he takes the materia off he can't use the stuff any more, even if he's been using it for 10 years with the materia.  That's just how FF7 is (and a lot of the reason I consider itsgameplay so overrrated).  Materia makes characters.  Other than materia, the only thing differentiating characters are limit breaks and stats.  This is why a reasonable facsimile of Cloud can be easily implemented in FFT- because he has just a few limit breaks and no other inherent skills.  Whereas Cloud, even in Level 99 in FF7, has only the abilities he has in FFT (plus item secondary) if you strip away his materia.

Quote from: "Voldemort7"Then why would Riskbreaker's?

It obviously wouldn't and especially not in a patch designed for him to be in, which is what the post is about.

The more I look at your text the more I start to think you just shoot down ideas randomly for fun without actually thinking up valid reasons. HOLES HOLES HOLES!!!!

The riskbreaker is different from cloud because he LEARNS all that stuff.  He isn't just temporarily granted it by materia.  He simply has a ton of skills, and nobody can nail down what makes a riskbreaker a riskbreaker.  Is it that he CAN learn such a wide variety of skills?  Is it that he deals with the risk mechanic while no one else does?  (IIRC all units in VS have risk, even enemies..)

The best guess I could come up with is that a riskbreaker is like a medieval fantasy solid snake- an awesome all around soldier that excels in every aspect of combat and war....  in other words, an ideal protagonist for a one-character game, but not a specialized class as would be at home in a class system.  Notice Ashley's opening line in VS:  "I AM the reinforcements."  He's a one-man army.

Your contention that I'm sitting here trying to shoot down the idea just for kicks is ridiculous.  I am giving detailed and clear reasons for why I think what I think- WHICH IS MERELY THAT IMPLEMENTING THIS EFFECTIVELY WILL BE CHALLENGING!  Is it shooting down an idea to say it will be hard to effectuate, even if the goal is worthy?  

Is it a crime to point that out?  You say it will be trivially easy, and then in the same breath acknowledge that ASM hacking will be required.  Maybe among the uber haxors of this forum ASM hacking comes as easy as the morning piss stream after a long night of drinking.  I, however, would call it a challenge.  With enough ASM hacking you are essentially writing your own PSX game, and everything can be implemented out the wazoo.  That doesn't make it easy.

Quote from: "Vanya"Zodiac was never mentioned, and anyone willing to learn mips can do virtually anything with FFT. The only presumption I'm seeing here is that "Ashley" was being recreated at all. Everything created by man starts somewhere and goes from simple to complex.

Also, I'm seeing a lot of presumptio, as to what constitutes a riskbreaker. If, as townknave says, the materia skills are disqualified from Cloud because anyone can learn them, then ALL of the spells Ashley can learn have to be thrown out as well. There is no reason to suspect that the spells that Ashley learns from a tome can't be learned by anyone else. I could say the same about the break arts.

Vanya, the only reason I'm bringing Ashely into this is that we have exactly one exemplar of what a Riskbreaker is or does (well I guess Rosencrantz too).  And we don't know what exactly makes them unique.  It's not spells, other characters in VS use those.  It's not break arts necessarily, as non-riskbreakers Neesa and Tieger use those.  Your argument regarding materia being analogous to spells is inapposite, however.  There is a difference between an item granting you an ability while you equip it (like materia does) and a character LEARNING an ability that he always has with him, like Ashley does in VS.  LEARNED abilities are exactly what is dealt with in FFT, so it stands to reason that if Ashley went into an inter-game portal after the ending of VS like Cloud did, he'd know all the spells he knew in VS.  He doesn't have to have the grimoires on him to use the magic.  Cloud, on the other hand, needs materia to use the magic.  He didn't bring any to Ivalice, so to learn magic he has to study it as a Wizard or whatever like everyone else in Ivalice does.

Heh, there's no need to be picky about it. I'm sure Vanya will find a creative way to install Ashley into FFT.

Quote from: "townknave"Didn't I specifically mention that the reason Cloud's limit breaks represent the full exctent of the abilities is that he has no materia?

Yeah, you made sure to cover your ass from the huge hole in your logic that is Cloud.

If you're going to simply stomp out Materia as something that makes a FF7 character identifiable, like you are trying to do...

Then I'm going to stomp out all magic learned by Riskbreakers, all Chains learned by them by comboing stuff, and all Break Arts learned by them by performing weapon swings in the respective weapon types.

Thanks to your own brilliant randomly exclusive logic; we're back to Cloud = Riskbreaker ease in implementing it to FFT.

Also going to point out (since you're being so incredibly anal about the whole Cloud specifics) that Cloud does NOT have the Item command as part of his own skillset, but rather, must equip it from the Chemist job.

FFT Cloud =/= FF7 Cloud. The Limits aren't even the same, they don't even work the same. They are adjusted to the mechanics of FFT, just like Riskbreaker would be adjusted to FFT Mechanics.

Once again, Cloud > You.

Quote from: "townknave"Whereas Cloud, even in Level 99 in FF7, has only the abilities he has in FFT (plus item secondary) if you strip away his materia.

First of all, FFT Cloud doesn't have the exact same Limit breaks that he has in FF7, nor do they work the same as they did in FF7.

Like  I said before, the fact that Riskbreaker in FFT is just a representation by whoever decides to do it is such an obvious fact that it is incredibly hard to believe it is going right past your head.

Quote from: "townknave"Is it a crime to point that out? You say it will be trivially easy, and then in the same breath acknowledge that ASM hacking will be required.

It would be required for the Break Arts.

It's not a difficult thing for someone to learn to use ASM and edit this in.

Just because it's something FFPatcher can't do on it's own does not mean it is incredibly difficult. ALOT of people know how to ASM hack.

Ever been to a romhacking site?

Quote from: "townknave"The best guess I could come up with is that a riskbreaker is like a medieval fantasy solid snake- an awesome all around soldier that excels in every aspect of combat and war.... in other words, an ideal protagonist for a one-character game, but not a specialized class as would be at home in a class system. Notice Ashley's opening line in VS: "I AM the reinforcements." He's a one-man army.

Yes he is a one-arm army, and in FFT he would be a representation of that through his skillset, no doubt.

If your concern is that he will render every other class useless in a class-based patch, what's it to you?

If Orlandu is in Vanilla FFT, Riskbreaker can be in a patched FFT.

Your argument not only assumes the intentions of whoever uses this idea, which ultimately are unknown to you, it assumes that Riskbreaker will go in a class based patch and not in a patch that only lets the player control 1 unit.

It is because of those sweepings generalizations about the Riskbreaker idea that I think you're trolling my thread and am seriously considering regarding anymore text from you as troll bait.



 

Quote from: "townknave"Maybe among the uber haxors of this forum ASM hacking comes as easy as the morning piss stream after a long night of drinking. I, however, would call it a challenge.

Then I suggest you get back to work on your own hack, which AFAIK is not even related to this site.

This is a HACKING SITE. If someone wants to make a Riskbreaker job representation in a FFTPatch then by all means they can discuss it here, but close-mindedness about the entire subject never got anyone anywhere.


This thread is about ways to implement the Riskbreaker job into a FFTPatch should anyone want to try it.

And although ideas on how to make it work are welcome, like ASM hacking, criticism based on assumptions about what the patch is about (a completely unknown variable to you) are useless to us.

Voldemort, I spoke to you before FFT 1.3 came out and found you to be affable and polite.  Now I find you to be arrogant and self-righteous.  Maybe whatever measure of petty notoriety you have gained by releasing 1.3 has gone to your head, or maybe you feel that this is your forum and you've the right to police what thoughts people post.  Maybe you are just having a rough day.  I won't pretend to understand the reasons behind your inexplicable rudeness.  I have posted thoughts that you do not like, but I have done so in a polite and respectful manner.  I have not implied that you have some kind of malevolent desire to crap all over people's ideas, as you have to me.

I have explained my point of view as clearly as possible, but you seem to be ignoring it.  You ignored my initial statement that Materia has magic abilities in FF7, not characters.  Now that I point it out, you accuse me of having said it to "cover my ass."  Is that your method of discourse?  To ignore the substance of what a man says and then accuse him of some ulterior motive when he points it out?

You said nothing to discount my distinction between abilities being learned and being granted by items.  That is an important conceptual difference between materia-granted abilities and learned skills.  Simply calling this "brilliant randomly exclusive logic"  doesn't negate it.  The idea that my discounting Cloud's never-learned, item-granted abilities is equivalent to you discounting the Riskbreaker's many learned abilities tells me that in your rush to put out some kind of devastating snark attack, you did not take the trouble to read and understand my argument.  

I obviously know that Cloud doesn't innately have item in FFT.  Item usage is global to everyone in other FF games, but in FFT it is not, so of course he can't use items without chemist JP.  We know this about Cloud because he is one character of many in the mainline FF games.  If instead there had been one mainline FF game with Cloud as a single protagonist and he could use items, we'd have no basis for knowing whether anything he has is HIS ability, or an ability that everyone would have in the game system.  Hence the difficulty of importing the Riskbreaker- we don't have any other playable characters in VS to compare to him to figure out what makes him what he is.

Obviously, Cloud's limits don't work the same in FFT as they do in FF7.  That's to be expected- but it is clearly signaled to the player that these are supposed to be the FFT analogues of his specific FF7 abilities.

Yes, a lot of people know how to ASM hack.  A lot more people know how to do other types of hacking than know how to do ASM hacking.  A lot more people know how to do GS modding.  A lot more people don't know how to do any of that stuff.  The people who are proficient with ASM hacking are a small subset of a small subset of a small subset.  I doubt that most of the people on this forum can do it proficiently, knowledgable and talented as I'm sure they all are.

It's not just the practical realities that would make this challenging, it's the design realities.  My argument assumes nothing about whether a riskbreaker patch is class-based or SSCC.  Even in an SSCC, the creator of the Riskbreaker will have to pare down the many abilities shown by Ashley and make some tough choices, and nobody here seems to be able to nail down exactly what makes a Riskbreaker a Riskbreaker.  At least Vanya made some attempt to explore this question instead of attacking me.

I do not care if you regard my posts as troll bait.  I posted on this thread because I thought the topic was interesting, and I thought it might be HELPful to get some discussion going on what a riskbreaker is about and how that could be represented in FFT.  The only real erroneous assumption I made is that you would be interested in such discussion rather than in the petty policing of "your" thread.  Vanya answered my concerns nicely with a polite, reasoned post, and you followed up with than snarky attacks against the various straw men you constructed from my post.

I think I will take your suggestion to get back to my own hack.  Who knows, maybe some fool will make a forum post pointing out that it poses design challenges, and I can have some entertainment calling them a troll and telling them to get out of "my" thread.  Your example would suggest that that is one of the perks of patch authorship.  If I might make a suggestion to you, it's this:  be more civil.  People like that, and I'm told it works well even off of the internet.

going to copy paste the letter of "power has gotten to your head after 1.3 Voldemort how could you rotten to the core tyrant!" in case you delete it later

Quote from: "townknave"Voldemort, I spoke to you before FFT 1.3 came out and found you to be affable and polite.  Now I find you to be arrogant and self-righteous.  Maybe whatever measure of petty notoriety you have gained by releasing 1.3 has gone to your head, or maybe you feel that this is your forum and you've the right to police what thoughts people post.  Maybe you are just having a rough day.  I won't pretend to understand the reasons behind your inexplicable rudeness.  I have posted thoughts that you do not like, but I have done so in a polite and respectful manner.  I have not implied that you have some kind of malevolent desire to crap all over people's ideas, as you have to me.

I have explained my point of view as clearly as possible, but you seem to be ignoring it.  You ignored my initial statement that Materia has magic abilities in FF7, not characters.  Now that I point it out, you accuse me of having said it to "cover my ass."  Is that your method of discourse?  To ignore the substance of what a man says and then accuse him of some ulterior motive when he points it out?

You said nothing to discount my distinction between abilities being learned and being granted by items.  That is an important conceptual difference between materia-granted abilities and learned skills.  Simply calling this "brilliant randomly exclusive logic"  doesn't negate it.  The idea that my discounting Cloud's never-learned, item-granted abilities is equivalent to you discounting the Riskbreaker's many learned abilities tells me that in your rush to put out some kind of devastating snark attack, you did not take the trouble to read and understand my argument.  

I obviously know that Cloud doesn't innately have item in FFT.  Item usage is global to everyone in other FF games, but in FFT it is not, so of course he can't use items without chemist JP.  We know this about Cloud because he is one character of many in the mainline FF games.  If instead there had been one mainline FF game with Cloud as a single protagonist and he could use items, we'd have no basis for knowing whether anything he has is HIS ability, or an ability that everyone would have in the game system.  Hence the difficulty of importing the Riskbreaker- we don't have any other playable characters in VS to compare to him to figure out what makes him what he is.

Obviously, Cloud's limits don't work the same in FFT as they do in FF7.  That's to be expected- but it is clearly signaled to the player that these are supposed to be the FFT analogues of his specific FF7 abilities.

Yes, a lot of people know how to ASM hack.  A lot more people know how to do other types of hacking than know how to do ASM hacking.  A lot more people know how to do GS modding.  A lot more people don't know how to do any of that stuff.  The people who are proficient with ASM hacking are a small subset of a small subset of a small subset.  I doubt that most of the people on this forum can do it proficiently, knowledgable and talented as I'm sure they all are.

It's not just the practical realities that would make this challenging, it's the design realities.  My argument assumes nothing about whether a riskbreaker patch is class-based or SSCC.  Even in an SSCC, the creator of the Riskbreaker will have to pare down the many abilities shown by Ashley and make some tough choices, and nobody here seems to be able to nail down exactly what makes a Riskbreaker a Riskbreaker.  At least Vanya made some attempt to explore this question instead of attacking me.

I do not care if you regard my posts as troll bait.  I posted on this thread because I thought the topic was interesting, and I thought it might be HELPful to get some discussion going on what a riskbreaker is about and how that could be represented in FFT.  The only real erroneous assumption I made is that you would be interested in such discussion rather than in the petty policing of "your" thread.  Vanya answered my concerns nicely with a polite, reasoned post, and you followed up with than snarky attacks against the various straw men you constructed from my post.

I think I will take your suggestion to get back to my own hack.  Who knows, maybe some fool will make a forum post pointing out that it poses design challenges, and I can have some entertainment calling them a troll and telling them to get out of "my" thread.  Your example would suggest that that is one of the perks of patch authorship.  If I might make a suggestion to you, it's this:  be more civil.  People like that, and I'm told it works well even off of the internet.

One man army, huh? Then turn him into 1.0 Orlando.

Quote from: "townknave"I'd love to hear how somebody could get Ashley's 50+ abilities into a coherent FFT skillset...

Quote from: "townknave"Voldemort, I'm not saying nobody should do it.  Go ahead, knock yourself out, it's a cool idea.  I'm simply saying that it isn't clear what exactly a Riskbreaker as a class specializes in- he does everything, and that makes him a challenge to represent in FFT.

This is why Archeal got upset. In both of these statements, you get across the feeling that, "you can try, but it seems improbable." While it may be a valid opinion, it doesn't actually assist in the endeavor of making a Riskbreaker class. There's no suggestions or ideas in any of your posts ... and I believe this is the point of this topic; the best way to install Ashley into FFT. Not to discuss if it's hard or easy. At least that's what I've taken from all this.

Voldemort is never right, period.

Lydyn- before you can solve a problem you have to analyze it.  Before you can find the answer you have to ask the question. In that vein I thought it might be useful to get the ball rolling by going through Ashley's abilities so we can see what's easy and obvious to implement and what's difficult or impossible.  I'll acknowledge I did convey a tone of thinking it'd be a tough thing to design, but I did that because it's inseperable from the design decisions that have to be made and the questions that have to be answered.  By pointing out Ashley's large number of abilities, I made the point that you'd likely have to prioritize which ones to include from the pool available to RB's.  By pointing out the nebulous nature of a Riskbreaker in the first place I hoped to elicit some ideas about what one actually is.

Nobody seems to have much interest in discussing those topics, so I guess I might as well just throw out some possibilites:

1) Riskbreaker is a dude who uses a variety of weapons and has break arts.  On magic we take the Cloud approach:  he hasn't got any grimoires and if he wants magic he has to get it through FFT's systems.  Probably the simplest approach.  One thing we know about all 2 riskbreakers in VS is they both us BA's.  BA's could be implemented like Throw, so they use a weapon from your inventory, only they don't use it up, one could ASM hack weapon-only abilities when if it's known how to do that.  So what would he look like?

-Stats and movement pretty much like Ramza, with more equippable weapons
-Innate Equip Change as someone mentioned, cancel: Don't Act (Ward ability), Half: All elements (various timed defense abilities)
-Job Command:  Break Art
-R/S/M:  Damage Split, Absorb Used MP, Silent Walk
BREAK ARTS: (Cost 50 HP or something)
Shadoweave (Dagger): Dark attack, add Don't Act
Cherry Ronde (Sword): Water attack
Advent Sign (Knight Sword): strong Holy attack
Black Nebula (Axe):  Attacks 3 times
Scythe Wind (Spear) Wind attack, breaks a piece of armor
Ignis Wheel (Hammer) Fire attack
Riskbreak (Staff) Physical attack, absorb MP
Death Wall (Xbow) Earth attack




It's also worth thinking about how much alteration to make to the game.  With enough ASM hacking I presume one could actually implement the chain system and a risk mechanic just like in VS, and even edged/blunt/piercing weapons.  The timed defensive abilities in VS could even be added as reaction abilities with a random chance to activate.  At some point it's not just adding the RB, but making FFT: VS Edition...which actually sounds sort of good.

Another big question is what to do about chains... Are the a Vagrant Story game system type of thing, like Materia, or are they essential to an RB?  Maybe each different one could be a different MP-costing ability that adds an extra hit with the specified effect after a normal weapon attack or something.  Seems like some ASM hacking would be necessary on these.

thats 8 skills

you got 8 left

all of them have to be powerful in their own way to warrant spending a turn Equip Changing to enable another

[oops double post. DELETED]

In reference to my attempt at a SSCC in The Wanderer Chesilna patch, you had better make the single character powerful. But i made her a blue mage kinda class, so you cant just farm for all of the best abilities in the beginning of the game and have to learn them from set enemies and monsters. I also gave her access to other classes so she won't be useless right in the beginning.

Look i understand the concept of the Riskbreaker class, but the skills must be  extremely expensive and powerful or make them learnable in time, meaning the Learn on Hit factor (which is unlikely).

Weapon skill requirements are hard to do, even with ASM hacking (i suppose). Weapons have their own formulas and don't really follow the blunt/piercing/slicing area of weapon attacks. Attacking 3 times could be implemented in the PSP version because of Balthier's Barrage attack (not 100% sure), but in the original FFT version, there are not many options. Multiple attacks could be implemented as a weapon effect, but as Voldemort said before, every time the weapon successfully swings, it has a successive chance of swinging again, and again, and again.

And to tell you now, constructive arguments are made on this bored, if you are so sensitive to what people say, then there is no point in posting. Criticism is sometimes harsh in this forum because there are some tutorials and many posts on the many questions people have. It depends on the person on what they are going to say. Not everyone will be nice to you just because of your opinion and they want to respect that. They have their own opinions and if they wish to express it then it is their right to express it. If it goes to far then others will come in to stop.

Voldemort is just trying to insert his own opinion and logic into yours. How he says stuff now is completely normal for him.

Hahaha just trying to figure out what and how to make a single character to last the game and not be a ORLANDU LIGHTNING STAB WTFOMGROFLBBQ!!!!111!! broken character. Or be excessively hard to make.

My intention in making them work like Throw was that any break art could be used at any time... sort of like Ashley just whips out the weapon and uses it for the break art and then goes right back to his old one...

Break Arts, first of all, they will all need a formula that takes away from the caster's HP

so probably a modified Worker 8 formula with a Y for number of hits

and then have some of them add status, have elements, or both

yeah, truly, in a SSCC, that one character better be something.... my patch only utilizes 3 to 4 characters, and with souped up enemies, it's gonna be TOUGH...

sorry i cannot add any specific input on Ashley's skills/design since i have only seen previews and not played VS.

I don't have a problem with the existence of Cloud, because he is a poorly designed character and the fact that he was included doesn't do anything to exonerate classes that strive to be anything like him.

He's a textbook example of what I was saying about "classes" not necessarily being coherent across games. I would define the materia-using ability as part of his job, but he obviously doesn't have that in FFT and I'm not fooled by the word "soldier" on his little business card. So no, he isn't the same in any meaningful sense and yes it was a shit idea to include him in FFT. Hope you've got something better than this retarded comparison.

"Like I said before, the fact that Riskbreaker in FFT is just a representation by whoever decides to do it is such an obvious fact that it is incredibly hard to believe it is going right past your head".

Some representations are probably pretty shit. If you're going to have a useful discussion about this, you'll throw some shit class ideas out and you'd be crazy not to.

IIRC Ashley has exclusive rights to risk in VS. I take that as the defining feature of his job.

If I were going to do Ashley specifically, I'd put in an ASM hack the alters the way his job uses Faith so that it is more like Risk. There's already a sample of code for modifying the behavior of a specific job in the game already; the mime.

In fact if I'm ever able to modify the stupid mime's specific restrictions I might just consider replacing the bastards with a generic riskbreaker. SHOCK!

Vanya, I'm almost certain it's not the case that Risk is exclusively a property of Ashley's in VS.  I'm sure I remember casting Analyze on enemies and it showing their risk level as one of their properties.  It's usually not high because they rarely use high-risk weapons, they act less frequently than Ashley, and Chain abilities are what really makes risk go high.  Maybe AR is a Riskbreaker because he can deal with much higher levels of risk than others, I dunno.

Which brings me to my point- the one thing Ashely has that nobody else in VS does is Chain abiltiies, so that would suggest those are what makes an RB an RB- but then why doesn't Rosencrantz use them?

I've looked at 4 FAQs and 2 Bestiary documents and I can't find any reference to enemies having risk. I'm going to go into the game itself next and cast Analyze.

Rosencrantz is a former VKP

no?

maybe they took away his Chain e-peen

yes. if we learn how to, let's get rid of the mime...

I love mimes, personally, but even I agree that if it could be possible to replace generic mimes with another job class, we should go for it. Because one of the things we could do with mastery over the mime job, is change some things around with them, such as setting them as counting as monsters (they practically do already), or making mime a special character's job.

you know what would be good then, using up one of those undead jobs thats sealed, it woud make the mime like a monster class. he cant equip anything at all anyway, why not.

Wow... that was a long read. Both sides had good points, but it got *way* too deep with points that start to not even matter anymore. Props for thinking about it harder than SE *ever* would though.

I always figured it was a lot more fun to follow the same philosophy as other game companies seem to follow though... "It's my game, so I can do whatever I want with it!"

Cloud sucks as an example for comparison, by the way. If he was pulled through to this world via the machine, why the hell is the only weapon useful to him in a completely different area, and where is *his* sword? He has his Buster Sword on him 100% of the time, so where's that? I swear, it just feels like one of the game designers got drunk one night, played FFVII, and had a drunken revelation that he should be added to the game (and then while still drunk, graciously planned out exactly how to do it).

Sorry, I just had to get that out... :D). I wouldn't take it too seriously anyway... it's more fun to try and find ways to do things like this than try to figure out why it *wouldn't* be exactly like the original character...

I've been watching Archeal play VS on YouTube and I've given some thought to this. I don't think defining Riskbreaker itself is what we should concentrate on. More or Less we should try to directly copy Ashley but leave out anything that overlaps with what is already in the game. Most of his magic is already there so leave that out, chains are hard to emulate on the PSX version but Balthier's Barrage is simmilar I've heard (FF12 sucked to me and I havent played PSPFFT). However I think the Archer's Charge skills are a good substitute, buffed of course, but my reasoning on that is they both take timing into consideration. Most of his "Defense Abilities" are also well represented by some of the Reactions and Support skills too. All that is really left is Break Arts and Risk. BAs can be made to take HP just like Worker 8's skills and given elements, etc. Risk also already has a replacement as mentioned before, Faith.

So Idealy it should be something like
Break Arts
Charge/Magic
Reaction
Support
Move

Just remember you can't mix Charge skills in with other ones. You need to set-up skillsets as <Charge> but it won't use <Default> skills, like magic or breaking attack (or modified abilities into Break Arts).

I meant charge OR (whatever) magic as secondaries

You came into the topic claiming that Riskbreaker poses a significant design and implementation challenge.

We showed you it does not.

Then you came up with the defeatist idea that because no one can define what a Riskbreaker truly is then we can't really implement one into FFT.

I told you it doesn't matter because like Cloud, Ashley would be taken creative liberties with in his FFT version

Quote from: "Voldemort7"I feel sorry for the people who are forced to work with you.

Not it!

Voldemort puts these massive spaces between his paragraphs and I keep expecting pictures to load there

no u