Final Fantasy Hacktics

A few more thoughts:

Reduce Carbuncle's MP cost from 5 to 0: From my observations, the AI prioritizes most other actions over Carbuncle, even if those actions reduce its MP below 5.  In this event, Carbuncle cannot perform the task it was assigned to do.  To accommodate this stupidity, I recommend that Carbuncle's MP cost be removed.  This will have the added benefit of becoming the only way mages can self-recover from being nuked by Bizen Boat, which will make Summon Magic more attractive.

Redesign headbands? Echoing The Damned's sentiments, what I currently see is a super-awesome headband (Chakra) and two normal ones (Focus and Choice).
Currently:

• Chakra Band provides the status resistance of a full suit of armor, turning monks into anti-Mediator and anti-Oracle wrecking machines, and is a natural choice on monk builds of all kinds. 


• Choice Band could work on specialized teams that emphasize winning battles quickly with a first strike, but in most cases, Haste is supplied and sustained in other ways.


• Focus Band gives +80 MP, so it allows Monks to be used as mages.  However, to be used so, the monk requires high Faith and becomes vulnerable to status magic, which makes Chakra Band more attractive.

Regardless of how far these headbands are redesigned, could we at least add few status immunities -- particularly ones benefit mages, such as Silence and Berserk -- to Focus Band and remove these immunities from Chakra Band where appropriate?  We can reduce Focus Band's HP to compensate.

Buff Fairy in some way:  In most cases, the +33% HP revival of Fairy is not enough to keep the resurrected units from dying again to a single blow.  Furthermore, in teams that rely on Fairy for resurrection , and especially on large maps where units are spread out, Fairy will often be cast on a single fallen unit, so the skill's 1 AoE is seldom utilized.  In such cases, Fairy is about as useful as a very expensive Phoenix Down.  It heals for less than Raise, but costs +100 JP and +10 MP and has -25% accuracy.

I think increasing the heal to 50% would be more than enough to make Fairy, as well as Summon Magic as a whole, an effective method for damage control.  I do not expect this buff to overshadow Raise and White Magic, especially if Protect, Shell, or Regen are buffed as well.

Also, some bug checks:

Sinkhole: This skill seems to heal the undead.  Does it share a property with Blood Sword?
Break skills and Two Swords: When Shield Break succeeds on the first hit, the second hit becomes a physical attack.  Conversely, when the other break skills succeed on the first hit, the second hit displays "Break" once more.  Which function is intended?

Dark strengthening boosts Demi's hit chance by [MA/4]% rounded down.  A very slight improvement, indeed, but not to its damage.

Quote from: White Knight Wiegraf on June 28, 2015, 03:24:42 pm
At this point it will become irrelevant, but since I've located the ASM to change Defend I may as well post it.

http://ffhacktics.com/wiki/Evasion_Changes_due_to_Statuses[/font]

Cheers!

This is my first time looking at the code.  I did not realize how many NOPs there are!

Now that I've thought about it a little further, I wonder how the AI would respond to the change.  Would the AI refrain from attacking a defending target even when Defend adds no evasion?  This would depend on whether the AI queries the "Defend" flag or the evasion stat when making decisions.

Quote from: dw6561 on June 28, 2015, 07:26:53 pm

spoiler: On Defend

From the things I've seen of arena, defend (the support) and caution aren't really used that often anyway. So if we're thinking about scrapping the evasion+ from defend, maybe we should change it so that the units don't use their defending sprite. That way it can be a "hidden status" of sorts. Nurse could still be used as a way to add regen and get some healing in but will no longer actually show them defending, and we could replace caution and defend (support) with far more useful options.

spoiler: Changes to Buffs

I'm all for this. Cure spells sacrificing an instant cast for a buff is a good idea, but is it enough of a trade-off?

spoiler: Changes to Scholar

I like this idea. Nerfing tornado/quake to MA*7 is a good plan, and I can see many possible builds with clairvoyance. The only problem I can see with this is that other mage classes might not see much use as a result.

spoiler: Ranged Weapons

Gastrifitis:
This weapon needs that WP nerf, maybe just down to 14 WP or so. It will still be a viable weapon for warpath/PA*WP scaling strats but will give more spotlight to lower WP ranged weapons.

Stone Gun:
Bringing the Stone Gun up to 5 or maybe even 6 range would help give it an edge over spell guns and crossbows, even if it will still have initial: petrify. Perhaps we could even change the stone gun to something else or remove the initial: petrify. I don't think we should raise the WP of it though, because WP*WP can really add up.

Demi Gun:
This sounds really cool. I am in full support of the idea. My question is, will it be a 100% demi or will it be percentage based like the spell?

spoiler: Other Opinions

Stop definitely needs to get an accuracy reduction or something.
What about adding a robe that gives +PA as well as MP? This could help with hybrid units like male samurai or paladins who have almost no MP and want a PA buff.

Even though I'm new, I feel the need to give my own two cents here. I'm actually kind of shy though, so it's difficult to make my opinions known without feeling at least slightly embarrassed.

Thank you for your post, dw6561!  Allow me to provide my own comments.

Quote from: Mudvayne on June 25, 2015, 06:50:26 pm
Adding Defending to it would be bad I think. The AI LOVES defend and I feel like that would make it end up being literally the only ability the AI would ever use for that unit. I could be wrong but I know how much the AI priorities Defend over basically every other status, so if that was added to Protect/Shell then it would just be spammed all the time.

If memory serves me right, the only statuses the AI uses proactively are Haste and Defend.  The AI will cease to apply either once engaged with the enemy.  Only when the AI retreats or is out of range of the enemy will it reapply them.

Therefore, if we make Protect and Shell apply Defend as well, then I am sure that the AI will use these spells at the start of the match as they should.  If required, we could even scrap Defend's +Evasion, which would effectively turn the status into a dirty AI priority hack.  Unfortunately, this would require uncovering where the +Evasion is applied in ASM.

2015.06.28 Edit
Consolidating a few numbers here.  Feel free to pick apart the details.

Protect: Heal_F(MA*7), 100% Add: Protect, 10 MP, 1 AoE, 1 Vert, 2 CT, 150 JP
Shell: Heal_F(MA*7), 100% Add: Shell, 10 MP, 1 AoE, 1 Vert, 2 CT, 150 JP
Protect 2: Heal_F(MA*7), 100% Add: Protect, 20 MP, 2 AoE, 2 Vert, 4 CT, 250 JP
Shell 2: Heal_F(MA*7), 100% Add: Shell, 20 MP, 2 AoE, 2 Vert, 4 CT, 250 JP
Regen: Heal_F(MA*7), 100% Add: Regen, 10 MP, 1 AoE, 1 Vert, 2 CT, 150 JP

Protect, Shell, and Regen turn into Cure spells that add a positive status at the expense of a finite CT.  Second-tier Protect/Shell are changed to match the change to the first tier.

NEW CLASS:
M: 134 HP, 67 MP, 8 SP, 10 PA, 8 MA, 3 Move, 3 Jump, 0 C-EV
F: 125 HP, 72 MP, 8 SP, 8 PA, 10 MA, 3 Move, 3 Jump, 0 C-EV
Can equip: Swd, Rod, Stf, Book, Pole, Shld, Helm, Armr, Robe, Acc
Innate abilities: Clairvoyance (see below)

Maelstrom: As before
Rime Bolt: As before
Earth Dragon: As before
Thunder Flare: As before
Shadow Shade: As before
Mad Science: Removed
Tornado: 4 Rng, 2 AoE, 2 Vert, 2 CT, 20 MP, Wind elemental, Dmg_F(MA*7), 100% Cancel: Protect/Shell, 250 JP
Quake: 4 Rng, 2 AoE, 2 Vert, 2 CT, 20 MP, Earth elemental, Dmg_F(MA*7), 100% Cancel: Haste/Regen, 250 JP
Bio 1: Sent to Wizard.  Made Dark elemental to prevent wizards from having innate access to non-elemental damage.
Bio 2: Removed. (If it was sent to Wizard, it would overlap with the Frog spell)
Bio 3: Sent to Wizard or removed.
Poison: Inherited from Wizard
Amplify: 4 Rng, 1 AoE, 1 Vert, 3 CT, 12 MP, Heal_F(MA*7), 100% Add: Amplify (strengthens all elements), 150 JP
Veil: 4 Rng, 1 AoE, 1 Vert, 3 CT, 12 MP, Heal_F(MA*7), 100% Add: Veil (halves all elements), 150 JP
Clairvoyance: Allows P-EV and M-EV to be applied even when Charging/Performing. 200 JP. (The name is inspired from Barren's proposed "Extrasensory.")
Distribute: As before
Damage Split: As before
Equip Magegear: As before
Move=0: As before
Total skill count: 16

This new class would be the first mage class that can equip armor and shields.  With the M-EV from shields and the status immunity from armor, it can be used as a reliable status healer.  Also, with its decent MA and high HP pool from armor, the female version of this class can also be used as a reliable frontline attacker with staves and rods (e.g., with Dragon Rod, Golden Staff, Poison Rod, etc.) Conversely, the male version can attack with swords.  Both versions can attack with books and poles equally well.  The innate ability "Clairvoyance" makes this new class attractive as a primary class.

As for the skills, Tornado and Quake are redesigned, and Amplify and Veil are new. Tornado and Quake are changed to oppose the new Protect, Shell, and Regen, which will likely see more widespread use upon implementation of the proposed changes. Amplify and Veil will require the ASM hacking of two new status effects.  These status effects are similar to 6.39's Oil, only instead of adding "Neutral: All elements", they add "Strengthen: All elements" and "Halve: All elements." These two abilities also heal the targets to encourage the AI to use them consistently.

Hunh.  I've been away for a long time, and my memory is all fuzzy, but let me weigh in on a few recent topics.

First, a preface: I've noticed since before my absence that FFT Arena suffers from overlap.  There are many weapons, skills, and jobs that do similar things.  As a result, a large part of the metagame is focused on figuring out which builds accomplish the same task better than the others.  The cure to this is diversity.  Rather than tweak all parts of a given role until they are equally attractive, I believe that it is better to repurpose some into a different role entirely.

Let me provide an example.

Mythril Gun


Now onto a few other things.

Scholars vs Wizards


Ninja


Changing Jump timing to XX\Jump


Protect and Shell

I'm about 9 months late, but it's nice to see that the 1.39 patch finally came out.  I'm a little bummed to see that Time Mage and Summoner still suffer from poor stats, but thank you all the same FFMaster.

Does the new Oil dispel on hit?

What?  There's a tournament and nobody told me?  I picked the wrong months to space out.

At the very least, I will try to get Camtasia and an emulator up and running on a laptop in case a host needs filling in for.

What are "Joint Team" rules?  Is that when a team is comprised of units submitted by different entrants?

Maybe!  It's been nearly one year since the 1.39 summary was written.

On the subject of status effects, I've been thinking of ways to reduce the overreliance on White Magick for support.  I wonder how feasible coding the following status effects are.

Curtain: Add "Halve: all elements" (basically an "anti-oil." Whether it expires on hit is optional.)
Amplify: Add "Strengthen: all elements"
Veil: Add "Immune: all status effects" (or a limited number of status effects)
Transparent: Increase P-EV/M-EV (or both) by 50% (for a single hit or a short time)
Celerity: Add "Short Charge"

To help against the AI's general stupidity at applying anything proactively other than Haste, I'm thinking of having these buffs added using weak healing spells or to a version of the Haste spell itself.

3.2 million USD for a map editor.  Let's go!  If everyone on this forum donated about 100 thousand, we could have it by the end of the week.

The synopsis seems like standard Matsuno fare to me.  Tactics Ogre, FFT, and FFXII are primarily world-driven narratives.  The protagonist of these games is a small actor on a much larger stage.  In the present case, it seems that there will be not one, but many small actors, each of whose story is told over a shorter length of (gameplay) time.  This is likely to conform the gameplay to its smartphone platform, on which games are expected to be played on the go in short bursts.

I think this formula has potential.  It will be like George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire.  With many actors onstage, Matsuno has the freedom to write tragic endings without breaking the narrative's continuity.  Thus, he needs not rely on tired tropes like Plot Armour.

I wouldn't mind seeing a tournament with stipulations, like unlimited JP, no duplicate skills/skill sets/equipment, or anything in between.

I might be able to host if I find a way to get an emulator working on this laptop of mine.  Whatever the case, I strongly suggest minimizing the number of hosts to two or three.  Any more and the tournament will drag on for months, as the last two seasons did.

Quote from: Malroth on December 20, 2013, 05:59:38 pm
So thats why my latest test had a black costume blackmage with plenty of MP sitting in a corner doing nothing instead of netherfireing themselves to full

Curiously, the A.I. does seem to be capable of using single-target elemental attacks to heal itself.  Ninjutsu and Holy come to mind. 

Random thought:

Crystal Shield: 30 P-EV, 0 M-EV, absorb Dark, weak Holy

Purpose: To give armoured units an easier way to absorb friendly Demi.

Balance: Armoured units can cover the Holy weakness with Chameleon Robe, whereas clothed units (i.e. Squires and Geomancers) will need to depend on Magic Ring or Small Mantle, neither of which suits these classes.  As a result, Crystal Shield is not expected to mingle with Black Costume to double the prevalence of Dark absorption on clothed units.  Armoured units can swap Chameleon Robe for armour to increase the effect of Demi healing at the cost of using the above-mentioned Magic Ring or Small Mantle, which also do not suit these classes, or simply living with the weakness.

So fast!  You kindly featured my team before I even had a chance to correct its typos.  Nice work on the careful pronunciation, by the way.

Quote from: Zotis on October 29, 2013, 03:33:51 pm
Hmm... because Meiton uses magic evasion...  at least it says M under the evasion column in the Master's Guide.

Is it things that give an evasion % in the formula, versus things that only list magic or physical for evasion?

Tons are supposed to use M-EV as written, but they, in fact, use P-EV in-game.  This is unintended as far as I know.

Hidden Knives ignore P-EV for all skills, be they "Hit" or "Dmg" based.  Hit-based skills can still miss, but the target's P-EV will not reduce the hit rate.

Quote from: Reks on October 26, 2013, 09:53:18 pm
Greetings, from Singapore.

*proceeds to slam face on a table*

You sound like you do not want to be in Singapore.  Did something happen?

Just making Stone Gun force-2H is okay with me.  This is a pretty modest change, as it primarily affects only Archers.

In addition, here are graphs showing how Stone Gun and Glacier gun measure up to non-guns with Concentrate.  Weapons are wielded by the most competent class.  Elemental strengthening is applied when applicable.  Only a selection of the most powerful weapons are shown.  All other weapons (harps, knives, et cetera) have lower damage.  The 1.39 version of weapons are considered unless otherwise stated.

The first graph compares Stone Gun and Glacier Gun (both 1.38 and 1.39 versions) to the most powerful weapons that can be wielded with shields, namely Ice Brand, Lionheart, Tactician's Blade, and Coral Sword.  Also, Silencer is included as the most powerful ranged weapon usable with a shield.  Clearly, Stone Gun and 1.38 Glacier Gun outperform every weapon at low XA (i.e. no XA stacking).  With the exception of Ice Brand, only at high to maximum stacking do weapons begin to outperform Stone Gun.  Realistically, this amounts to devoting 3~4 of the 4 available equipment slots for stacking.  As for 1.38 Glacier Gun, it outperforms all weapons except Ice Brand at high stacking and Tactician's Blade at maximum stacking.

The second graph compares Stone Gun and 1.38 Glacier Gun to the most powerful two-handed weapons, namely Ultimus Bow, Silver Bow, Chaos Blade, Kikuichimoji, and Gastrafitis.  (Other katana, while also strong, are omitted as they are weaker than Kikuichimoji.)  With the exception of Kikuichimoji, Stone Gun once again outperforms every other weapon at no stacking.  However, it is outperformed by Chaos Blade at modest stacking and Gastrafitis at high stacking.  As for 1.38 Glacier Gun, it yet outperforms all weapons that are not highly stacked.

I present two conclusions.  First, Stone Gun is too powerful to be categorised as a weapon that is usable with shields.  In spite of opinions expressed elsewhere, its damage is, in fact, large at equal hit rate.  Second, 1.38 Glacier Gun is too powerful for any category of weapon and should therefore have its damage reduced.  Bear in mind that these two guns also have the advantage of 6 range.

As a corollary, katana, particularly Kikuichimonji, are slated to become the most powerful weapons in 1.39.  Mind you, they are powerful only on male samurai.  Male samurai have only 3 move and katana have only 1 range, so it will be difficult to make the most of katana's power.  (Or, at least, more difficult than 1.38 spellguns.)

I was thinking more along the lines of Grand Cross squires with Air Knives, Ice Brands, and FDC's Phoenix Blade (14 WP fire element sword).  Together with Yell and Wish buffs, they will be pretty versatile.  Then again, the free accessory slot will come at the price of lightning weakness, so it might not be so bad.

On the subject of elemental shields, they should become more usable if FFMaster decides to reduce the weakness modifier.

Edit:

Attached are graph assessing the 1.39 arsenal of a selection of jobs.  Damage does not consider brave nor faith.  Each data series' minimum value represents no XA optimisation (i.e. maximum freedom in the choice of equipment), whereas each series maximum value represents maximum XA optimisation (i.e. no freedom in the choice of equipment).

Archer
========
To reflect the advantage of gun's 100% hit rate, guns are used with (Magic) Attack UP, whereas non-guns are used with Concentrate.  Elemental strengthening is applied if applicable.

Stone Gun: 12 WP, Attack UP, Concentrate
Glacier Gun: 12 WP, Cast: Nether Ice, Magic Attack UP, element strengthened, Concentrate
Ultimus Bow: 15 WP, Concentrate
Silver Bow: 13 WP, 40% Cast: Holy, element strengthened, Concentrate
Silencer: 12 WP, Concentrate

Paladin
========
Ice Brand: 14 WP, 20% Cast: Ice 2, Attack UP, element strengthened
Chaos Blade: 17 WP, Attack UP
Kikuichimonji: 10 WP, 25% Cast: Quake, Attack UP, element strengthened

Samurai
========
Koutetsu: 10 WP, Attack UP, Two Hands, element strengthened
Bizen Boat: 9 WP, 100% Cast: Sinkhole, Attack UP, Two Hands
Kiyomori: 10 WP, 50% Cast: Bio, Attack UP, Two Hands
Kikuichimonji, 10 WP, 25% Cast: Quake, Attack UP, Two Hands, element strengthened
Chiridiraden, 10 WP, +1 PA, Attack UP, Two Hands

Thief
========
Dual Cutters: 8 WP, 50% Cast: Double Attack, Two Swords
Katar: 11 WP, +1 PA, Two Hands
Air Knife: 13 WP, Attack UP, element strengthened
Lionheart: 10 WP, +2 PA, Two Hands
Coral Sword: 8 WP, 25% Cast: Suiton, Two Hands, element strengthened
Tactician's Blade: 14 WP, Attack UP

All right.  Back to work.