Final Fantasy Hacktics

Again, forgive the lack of proper quoting, I'm stuck on a laptop for now and the rest of the week so all the mouse min-maxing makes my fingers cry.  

@black magic scaling -- no.  Or, like I've said many many times thus far, "yes, possible in theory but not by neither of us jackbutts."

The problem with enemy spell selection, especially with black magic, is fixed through 2 methods.  The first I employed quite rigorously in easytype, and that was the creation of a custom enemy skillset (read: auto-learn) atwhich has only X spells and Y spells.  Chapter 1 mages got ele 1 and 2 plus some others, and it scaled up from there.  The second, and this applies more to random battle mages that don't receive the same TLC, is simply re-ordering the skillset to be more AI-friendly -- so like Fire, Ice, Bolt, Fire 2, Ice 2, Bolt 2, etcetcetc.  But that results in a cosmetic blip for the player, but I see if I can craft one up that satisfies both fronts.  

100% blind is already present in the squire skillset, and honestly the perk of shields to go with xbows and the range gutting on longbows might be enough to keep xbows on the same line until endgame, so I can buff up gastrafitis to be 100% poison, perhaps (at the expense of being poaching-viable, mind).  

The oil/float thing won't be included, simply because I really dislike float having negative consequences attached to it, and I don't think I can modify the code to be oil exclusive.

Was definitely planning bio out of queklain... maybe Seal out of Velius.  I dunno.  

As for old Ja going into other classes, I don't know the current spell cap on most of the casters, but I don't think there's much to work with.  

Flare2 was going into black magic as an odd kind of default anyways, so much that the skillset is primarily for damage in small AoE fashion.  

Zombie/Confuse/Sleep 2 are too similar to their Oracle counterparts to be worthwhile.  

Return2 is a possibility, but I'd want to tweak it a bit for balance purposes.  

Quake/Tornado are great blue magic candidates, I'll see where I can place them.  Rather not mess with much blue magic on Hashy/Altima because they're past the point of no return, and I don't want to hand the player some super-awesome ability to be used exactly for the next fight while not getting said ability makes those fights harder.  Great battle reports, I've drawn up prelim ENTD stuff through chapter 2 at this point.

I'm reorganizing your post simply so my points follow in some logical order, since I kinda replied to it haphazardly.

Quote from: "philsov"Again, forgive the lack of proper quoting, I'm stuck on a laptop for now and the rest of the week so all the mouse min-maxing makes my fingers cry.  

I don't really mind it, honestly.  Don't worry about it.

Quote from: "philsov"As for old Ja going into other classes, I don't know the current spell cap on most of the casters, but I don't think there's much to work with.

I believe all ability sets have a 16 ability cap due to everything pretty much being on a base 16 number system.

Quote from: "philsov"@black magic scaling -- no.  Or, like I've said many many times thus far, "yes, possible in theory but not by neither of us jackbutts."

The problem with enemy spell selection, especially with black magic, is fixed through 2 methods.  The first I employed quite rigorously in easytype, and that was the creation of a custom enemy skillset (read: auto-learn) atwhich has only X spells and Y spells.  Chapter 1 mages got ele 1 and 2 plus some others, and it scaled up from there.  The second, and this applies more to random battle mages that don't receive the same TLC, is simply re-ordering the skillset to be more AI-friendly -- so like Fire, Ice, Bolt, Fire 2, Ice 2, Bolt 2, etcetcetc.  But that results in a cosmetic blip for the player, but I see if I can craft one up that satisfies both fronts.

I see.

I was just trying to think of ways to either get more in there or otherwise diversify it somewhat.  Black Magic is pretty much 7 skills, 10 if you count the 0 CT versions you're adding since they do operate noticeably different from the others.

I wish there were some way to merely make the skillset less linear, as all.  Some moderately powerful 0CT Spells (that I'm guessing will have JP / MP costs far higher than their non-0CT tier 2 counterparts) was a great start, but we're still left with Element 1/2/3 that are basically the same skill with more power.  It's the same problem Summons and Draw Out had, and it sucks being unable to fix it.

Idea:

Fire/Bolt/Ice 1, either do something with them, or keep them the same as the "beginner Spells" so the player has something to begin fiddling with immediately.

Fire/Bolt/Ice 2 can be rigged to have tier 1 power, but more AoE and vert tolerance than their contemporaries.  By having the most AoE, it becomes a good way for either side to break Phoenix Down whoring or do some mass early-peppering at the risk of triggering a lot of reactions.

Fire/Bolt/Ice 3 could use cross AoE and do the most damage.

Fire/Bolt/Ice 4 could be the CT0 versions.

We could cut the first tier entirely, but this makes me think that C1 enemy mages would be too powerful with access to the mass AoE, at least early on.  I've noticed that tier 1 spell damage becomes quickly negligible (~30ish, IIRC) even during Chapter 1 without weather / rod boosting, so this worry is mostly for Dorter Trade City honestly.

Hmm.

Tier 1 is mass AoE and vert, low damage, approximately that of the old Tier 1.

Tier 2 is CT 0, single target, moderate damage.

Tier 3 is cross AoE, highest damage, but with old tier 1 vert and longest cast time.   Possibly give it the raw power of the old tier 4 to compensate it competing with an instant-cast Spell.

Change names accordingly.

This leaves 3 spaces on the Wizard's skillset, which could go to Flare 2 and Toad 2 (rename Toad to Frog, make these two Frogja and Flareja?), and then one leftover ability slot in case we want to use it later.

We could follow the same setup for White Mages, with Cure 1 being large AoE, low HP refill, Cure 2 being single target, instant decent cure, Cure 3 being cross and highly potent.

With some MP cost and range manipulations, it should be easy enough to balance these spells during Chapter 1 and have pretty much all of them usable for most of the game.  Raise and Raise 2 would still essentially be mirrors of each other with different HP buffs and success rates, but anyone who uses White Magic a lot knows those two little things mean more than enough to justify them as two separate abilities.

Quote from: "philsov"Flare2 was going into black magic as an odd kind of default anyways, so much that the skillset is primarily for damage in small AoE fashion.  

Zombie/Confuse/Sleep 2 are too similar to their Oracle counterparts to be worthwhile.  

Return2 is a possibility, but I'd want to tweak it a bit for balance purposes.

Yeah @ Flare.  Flare 1 is high damage, somewhat fast, single target, whereas Flare 2 is AoE and slower, so it's fine I think.  Though I just realized Toad 1 and 2 share the same AoE.

Hm.

I'd disagree a little on the Oracle thing, mostly because the Oracle Spells don't always have AoE, where as the Ja set does.  Notable on Dispel and Zombie.  You could remove the AoE from Sleep 1, then make the four original Spells faster + higher success rate on single target, with the slower ones being AoE and slightly slower success rate.

The real problem with that though is that Oracle only has space for 3 Spells, 2 if you return Foxbird (now that I pay attention to how large the ability sets are).

So, seeing as Sleep 2 and Sleep share the same AoE (I think the only difference is Vert tol, and maybe success rate?) you can axe giving them Sleep 2.

Giving them the others, or Dispelja + 1 other if you return Fox Bird doesn't seem like it'd be a problem though, since the additional AoEs with decent vertical tolerances seems like it'd mean a lot in some places.

An aside about Oracles - 1.3 Blind has ridiculous AoE, and this game has more evasion + less move.  Do you think this'll be a problem, or are you just going to lower Blind's initial range to compensate for its higher AoE and call it a day / do nothing and see what happens first?

As for Return 2, maybe make it single-target only or cross AoE for moderate MP?  I figured it would need some debuffing because the initial AoE is monstrous IIRC.

Gravi 2 would be cool as a single-target spell as well.  Bosses would be immune to it anyway, so it'd end up being a late game, heavily costed wall-breaker during generic fights I think.

I'd be recommending spell names for everything under these suggestions as well, but I kinda suck at them honestly.

Quote from: "philsov"100% blind is already present in the squire skillset, and honestly the perk of shields to go with xbows and the range gutting on longbows might be enough to keep xbows on the same line until endgame, so I can buff up gastrafitis to be 100% poison, perhaps (at the expense of being poaching-viable, mind).

Possibly.

I was thinking Bow Gun could remain "vanilla", one inflict the 50% Blind (Night Killer does Blind in vanilla, so even with Blind Blow existing I think its finel), one that inflicts 50% Poison (again, vanilla precedence), one that has the 1.3 double shot (Gastrafitis, or maybe a weaker one?), and one that does healing instead of damage but inflicts 50% Zombie (since IIRC, healing weapons damage Zombies, right?  This idea just seems really cool on paper imo).   Maybe a low power crossbow that can inflict Don't Act?  Having effectless attacking weapons just seems kinda boring, honestly, and was my biggest beef with Ninja Swords in vanilla (and 1.3 a lot) by a mile.  Weapons in large part having effects just seems like the next step for ASM'D, since it allows for more strategy and uniqueness and such beyond "highest WP stat!  rawr damage!"

A lot of Long Bows have elementals and sometimes a Spell proc (Windslash Bow is Wind, or should be, Lightning Bow and Ice Bow are respective elements and do X-2 on proc), etc., so just making crossbows effectless damage dealers seems kind of depressing.  Speaking of, how will you be handling the unique bows (Ultimus, Yoichi, Perseus)?  Any ideas yet?  

Quote from: "philsov"The oil/float thing won't be included, simply because I really dislike float having negative consequences attached to it, and I don't think I can modify the code to be oil exclusive.

I don't see Float being Weak vs Wind being an issue, since Wind is less prevalent than Earth (IIRC), and Float gives you a straight immunity to Earth and some other really nice perks to more than justify being weak to an incredibly niche element.  Windslash Bow and incredibly late game Blue Magic with Tornado seem like the only relevant sources of Wind damage, besides maybe a Summon.

Quote from: "philsov"Was definitely planning bio out of queklain... maybe Seal out of Velius.  I dunno.

Quake/Tornado are great blue magic candidates, I'll see where I can place them.  Rather not mess with much blue magic on Hashy/Altima because they're past the point of no return, and I don't want to hand the player some super-awesome ability to be used exactly for the next fight while not getting said ability makes those fights harder.

This is what I was thinking, now that I've organized my thoughts more.

Queklain - Bio 3.
Velius - Seal
Zalera - Quake (add to his skillset)
Aldramelk - Tornado (add to his skillset)
Hashmalum - Melt ***
Elidibs - Midgar Swarm ###

This along with the 10 abilities you already mentioned would make it a perfect 16 ability set with abilities spanning literally the entire game (but not requiring entering Orbonne for Mastered Blue Mage).

*** Override the 1.3 Ninja encounter (since you took out Rubber Costume) in Bervenia Volcano (or maybe in something in the Dolbar Swamp after Elmdor?) with an encounter with a boss-like Dragon monster that can cast Melt, so that the player has access to it outside of Hashmalum.  Hashmalum really wouldn't need an ability set edit to carry Blue Magic with this setup, thinking on it.  He carries Melt / Quake / Tornado naturally, the Ultima Demons in the next fight carry Dark Holy, etc.  That already covers almost every boss-like Blue Magic, except for Bio 3, Seal, Midgar Swarm under this setup.

### Again, obviously add a battle in END that allows you to fight against a hyper Blue Mage or something using Elidibs' skillset to make sure the player can't miss this entirely.

Quote from: "philsov"Great battle reports, I've drawn up prelim ENTD stuff through chapter 2 at this point.

Nice.

Lenalia Plateau is loving hard due to the terrain and everything seeming to be semi-tankish with Defense UPs and stuff.  I'll need to test it with the C1 beta you're planning on releasing to comment on whether it should be toned back first, though, since the new Job Decagon means a lot in terms of pretty much all of C1's difficulty.

Other than that, like I said previously, Knight's stuff all being way too expensive was the main roadblock I hit.  I'd probably half the cost of most of their abilities, honestly.

Every other "starting" class can learn a bunch of abilities for ~50-150 JP, but Knight gets walled at 200 and also has the hardest time acruing JP in Chapter 1.  Making the Ruin skills each cost ~100-150 and lowering the Break skills a bit would fix this problem, I think, since I wouldn't need to be Job Level 4 to have two damn Ruin skills without crystals.

Lowering JP costs also means the AI can buy more of them, so lowering the costs actually causing Chapter 1 to become easier shouldn't be an issue.  That, and Chemists can toss Turtle Shells during Chapter 1 anyway to slow things, IIRC.

Speaking of Chapter 1, I made this suggestion earlier but I think it got lost in the shuffle.  Since there are now 6 starting classes, is it possible to make each of the Chapter 1 generics into one of each class?  It should be if I remember my very vague knowledge of hacking correctly, and it'd honestly be a great touch for ASM'D to include.

Ah, forgot the foxbird reply -- no.  The only method to lowering Br will be talk skill, so I can enable all (Zodiac) bosses to have innate finger guard and thereby be immune.  But Oracles are still gaining a CT0 spell of their own to cancel charging.  

Regarding your black magic scheme, while it works within its own skillset, it bleeds far too much into the specialty of summon magic.  Black magic is primarily smaller aoe with higher output, while summons are larger aoe but average out to less damage.  See also cure and moogle.  And... looking over my list I've neglected to give summon magic its own little CT0 ability... I'll need to cut something somewhere due to animation/effect constraints?  Bah, I need to review the summon list later.

Blind will probably be reduced to a single AoE with larger charge time, and dispel magic needs to be at 1 aoe in the first place.  I'd sooner try and introduce new skills over whats left of Ja.

With float affecting wind damage, it'd be like the zombie + Raise2 combo, only it affects multiple targets now ~_~.  

The vanilla values for poison bow/etc was 25%.  

Agreed on the knights.  I can trim the ruins down to 100 JP each and go from there.

Yes, I can make a good spread of the starter generics, and to that end also expand the selection at gariland to include the first weapons and heavy armor that one might find in igros.  What I'm torn about is to give them set Br/Fa (55/67 casters, 67/55 fighters, 61/61 squire/chemist) or simply go back to random and let the player enjoy going for the 71-74 lottery that the soldier office simply doesn't offer.

Quote from: "philsov"Ah, forgot the foxbird reply -- no.  The only method to lowering Br will be talk skill, so I can enable all (Zodiac) bosses to have innate finger guard and thereby be immune.  But Oracles are still gaining a CT0 spell of their own to cancel charging.

I understand, and I'll definitely take that instead.

Quote from: "philsov"Regarding your black magic scheme, while it works within its own skillset, it bleeds far too much into the specialty of summon magic.  Black magic is primarily smaller aoe with higher output, while summons are larger aoe but average out to less damage.  See also cure and moogle.  And... looking over my list I've neglected to give summon magic its own little CT0 ability... I'll need to cut something somewhere due to animation/effect constraints?  Bah, I need to review the summon list later.

Then maybe current Tier 1 + the other two I said?

It kinda sucks since Tier 1 will quickly become outdated for anything that's not mop-up damage (well, it'll be the AoE Black Magic of choice longer, but outside of that...), but it still leaves 2/3 good skills and 3 slots leftover in the Wizard ability suite to mess with.  So Flareja + 2 others, if you wanted.

As for Summons, the last time we spoke about them, you had Ifrit and Salamander as the exact same Summon style, more or less.  If that's still the case, you could always gut Salamander or Ifrit and make it a CT0 skill.

EDIT: Random thought.

Sleep and Sleep 2, Toad and Toad 2, and maybe some other Ja-Normal Magicks relations have the same AoE and effect, with the only differences being vertical tolerance and % effectiveness.  I say we take all these skills and consolidate them into one skill that's halfway between the original and the -Ja version.

The Ja versions can then be nuked and replaced for more room to make abilities in.

Streamlining!  We're doing it!

Quote from: "philsov"Blind will probably be reduced to a single AoE with larger charge time, and dispel magic needs to be at 1 aoe in the first place.  I'd sooner try and introduce new skills over whats left of Ja.

I suppose.

I was just trying to weasel the Ja skills in where we could simply because... why not?  ASM'D removes a lot of skills from the player's arsenal on top of the ones they lose in 1.3, so it only feels fair to give them as much as possible in return.

I really wish there were some way to add in more movement skills, though...

*thought* If Ignore Height also gave Move +1, would it be better than Fly / Move +2, do you think, or would it be just another really good competing ability?

Right now viable Movement skills are all of Move +2, Fly, Move-HP UP, Move-MP UP from what I remember, so more skills that can actually compete for the role of "best movement ability" would be much welcome.

Would consolidating Movement skills like Walk on Lava / any Weather / other otherwise worthless Movement skills into one big skill placed on ...something... be an option?  You'd only be outdating Movement skills that'd only see use as innates on Geomancer or something anyway.

That actually seems like a good idea - keep the lesser movement skills as "on the way" kind of things that still are slightly useful as innate skills, and make one big one over the now-unused Move +3 or something that covers all their roles and is actually maybe worth equipping.  Then again, Float might still be better, but the only way to make that not so is to either tack a Move +1 on top of all this stuff or give Float some kind of minor weakness.  Eh.

Though, a Samurai with innate Walk on Water actually seems like a cool idea... even if a Ninja with Move in Water (fucking names that don't do what they say!) innate could get kind of silly.  Regardless, I think gold may have just been struck here.

Quote from: "philsov"With float affecting wind damage, it'd be like the zombie + Raise2 combo, only it affects multiple targets now ~_~.

That'd require Float + Tornado, IIRC, but I get your point I suppose.

Hm... if we can't do that, what CAN we make Oil status do?  

Quote from: "philsov"The vanilla values for poison bow/etc was 25%.

I was referencing the fact that bows initially doled out those statuses, not the actual percents.  Higher percents / a bit more WP from vanilla would be the buffs we gave them.  I'm just saying it wouldn't be like we're stepping on Squire's shoes since they were there originally, and if we make it 50% there's still more than enough reason to use Blind Blow with Archers for the guaranteed Blind... especially if using anything that's not the Night Killer.

Quote from: "philsov"Agreed on the knights.  I can trim the ruins down to 100 JP each and go from there.

You're my hero.  You should carry these changes over to Easytype, and see if you can get them crammed into actual 1.3.

Knights take way too fucking long to get JP early game for the prices being demanded, be it vanilla or 1.3 or this.

Quote from: "philsov"Yes, I can make a good spread of the starter generics, and to that end also expand the selection at gariland to include the first weapons and heavy armor that one might find in igros.  What I'm torn about is to give them set Br/Fa (55/67 casters, 67/55 fighters, 61/61 squire/chemist) or simply go back to random and let the player enjoy going for the 71-74 lottery that the soldier office simply doesn't offer.

Do it for the armor / weapons.  If the Knight in armor has too much HP, you can always lower the HP bonus of the lowest tier armor since no one actually ever fucking buys it anyway, IIRC.  You get two sets of armor to buy your first trip to Igros Castle, and one random battle pretty much ensures you can afford plenty of the second set... so yeah.

I also think set Br / Fa is actually a good idea.  It gives new players who don't want to grind-reset to hell some decent guys, and if someone wants to go perfectionist in the Soldier Office it'll be of their own volition, not because the game gave them shit generics and they didn't want to reset the first battle or two over and over again.  I don't see losing out on the 74 Br/Fa potential as a big deal, myself, since I'm assuming you want this hack to be at least somewhat newbie friendly in the way Easytype strives to be.

EDIT:  Does this mean the first battle at Gariland Magic City may have something besides Squires and a Chemist in it as well, or will you not be touching that?




EDIT about Quake/Tornado/Melt: I just realized they're all the same spell with different elements.  Do we do something about this or kinda leave them in their Black Magic-style of being mirrored elements of the same thing?

QuoteEDIT about Quake/Tornado/Melt: I just realized they're all the same spell with different elements. Do we do something about this or kinda leave them in their Black Magic-style of being mirrored elements of the same thing?

They all have different MA multipliers in default FFT, though.  I think it's 38 for Melt, 37 for Tornado, and 39 for Quake.  Don't quote me on that, though.

Quote from: "Zeio"They all have different MA multipliers in default FFT, though.  I think it's 38 for Melt, 37 for Tornado, and 39 for Quake.  Don't quote me on that, though.

I see.

That seems like an arbitrary way to differentiate them in an elaborate patch like ASM'D, though.

Each one doing some kind of status or something though could be cool, but I don't have too many ideas as to what statuses as of right now.

You could make each have a special effect. Tornado could get an Earthslash effect, but stronger and Wind elemental, Melt could be high, concentrated damage, and Quake could be moderate, massive AoE damage.

*walls of text crumble over Seph*

h-- hello! - *huff* -- welcome back Raven!! ^^

There's a million things that can be done with this patch, so I though it'd be better to change only some at a time.. to avoid overloading Phil

movement consolidation/modification is not possible at this time.

Quotewe're still left with Element 1/2/3 that are basically the same skill with more power

And different charge time and MP cost, which for me is sufficient if just for simplicities sake.  

QuoteTier 1 is mass AoE and vert, low damage, approximately that of the old Tier 1.

Tier 2 is CT 0, single target, moderate damage.

Tier 3 is cross AoE, highest damage, but with old tier 1 vert and longest cast time. Possibly give it the raw power of the old tier 4 to compensate it competing with an instant-cast Spell.

2 AoE is the specialty/liability of the summoner.  Reducing the elementals to their single target instant + 2 ranks to make room for another rank of Toad and Flare simply doesn't seem worth it.  

QuoteAs for Return 2, maybe make it single-target only or cross AoE for moderate MP? I figured it would need some debuffing because the initial AoE is monstrous IIRC.

Gravi 2 would be cool as a single-target spell as well. Bosses would be immune to it anyway, so it'd end up being a late game, heavily costed wall-breaker during generic fights I think.

Actually, I'm tempted to just axe Return 2.  Its just way too cheap on boss fights when you can have two casters (with staggered speeds, mind) just spamming that onto the boss, who then gets locked down completely while the other 3 party members just mercilessly wail into him.  Gravi 2 however can be introduced by proxy by modifying Demi 1/2 to have the first with an AoE but weaker effect while the second is a single-target with a stronger health portion.

QuoteDoes this mean the first battle at Gariland Magic City may have something besides Squires and a Chemist in it as well, or will you not be touching that?

  One step ahead of you, friend.

Quoteabout Quake/Tornado/Melt: I just realized they're all the same spell with different elements. Do we do something about this or kinda leave them in their Black Magic-style of being mirrored elements of the same thing?

See below.

QuoteTornado could get an Earthslash effect, but stronger and Wind elemental, Melt could be high, concentrated damage, and Quake could be moderate, massive AoE damage.

That too is a thought, and they can mirror the summon magic scheme of 5 spaces linear (tornado), 3 spaces tri-attack (quake), and 2 AoE blast (melt).  But then I'll need to juggle around some damage numbers so the output isn't identical to summon.  Because summon magic is currently at levels 1.5 and 2.5 relative to 1/2/3 found in black magic... so they'll probably be as strong and black magic 2's but have a different status affect attached to them.

Speaking of summon magic, its CT0 ability will replace *drumroll* Silf!  So goodbye AoE silence, and hello a single-target Don't Move and Poison effect with independent chance of occurrence.  

QuoteHaving effectless attacking weapons just seems kinda boring, honestly, and was my biggest beef with Ninja Swords in vanilla (and 1.3 a lot) by a mile. Weapons in large part having effects just seems like the next step for ASM'D, since it allows for more strategy and uniqueness and such beyond "highest WP stat! rawr damage!"

Using Swords (I like swords~) as an example, as nice as Sleep/Ancient Swords were, I still ditched them as soon as stronger swords became available, status procs or not.  Lit and Ice bows were quite similar.  Sure, it's a little bit of welcome flair, so I will likely revert xbow changes for poison and blind, and maybe introduce another one with some sort of effect, but in terms of net effect I still went "rawr".  And then in late/end-game when I would swap between Ice Brand and Rune Blade pending setup.  

However, my current plan is to expand the later-game weapons/armors to be more viable at end game.  1.3 Robes did a pretty good job with this;  everything through wizard was viable at late game and DD -- linen and silk still sucked, by a large margin, but having a pool to pick from is a very welcome notion.  I actually think Ninja Swords were done well too, with the most viable ones being 2x Sasuke, Iga/Koga, or 2x Spell Edge for the DA proc, but some weapon classes really need some loving for the lower WPs.  

Also, more random notes:

Ninjas and Monks are reverting back to their innates, due to hardcoding preventing said innates from being equipped otherwise.  So ninja will be eating a massive PA nerf, but I think Monk is pretty much going to stay the same... they only get absurd at level 99, and I'd rather them be broken at 99 than frail and useless for 66% of the game.  

Edit:  You asked something about a patch with default storyline which ignores my lack of sense of humor but features everything else?  Indeed.  They'll be released concurrently.

Quote from: "Sephirot24"*walls of text crumble over Seph*

h-- hello! - *huff* -- welcome back Raven!! ^^

There's a million things that can be done with this patch, so I though it'd be better to change only some at a time.. to avoid overloading Phil

You're back too, huh?  Sweet.

I'm mostly just trying to get every worthwhile idea I can think of out there whilst I still remember them, since many can be decided on pretty quickly between what can be done and what has oversights / etc.

Quote from: "philsov"movement consolidation/modification is not possible at this time.

...Well there goes my suggestion of taking an empty movement slot (Silent Walk did nothing, IIRC) and making it grant Always: Transparent.

Quote from: "philsov"And different charge time and MP cost, which for me is sufficient if just for simplicities sake.

I suppose, since it really doesn't get truly outdated in non-boss fights until somewhere around Chapter 2.

Quote from: "philsov"2 AoE is the specialty/liability of the summoner.  Reducing the elementals to their single target instant + 2 ranks to make room for another rank of Toad and Flare simply doesn't seem worth it.

It just seems silly to have Tier 2 Black Magic be standard then have an instant-cast Tier of roughly the same power and in the same 3 elements.  *shrug*.

I also proposed just taking Toad 2 (and Sleep 2) and merging them with their lower halves / bombing them, since I checked them over and the differences all seem to be success percents, vert tol, charge time.  AoE and effects are exactly the same, and since they're non-damaging spells... yeah.  At least there's a noteworthy difference between Flare and Flare 2 beyond that.

...It'd be really fucking cool if there were animations available to make a fourth set of Black Magicks, so it'd be 4 Tiers of 3 instead of 3 Tiers of 4.  Alas.  Though if the animations exist to accommodate it, 3 Tiers of each primary element + 2 Tiers of Flare + Poison + Toad  + 2 new spells utilizing underused elements or doing something else that Black Magic as a whole could benefit from could be pretty awesome.

I had an odd thought today, though:  Is it possible to give a Spell the AoE of a harp and have it hit all relevant spaces (so everything 3 away, but not the stuff in between)?  That could make a cool Fire spell, or maybe a good AoE for Melt.

Quote from: "philsov"Actually, I'm tempted to just axe Return 2.  Its just way too cheap on boss fights when you can have two casters (with staggered speeds, mind) just spamming that onto the boss, who then gets locked down completely while the other 3 party members just mercilessly wail into him.  Gravi 2 however can be introduced by proxy by modifying Demi 1/2 to have the first with an AoE but weaker effect while the second is a single-target with a stronger health portion.

I forgot about that with Return 2.  Boom, goodbye Return 2, hello new ability?

That could work for Demi series, I suppose.  I was just thinking a third Demi Tier spell would be cool since my previous Black Magic / White Magic suggestion had the basic elements + Cure at 3 tiers as well.

Quote from: "philsov" One step ahead of you, friend.

I'm guessing they won't have any Knights unless you really do some major editing to the script there... but that battle with some magic being flung around could get interesting.  Magic City Gariland really has a cool terrain design, thinking on it.

Quote from: "philsov"That too is a thought, and they can mirror the summon magic scheme of 5 spaces linear (tornado), 3 spaces tri-attack (quake), and 2 AoE blast (melt).  But then I'll need to juggle around some damage numbers so the output isn't identical to summon.  Because summon magic is currently at levels 1.5 and 2.5 relative to 1/2/3 found in black magic... so they'll probably be as strong and black magic 2's but have a different status affect attached to them.

That works.  Quake could inflict either/both Don't Move or Don't Act, theoretically.  No clue what I would expect out of Melt or Tornado given the FFT status setup, but there's probably something for them.  If Wind > Float, I would try to be devious and say have Tornado inflict Float in a form of self-augmentation, but...

...Wait a second, if Tornado is Earth Slash AoE, is there anything left that really can mimic the whole Raise 2 + Zombie thing with Float + Wind Element without a sizable bit of foresight?  I forget if there's a Wind Element Summon, and if there is you probably changed its AoE so my memory there would probably be of no use anyway.

Quote from: "philsov"Speaking of summon magic, its CT0 ability will replace *drumroll* Silf!  So goodbye AoE silence, and hello a single-target Don't Move and Poison effect with independent chance of occurrence.

Nifty.  I like.

Again I raise my previous question, though.  Are Ifrit and Salamander different in any way?  I remember an older draw up of Summons you did still having them with mirrored AoE, but I can suspect that's changed between then and now.

Quote from: "philsov"Using Swords (I like swords~) as an example, as nice as Sleep/Ancient Swords were, I still ditched them as soon as stronger swords became available, status procs or not.  Lit and Ice bows were quite similar.  Sure, it's a little bit of welcome flair, so I will likely revert xbow changes for poison and blind, and maybe introduce another one with some sort of effect, but in terms of net effect I still went "rawr".  And then in late/end-game when I would swap between Ice Brand and Rune Blade pending setup.

I think the thing with Swords though is the range and how much they scale compared to other weapons.

There are a LOT of Swords, and the fact you have to get in rather close to use them means you'll probably want things dead over statused in all cases, and low WP will almost never be worth the risk unless the unit is by itself.  Save maybe with 1.3 Nagrarock.  Sleep Sword mostly suffers from WP that's too low to scale well (9 in 1.3, IIRC) and sporting a status effect.  Ancient Sword suffered a similar issue, since Ice Brand + Rune Blade had both notably higher WP and a useful proc that wasn't canceled out by the bosses you ran into at that point in the game.  Granted, I'm not saying every weapon should be good against bosses and such, but by the time you get to Ice Brand and Rune Blade the game's pretty much beginning to go into Boss Rush! mode anyway.  I remember stealing the Sleep Sword and Ancient Sword from the Two Swords Knight in Bariaus Hill in 1.3 and the Blood Sword from Gafgarion, and didn't toss them until getting the pair of Ice Brands off the Squire in Grog Hill, since the extra WP of Diamond Sword was in no way worth how devastating the statuses were on the still-plentiful generic enemies.  It also helped I had Two Swords for the Sleep Sword + Ancient Sword or Blood Sword combo from the very same Knight's crystal, but still...

But yeah.  Crossbows don't scale as rapidly, so the statuses shouldn't be as badly beaten out by WP.  Also, IIRC, stuff like Poison / Blind aren't given as many immunities compared to higher statuses like Don't Act / etc and are better due to ASM'D's movement / evasion nuances, so that combined with the fact the Archer doesn't need to get entirely into harm's way to start applying them with a hail of arrows means they can take the time to merely disable key targets instead of being forced to always rain down the apocalypse or die trying.  As for additional procs, you could have something like a Tranquilizer Bow(-Gun, of course) that inflicts Don't Move, which is rather useful when applied from a range.  Then again, "Tranquilizer" sounds like it should be applying Sleep, but that'd be a bit too much I would think.

Quote from: "philsov"However, my current plan is to expand the later-game weapons/armors to be more viable at end game.  1.3 Robes did a pretty good job with this;  everything through wizard was viable at late game and DD -- linen and silk still sucked, by a large margin, but having a pool to pick from is a very welcome notion.  I actually think Ninja Swords were done well too, with the most viable ones being 2x Sasuke, Iga/Koga, or 2x Spell Edge for the DA proc, but some weapon classes really need some loving for the lower WPs.

I agree with Robes.  They tried with Swords but didn't quite pull it off.  I disagree with the Ninja Sword thing though, mostly due to how hard Sasuke / Iga / Koga Knives all are to get.  They're rare, so of course they better not suck.  I was mostly referring to just the store bought ones, where its Spell Edge (or whatever is highest WP at that point in the game) or bust in almost all cases.  Katanas have a similar issue, IIRC, but I'm not getting any ideas on exactly how to fix that atm.  You could always give them procs based on their Draw Outs, something like:

Asura Knife: Fire Elemental Damage
Kotetsu Knife: Dark Elemental Damage
Bizen Boat: MA +X
Murasame: Water Elemental Damage and/or some sort of proc that restores HP?
Heaven's Cloud: IDFK
Kiyomori: Wind Elemental Damage and/or some sort of proc that can cast Protect and/or Shell on the user (if possible)?
Murasama: Life Drain, possibly Dark Elemental Damage(?)
Masamune + Chirijiraden: IDFK.

Yeah, random thought, no idea really, it'd just be nice to see Katanas that did more than hack 'n slash.  It's like the creators KNEW we'd never want to use them anyway.  Yet we probably will in ASM'D, so some perks on at least a few of them might be nice.

Pulling up the descriptions for Ninja Swords really doesn't leave much to work with.  Short Edge could be rigged to be a Higher Power, Ninja Sword version of a Dagger, Ninja Edge could (based on its description) be the high-WP proc-less weapon maybe, but the descriptions are so bland and they have nothing like Draw Out to pull additional inspiration from, so to buff them in a way that fits their "theme" is rather impossible.

Meh.

Quote from: "philsov"Ninjas and Monks are reverting back to their innates, due to hardcoding preventing said innates from being equipped otherwise.  So ninja will be eating a massive PA nerf, but I think Monk is pretty much going to stay the same... they only get absurd at level 99, and I'd rather them be broken at 99 than frail and useless for 66% of the game.

That's fine.  I love how by proxy that makes a Martial Arts Ninja even more worthless than your original plan did, btw.

Fists are subject to the Br formula at least (IIRC), and without Br modifications being permanent this shouldn't make their damage most of the game be too bad even with Two Swords unless you bring Talk Skill to intentionally Br buff.

...That Monk with Talk Skill at Golgorand Execution Site is now seeming like a relatively decent idea.  Hah.  Not that it's a problem though, since you're dedicating a bunch of turns to make that extra damage a reality anyway and low MA IIRC makes the Talk Skills very hit-or-miss.  I guess it makes Br Save a better ability now that it's been re-introduced, though, which is probably a good thing in the long run.

To be honest, I'm itching to try playtesting a version of this that implements the Fury hack once the actual patch is finished to see how different things are.  It seems like it has the potential to be ridiculously cool, and if its balanced enough you could pull another "why not?" and make it part of the main patch.

Quote from: "philsov"Edit:  You asked something about a patch with default storyline which ignores my lack of sense of humor but features everything else?  Indeed.  They'll be released concurrently.

Cool.  Asmo and the other people who dislike the idea of spoofing but like the balancing should be rather pleased.

How about make the Katanas proc their respective Draw Outs? At least, for the offensive drawouts?

Quote from: "Dokurider"How about make the Katanas proc their respective Draw Outs? At least, for the offensive drawouts?

I was thinking that, but in the end it seemed even less original, and nothing I suggested was really all that mind blowing.

Then again, each Draw Out in ASM'D does have its own AoE now, so different ones getting proc'd would be worth different amounts of strategic value even if they're all (in ASM'D, IIRC) straight non-elemental damage (for the offensive ones).

QuoteI had an odd thought today, though: Is it possible to give a Spell the AoE of a harp and have it hit all relevant spaces (so everything 3 away, but not the stuff in between)? That could make a cool Fire spell, or maybe a good AoE for Melt.

Nah, abilities can't be set to a minimum range  Only 1 or 0 AoE for the demi family.  Was planning like 30% from Demi with 1 AoE and then like 60-70% from Demi2 with 0 AoE.  

QuoteAgain I raise my previous question, though. Are Ifrit and Salamander different in any way? I remember an older draw up of Summons you did still having them with mirrored AoE, but I can suspect that's changed between then and now.

Different strengths/CTR/MP cost.  It's like Fire2 to Fire3.  So... not much new on that front.  And with Melt doing the same thing it'd be a fun little quirk of fire magic to all be similar in these regards.  

QuoteThat works. Quake could inflict either/both Don't Move or Don't Act, theoretically. No clue what I would expect out of Melt or Tornado given the FFT status setup, but there's probably something for them. If Wind > Float, I would try to be devious and say have Tornado inflict Float in a form of self-augmentation, but...

...Wait a second, if Tornado is Earth Slash AoE, is there anything left that really can mimic the whole Raise 2 + Zombie thing with Float + Wind Element without a sizable bit of foresight? I forget if there's a Wind Element Summon, and if there is you probably changed its AoE so my memory there would probably be of no use anyway.

Tornado doing Float and Melt doing Oil (25% each, mind) would be rather crafty when coupled with the ASM.  Dunno, I need to weigh if turning float more into an enemy debuff over an ally buff is a worthwhile move.  They'd both need to gain durations as well.

QuoteKatanas pewpewpew

Every single one of them doing something special and unique is simply overkill.  What I'd like to see happen is either some sort of blanket proc or follow the scheme of swords/long bows and have about half of them be/do something nifty and cool.  Perhaps give them the 1.3 axe decipitate effect?  Seems rather fitting.  And then on the end-game interchangeable front I can make one be a stat booster while a stronger one is just straight WP.  I don't think there's room for three interchangeable weapons when there's a standard proc for the weapon class.  

Offensive DO proccing is another thought, but how to bring the two defensive ones into the fold?  Life Drain for Murasame and Dispel for Kiyomori?  fyi weapon procs are for that single target only.

Quote from: "philsov"Nah, abilities can't be set to a minimum range  Only 1 or 0 AoE for the demi family.  Was planning like 30% from Demi with 1 AoE and then like 60-70% from Demi2 with 0 AoE.

Sure.

Quote from: "philsov"Different strengths/CTR/MP cost.  It's like Fire2 to Fire3.  So... not much new on that front.  And with Melt doing the same thing it'd be a fun little quirk of fire magic to all be similar in these regards.

"So Fire, what do you do for a living?"

"I move in a highly predictable pattern and make things burn!  I can also bake cookies."  

Quote from: "philsov"Tornado doing Float and Melt doing Oil (25% each, mind) would be rather crafty when coupled with the ASM.  Dunno, I need to weigh if turning float more into an enemy debuff over an ally buff is a worthwhile move.  They'd both need to gain durations as well.

Wind really wouldn't be a debuff until Tornado's available, though, and Oil is a rare enough status to not really need a duration since if its "Spell, hit, self-augmenting status, another hit" that duration really isn't going to matter anyway in respect to those two particular spells.

Quote from: "philsov"Every single one of them doing something special and unique is simply overkill.  What I'd like to see happen is either some sort of blanket proc or follow the scheme of swords/long bows and have about half of them be/do something nifty and cool.  Perhaps give them the 1.3 axe decipitate effect?  Seems rather fitting.  And then on the end-game interchangeable front I can make one be a stat booster while a stronger one is just straight WP.  I don't think there's room for three interchangeable weapons when there's a standard proc for the weapon class.  

Offensive DO proccing is another thought, but how to bring the two defensive ones into the fold?  Life Drain for Murasame and Dispel for Kiyomori?  fyi weapon procs are for that single target only.

I know all of them having procs is overkill, I was just merely thinking out loud so some could be picked and chosen from the ones that were any good.

The Axe proc was removed in ASM'D if you're offering it to Katanas, I'm assuming?  That could be a cool blanket-proc, I suppose.  Would a proc like that require they not be Two Swords-able, though?  I remember it being a rather powerful damage proc from what little I used of 1.3 Axes.

Single-target Draw Out procs could work too, though that almost seems too easy.  Life Drain and Dispel for the defensive ones work... though that really leaves us with the question of Masamume... I'd say make it inflict Stop, but that could be silly.  Then again, it's a legendary weapon with an awesome Draw Out so it'd need some big proc / WP to be worth equipping.

Life Drain Proc, now that's just bad ass for some reason.

Quote from: "Dokurider"Life Drain Proc, now that's just bad ass for some reason.

I agree, despite liking the idea of a blanket proc and then special properties for some.  


Random other thoughts I've been mulling over:

Charge skillset.  I'm pretty sure you haven't brought it up all thread, so I'm assuming it can't be edited for some reason.  If it can be, why aren't we?  It really does seem to fit into the whole category of "break the damn monotony" that ASM'D has had going on.  A lot of space has been cut out between consolidating Bio and whatnot, so I'd think at least that some of the Charges could be removed (aka, the ones really not worth using) and replaced with something else / custom.

...Possibly giving some of the removed ones to Mustadio's Snipe skillset.    Lol, I love how Mustadio's skillset becomes the receiver of every random basic skill that gets replaced.  That does seem like the best way to handle his skillset, though, a custom ability or two and then hobbled stuff from things like the vanilla Knight and otherwise unusable Charges.

On an odd note, Gafgarion.  Incredibly linear class / battles.  He's nothing but "Hahaha I have a bunch of status immunities and consistent ranged healing / damage backed by innate Concentrate!" with his Secondary ability really being the only thing that breaks the monotony... assuming he even uses it.  Is it worth expanding his skillset in some way or is this a case where it may be best to say "eh, screw it"?  I'm half-expecting you to nerf Night Sword range anyway due to ASM'D being ASM'D, so giving him more abilities might be a good idea regardless.  I'd say have one of them be a non-boss / Monster Skill exclusive Blue Magic like Dark Holy or something, but eh.  My exact idea well is pretty low right now.   ...Outside the fact I just saw him Drawing Out a Blood Sword in my head for some reason.  Heh.

Speaking of Blue Magic, I think the Spell Book contains a slight mis-naming, unless you're making new abilities up on me. I also thought Aqua Soul was in there, wasn't it?  I'm guessing finding a way to balance it out was proving too difficult, based on my experiences with high-damaging Skeletons last night with Thunder Soul.

Charge has to be a dedicated skillset. It's impossible for it to be with a noncharge action set skill. Also, it's skillset needs to be dedicated to Charge. Basically, charge is charge. You can change the skillset to include new skills, though.

Bottomline: Mustadio can't get charge without getting rid of everything else, Archer can get new skills.

Quote from: "Zaen"Charge has to be a dedicated skillset. It's impossible for it to be with a noncharge action set skill. Also, it's skillset needs to be dedicated to Charge. Basically, charge is charge. You can change the skillset to include new skills, though.

Bottomline: Mustadio can't get charge without getting rid of everything else, Archer can get new skills.

That's... painful.

Cruel one way street is a cruel one way street.

Well, we can at least GIVE Archers completely different abilities without their class acting up like a jackass like Chemists--damned Chemists--so it's not like it's impossible to make a pseudo-Charge if you really wanted to. It's just that it couldn't be at all flexible and might make the damage rather independent of the weapon type you're using since you get rid of the K value; oh, and Short Charge may effect it, though that probably wouldn't be game-breaking.

With regards to Oil and Float, IIRC when I was testing things out last year before I disappeared, I believe I tried to make Oil finite and...it didn't take. I should probably test it again considering my Bombs have an Oil-inducing Flame Attack, but I think that I am remembering somewhat correctly.

As for Float becoming a type of debuff, well, I'm pretty sure your patch is going to have a lot less Wind attacks than mine/not many more weapon attacks than normal and since Float gives you immunity to Ground, I don't see it being completely broken. (As long as you made it so that Hashy didn't automatically rape your face simply because you're Floating or got covered Oil.) Some consideration would also need to be given to Time Mage movement Float, which I think is actually somewhat more useful than people think it is. (It's just horribly overshadowed by broken Teleport.)

With regards to Masamune, you could make it proc Choco Meteor for a lulzy reference to everyone's favorite (read: vastly overrated) silver-haired psycho pretty-boy who used a sword of the same name. Otherwise, I've got nothing since I'm probably just going to get rid of Katana in my patch.

With regards to Dark Knight, I have to agree with Raven that Gafgarion is kind of boring. That said, I've more a problem with Innate Concentrate and the fact that he absorbs as much HP as he hits you for rather than like half of it (which I don't think we can fix...without ASM hacking--wink) than him being boring. Sometimes the Guile model just works (except in SF4, where you nerf Guile SO HORD the next Guile player feels it).

Still, it's not like there aren't ideas for additional Dark Knight classes, especially since I'm pretty sure Dark Knight can easily take more abilities. I haven't played the PSP version of FFT, but I know that there's a Dark Knight class in that and I think we can probably mimic everything but that conical attack. There's also Dark Knights in other FF games, so it's not like there's a lack of inspiration if you're so inclined.

Raven has pretty much covered everything else. Nice to see someone that types more than me and generally has less typos.

The worse part is charge is kind of stuck there considering there's not much you can do with archers unless you make them magical... And then it's like a ranged Rafa, if you wanna go raining elemental arrows. But then there's not even room for new skills unless you slash a good number. Then you have less room for monster skills and such.

Best to just lower the number of charges, make them slightly less powerful, and lower CT. Then they're at least useful in-class. Especially if bows get a WP boost, or archers get more PA.