Final Fantasy Hacktics

Sorry this suggestion is a bit late, but can we make guns range 6 and give -1 move? Or maybe range 5. Just in the interest of balance, and not being able to create a character that can just run around and shoot everything forever.

can't give anything a movement penalty.

But the gun thing is a valid concern; I'm pretty sure Raven is itching to exploit it if possible and I'll try a bit of gun and run myself whenever I make my way there.  But honestly I don't think it'll be an overpowered tactic.

Edit:  Guns are already 6 range as is.  8 is hax :p

Holy crap, you hacked Counter Tackle!  Great job!

That's a very good point.. 8 range, 5 move max.. I could see issues. But if it works with the vanilla range, it's not a big deal by any means.

Since I've received the prototype for ASM'd off philsov a few days ago, there's probably going to be a stream tomorrow with it involved.

No.

Come hell or high water, there WILL be a goddamn stream of this game unless I fail at making it run or I get extremely tied up scrambling over my car whose engine blew today on the way to college.  At 8 in the morning.  In the fucking freezing snow.  :/

I'll try to remember to post in thread with channel link tomorrow right before I start so people who don't normally use FFH chat or follow me on justin.tv can watch if they're interested, as it'll probably be the only thing I stream tomorrow unless I feel the need for suffering at I Wanna Be The Guy or a warmup via Power Rangers: The Fighting Edition.  Lol.

Doubleposted to let anyone on here but not on chat know I'm starting a stream of this... about now, starting with me getting the damn thing set up.

Probably will be streaming it for most of the night, so click here if you want to see how ASM'D beta shapes up in play.  Yes, this is philsov approved.

QuoteNew elemental. Some of the panels are now pure PA based, some are pure MA based, and others retain their hybrid formula. In game text reflects this. Is this a worthwhile move? Or is elemental too cumbersome now?

I've been meaning to comment on this for a while, but I think this is a great idea. Not only does it make the player pay more attention to the terrain, but it also expands the amount of classes that can use Elemental effectively.

Preliminary playtesting results:

From Orbonnne Monastery to Sweegy Woods:

Orbonne Monastery played out easily.  Then again, I'm used to 1.3 Orbonne Monastery so I was expecting a challenge.  It seems good enough for getting used to the ASM'D movement ranges though while still being a challenge for someone not used to Final Fantasy Tactics hacks.

Gariland Magic City had a couple problems.  Not difficulty-wise, just enemy unit placement seemed to be way too far away.  It took ages to get the fight going since the best ranged attacks at either team's disposal was a pair of Bow Guns.  Maybe move all the melee units on their side up a little, potentially the Chemist as well.  Since there's no real ranged options on either team, this fight should still turn into a melee fuckfest quickly in my opinion so the player can get used to doing melee with 2-3 move.

Mandalia Plains... this is where I noticed something.  Red Panthers are doing almost 50 damage at Level 2.  Is this intentional?  It oneshots almost everything the player has access to, and twoshots them even if you Potion the damaged unit.  It might just be a side effect of one of the buffs you gave to monsters, but goddamn it surprised me.  Once I was used to it, things went alright, but damn.  Also, Gil Taking (or whatever you renamed it to) causing Confusion makes this fight a real bitch early on, especially when combined with the beastly panther.  Not sure if it needs to be toned a bit due to how early on it is, since its not undoable... it's just really surprising.

Random Battle coming from Igros Castle in Mandalia Plains: This fight needs a major overhaul.  That Red Panther, as beast as he is, starts way too damn close to the enemy, and the low move makes it impossible to get to him in time while still being spread out enough to not get raped by their Black Magic units, especially since they have a lot of 3 Move Squires.  Wow, afraid of Squires, rue the day.  I think you can fix this easily by moving the Red Panther back a lot closer to the starting position and spreading the enemy out some to compensate for their superior Move against your non-Squire units since this is about the time the player is probably going to begin experimenting with Knights.

Lots of Bow Guns and Throw Stone walked into Sweegy Woods, and beat up these poor monsters.  The Bombs were quite threatening, but their Flame Attack actually did not-retarded damage so they were manageable.  The Goblins never got close, so I can't comment on whether they have the ridiculous punching power the Red Panther does.  Their Turn Punch wasn't too ridiculous though.  Overall easy fight since I went in with almost all Bow Guns and Throw Stone units (but no Magic!), but I can see it easily getting messy for someone trying to melee.  Maybe Goblins should be forward some so they can get in against ranged units?  Like I said, the worst that happened to me was a max-ranged Turn Punch and maybe a single tackle against a bait unit.

Other notes:

My Knight Ramza with 7 PA does 35 damage with a Long Sword, but 49 with his fists to a neutral Red Panther.  Something seems wrong here... maybe you somehow gave everything innate Martial Arts by accident when trying to remove it from Monk?  

Text isn't edited.  Maybe I'm just partially retarded and didn't install ASM'D correctly, though.

Battle Boots aren't fixed.  That's a really big issue early game.

Special Classes (at least, those of C1 Ramza/Algus/Delita) aren't edited at all.  Also, using Counter Tackle with these classes causes some odd effect where the Secret Fist animation goes off, but the Sprite tackles, and has 50% Death Sentence instead of the PA*Whatever Secret Fist Damage with 100% Blind.  Simply using Dash leads to the same effect.  They also have Move +1, which is a big problem as well early game.

Again, I want to know if the damage monsters are doing with physical attacks is a flaw like my Knight Ramza's fists or intentional.



I think that covers everything I was able to do on Stream two nights ago.

great news to hear.

Regarding the text edits... I think you're just partially retarded.  Open up the file in tactext and patch iso again.  If that doesn't work I'll get creative.

The buff to panthers isn't intentional; the only thing I did to monsters was give them caution as a secondary reaction.  I do know their primary attack is both PA and Br dependent, so a little bit of RNG might have just boned you over.

Great notes on the placement fixes, keep it up.

No way did I give everyone innate Martial Arts, and 49 is a peculiar number because its only factors at 7 by 7.  Meaning... you had 100 Br, at least mechanically speaking trusting that they were indeed neutral compat.  This would also trickle into the monster attacks, since if the game thinks they're at 100 Br they'd be exceptionally well.  On the same note, are you seeing 100% Reaction rates?

Counter Tackle is Counter Secret Fist.  that's intentional and something fancy on the Monk class (and specials I failed to edit).  Conversely Dash IS secret fist effect, and on your untexted iso Dash should be a monk skill while Secret Fist is the squire skill.  Secret Fist squire skill is the Blind Blade attack that does standard weapon dmg + 100% Blind.  The old old Dash where you tackled for crap damage is just gone because it sucked.

Quote from: "philsov"great news to hear.

Regarding the text edits... I think you're just partially retarded.  Open up the file in tactext and patch iso again.  If that doesn't work I'll get creative.

I'll mess with it and see what happens.

Quote from: "philsov"The buff to panthers isn't intentional; the only thing I did to monsters was give them caution as a secondary reaction.  I do know their primary attack is both PA and Br dependent, so a little bit of RNG might have just boned you over.

So Br must be being removed from the equation somehow?

Quote from: "philsov"No way did I give everyone innate Martial Arts, and 49 is a peculiar number because its only factors at 7 by 7.  Meaning... you had 100 Br, at least mechanically speaking trusting that they were indeed neutral compat.  This would also trickle into the monster attacks, since if the game thinks they're at 100 Br they'd be exceptionally well.  On the same note, are you seeing 100% Reaction rates?

Exactly why I noted it.

No, I'm not seeing 100% reactions, thank god.  Maybe the *Br just got removed somehow when editing the Katana's damage formula?

Quote from: "philsov"Counter Tackle is Counter Secret Fist.  that's intentional and something fancy on the Monk class (and specials I failed to edit).  Conversely Dash IS secret fist effect, and on your untexted iso Dash should be a monk skill while Secret Fist is the squire skill.  Secret Fist squire skill is the Blind Blade attack that does standard weapon dmg + 100% Blind.  The old old Dash where you tackled for crap damage is just gone because it sucked.

I see.

I'm just saying that it does the Tackle animation over the Punch animation (Maybe rename it to Counter Secret Tackle if that's something you experience as well, IDK?).  Blind Blade works properly, though, from what I can see, though I don't know what animation is being triggered. Explains why Specials using Dash get the Secret Fist effect and not Blind Blade, however.




I had a random thought, btw.  For Equip Melee, would it be worth testing changing it from Axe/Flail/Sword to Axe/Flail/Sword/Katana/Ninja Sword and allowing Squire to equip all five of these naturally?

Since it's Squire, it shouldn't be OP damage-wise and gives Squire more long-term usability via Katanas.  Especially in Chapter 2 where you get a bunch of Katanas well before any normal human being will have a Samurai.

Granted that Squires (and by extension, Basic Skill) are better in ASM'D, would it be a change worth testing once we've gone through more of a beta of the current version, or even just doing now?

Assuming this is based off 1.3, nerf Dragon Rod WP, otherwise you'll get ninjas doing 400 damage and casting Bahamut at the same time.

ninjas don't have innate dual wield, it's a non issue .  Once you're done with chapter 1 I'll throw another patcher file your way with fixes for abilities/classes so far.

Thing with squires is the whole reason they're useless is because of their growths. I don't remember, since it's been a large number of pages.. but did the growths get bumped up from 60 PA and MA and the likes?

Quote from: "philsov"I don't think we should overextend the Equip Meleeset support to include Katanas and Ninja Swords.

It'd be one ability doing a lot, for sure, but Ninja Swords are weaker in ASM'D due to Speed Formula and lower Speeds, and Equip Knife was never a problem in the past / is gone now.

Since we can't make more "Equip X" abilities, I just thought having the flexibility to do so with Katanas and stuff would make them more useful during the earlier game phases and make things more customizable in general.  Besides, then it would truly be "Equip MELEE MOTHERFUCKER", lol.

Quote from: "philsov"But allowing the Squire class a wider choice of equipment can't be a bad thing, so that'll probably happen.  They'll probaby gets spears as well .  Once you're done with chapter 1 I'll throw another patcher file your way with fixes for abilities/classes so far.

Alright.

Hm.  This makes me wonder if it'd be worth giving all classes innate Equip Change?

Weaker classes like Squire that can use a variety of weapons would benefit from it rather greatly, and unlike innate Defend on everything it won't mess up the game's AI.

Squires having access to Swords / Spears / Bow Guns / Katanas / Ninja Swords / Daggers / Shields and Equip Change to juggle it around to the situation would be a good way to make up for their shit multipliers from the player's perspective, even if it still doesn't let us put Squires faithfully onto maps under the AI's control.

Also, can you fix Ramza/Delita to be able to equip Shields during Chapter 1 for the sake of consistency between Squires?

Quote from: "Zaen"Thing with squires is the whole reason they're useless is because of their growths. I don't remember, since it's been a large number of pages.. but did the growths get bumped up from 60 PA and MA and the likes?

I don't think so.

But that extra Move Point means oh so much more in ASM'D than it would in Vanilla.  Plus their skillset is buffed.  Again.

And my latest suggestion regarding Equip Change.

Extra weapon equip options are worthless. Katanas suck without 2 hands b/c they're Brave based, so the only options that matter are Spears, Daggers, Spell Edge, and Bow Guns, and out of those, if all the WPs are at 1.3 levels, Bow Guns are the best, so guess what they're gonna be using? The extra 2 WP you get using a Rune Blade over a Gastrafitis doesn't justify losing the tactical advantage of striking from 4 panels away. 14 over 10 is a bigger difference, if we're at vanilla stats, but in that case it's a choice between an Oberisk and a Gastrafitis. At the moment, equip options aren't really that important, especially not in the way of weapons, because everyone will just use whatever gives them the biggest bonus, meaning that at any given time, you're choosing between items within 1 WP or so of each other, and range is usually > all.

To make them actually worth a damn, weapons have to have gigantic differences in them. Knives' speed boost is huge, as is the Bow Gun's range, but everything else is pretty much moot.

My opinion:

Swords given large weapon evade %, if possible make part of it apply to M-Ev.
Spears given a WP boost or Crossbows given a WP Nerf. Maybe 1 point of both.
Ninja Swords get status effects
Katanas have something unique, maybe like one has Always:Haste, and Initial: Death Sentence, or Always: Berserk and Regen

If you wanted to go the extra mile to making all weapons pretty much equivalent in terms of utility, and stop me if this is impossible, make them all have the same formula as normal unarmed strikes, and have some of the more powerful weapons add PA.

Extra move point is really cool.

Make the Katanas elemental, based on the lore behind them/their names? Or make them have a chance of different spells being cast, from status to magic. Slash Asura, and watch fire being cast on an opponent, or Bizen Boat and they get drained MP.

Ninja Swords... I dunno about status effects. Maybe a speed point for the upper ones?

As for the formula changes.. Sometimes, it could work. I can see Swords, Spears, Katanas, Bows, and Greatswords having PA*WP straight out. Ninja Blades and Daggers make sense to be built on speed, and keep Staff and Pole with the MA*WP, with Books changing to that. For Rod, PA*WP should probably still apply, as they're meant to boost magic than anything else. Of course, WP*WP sounds ideal for Crossbow, as how does being stronger affect a trigger? Cloth could be (WP+PA)/2*SP possibly, and Harps.. whatever works, most likely WP*MA. That covers everything, right?

You ignored dictionaries.

Elemental Katanas is good, but it pretty much makes the default Samurai accessory 108 gems.

Idea for a cool weapon: Always Haste, Undead, Poison.

Quote from: "woodenbandman"Extra weapon equip options are worthless. Katanas suck without 2 hands b/c they're Brave based

Katanas are not Brave based in ASM'D.

They're PA*WP with some extra W-EV over most other weapons.

Quote from: "woodenbandman"so the only options that matter are Spears, Daggers, Spell Edge, and Bow Guns, and out of those, if all the WPs are at 1.3 levels, Bow Guns are the best, so guess what they're gonna be using? The extra 2 WP you get using a Rune Blade over a Gastrafitis doesn't justify losing the tactical advantage of striking from 4 panels away. 14 over 10 is a bigger difference, if we're at vanilla stats, but in that case it's a choice between an Oberisk and a Gastrafitis. At the moment, equip options aren't really that important, especially not in the way of weapons, because everyone will just use whatever gives them the biggest bonus, meaning that at any given time, you're choosing between items within 1 WP or so of each other, and range is usually > all.

You're only thinking in terms of range, which is really important in this hack but in this instance is being slightly overvalued.

Global C-EV and innate Weapon Guard all make Evasion a big factor.  Katanas are straight PA*WP with iirc 15% W-Ev (the most of any non-Two Hands Only weapon), and Squires have the option of Shields with their new Blind Blade attack that inflicts 100% blind on a target, allowing them to evade-hax rather well.  They also have the extra Move compared to other melee classes to justify melee over range if there's enough evasion involved to block non-gun ranged moves.  Plus, Two Hands access means you can pack a far bigger punch with a Katana while simultaneously Blind'ing the adversary.

Spears also have rather nice WP and more W-Ev than Bow Guns, so they're similar to Katanas but with more range.

You're also forgetting the opponent's evasion.  Range is > all when you hit, and unless you're packing Concentrate the enemy melee units can stack some nice evasion off on you.  If a Knight or other melee unit Speed Ruins you, you're also in dire straights because they'll get in close and beat the shit out of you since the closest thing you have to a good responding reaction is Auto Potion, which only heals 100 in ASM'D.

Quote from: "woodenbandman"To make them actually worth a damn, weapons have to have gigantic differences in them. Knives' speed boost is huge, as is the Bow Gun's range, but everything else is pretty much moot.

Knives don't give Speed in ASM'D.  They're 100% hit.

You're making all these arguments with no apparent knowledge with the changes ASM'D actually put in place on top of or in place of the ones done in 1.3.

Go read over everything and then re-evaluate your position on these things.

Bow Guns are amazing early game, but later game HP / damage / evasions stacks as well as magic really put them about on the level, if not a little behind it.

Quote from: "Zaen"Make the Katanas elemental, based on the lore behind them/their names? Or make them have a chance of different spells being cast, from status to magic. Slash Asura, and watch fire being cast on an opponent, or Bizen Boat and they get drained MP.

Would be cool, but as stated before, Katanas have WP superior to Swords, more W-Ev with innate Weapon Guard, and no longer require Brave to deal damage.

Quote from: "Zaen"Ninja Swords... I dunno about status effects. Maybe a speed point for the upper ones?

Ninja Swords do need something to compensate for Speed formula.

Quote from: "Zaen"As for the formula changes.. Sometimes, it could work. I can see Swords, Spears, Katanas, Bows, and Greatswords having PA*WP straight out.

Everything here but Long Bows already DO use the PA*WP in ASM'D.

Either people need to read the OP or philsov needs to stop being a lazy fuck and update it.  IDK which.

RE: Daggers: Okay, it wasn't in the first post, I'm not reading all 21 pages. I thought that was Flails anyway.

RE: Concentrate. It's either Concentrate, Attack UP, Two Swords or Two Hands. MAYBE defense up, but on a physical character, there's not a lot else to use your support slot on. Concentrate is probably the best or second best physical support skill in the game, and is IMO far and away the best for ranged characters. I use Concentrate on all my physical attackers in 1.3, unless I'm doing a Martial Arts ninja, and this is based on Easytype 1.3. If defenses scale so much as to exceed 50% (with Abandon in play, it's likely), I'm going Concentrate literally 100% of the time. Screw all that "hope you hit through 30% on a mantle+Shield+weapon guard combo.

So forgive me if I assume that concentrate is in play.

RE: Katanas: yeah, I missed that, mah bad.

RE: Spears: They're now pretty much the best melee weapon, with 2 range to prevent hamedo/concentrate from most people, and improving PA. I think that they should actually be forced 2 handed. Assuming Oberisk is still 12 WP and Holy Lance is still 14, I see little reason to choose a Rune blade or an Ice Brand over an equivalent spear. Ice Brand + 108 Gems is better than Oberisk, but then Holy Lances come into play and they get 108 gems and they're on top again.

So equipment options are in order of goodness: Spears/Crossbows, and everything else. Spears grant + PA, have elemental strengthening and reach, and Crossbows have a big range, which is huge in a game where the move range has been gimped. Guns would be phenomenal on a unit with 7 move (Squire + Equip Gun + Move + 2 + Germinas Boots), so they're pretty far up there on the equip options chain too.

I think that something should be done so that no weapon is objectively better than another, Especially with this new set of abilities that open up universal equip options.

It'd be really nice if early weapons still retained advantages that made them better suited to a certain situation than other weapons, similar to how a Twist Headband/Power Sleeve combo remains good even in the after-game, when rubber costumes and thief hats are around (admittedly I'd take a thief hat over a twist headband any day). Is my previous suggestion of making all weapons work like accessories that modify PA, and making all weapons do damage as fists do, at all feasible? That way a sword would pretty much always do more damage than a spear, and it'd have a cool effect besides, like one sword has better evade, and one sword grants protect.

Quote from: "woodenbandman"RE: Daggers: Okay, it wasn't in the first post, I'm not reading all 21 pages. I thought that was Flails anyway.

Yeah, I think philsov changed them into set damage 100% accuracy or something.

I forget the particulars but I know they're 100%.

Quote from: "woodenbandman"RE: Concentrate. It's either Concentrate, Attack UP, Two Swords or Two Hands. MAYBE defense up, but on a physical character, there's not a lot else to use your support slot on. Concentrate is probably the best or second best physical support skill in the game, and is IMO far and away the best for ranged characters. I use Concentrate on all my physical attackers in 1.3, unless I'm doing a Martial Arts ninja, and this is based on Easytype 1.3. If defenses scale so much as to exceed 50% (with Abandon in play, it's likely), I'm going Concentrate literally 100% of the time. Screw all that "hope you hit through 30% on a mantle+Shield+weapon guard combo.

So forgive me if I assume that concentrate is in play.

Luckily in ASM'D, normal characters cannot learn Abandon.  So the only way to get majorly evasion haxed is end game or getting hit with Blind, as many of the evasion numbers were slashed in order to make everything flow well.

Quote from: "woodenbandman"RE: Katanas: yeah, I missed that, mah bad.

Yeah, Katanas are bad ass in ASM'D.  Losing the Br aspect of the formula makes them rather nice melee weapons.

Quote from: "woodenbandman"RE: Spears: They're now pretty much the best melee weapon, with 2 range to prevent hamedo/concentrate from most people, and improving PA. I think that they should actually be forced 2 handed. Assuming Oberisk is still 12 WP and Holy Lance is still 14, I see little reason to choose a Rune blade or an Ice Brand over an equivalent spear. Ice Brand + 108 Gems is better than Oberisk, but then Holy Lances come into play and they get 108 gems and they're on top again.

Yeah, Spears / Sticks get a lot better in ASM'D as in-hand weapons, for sure.  Not sure which way is best to go to balance things out, though.  Giving them both force Two Hands and a bit more power to make them somewhere between a one-handed weapon and a two-handed one is tempting, but I want to playtest with them some before I commit that suggestion.

Swords probably need a buff in some way if we leave Spears/Sticks untouched, though, as they become rather lackluster on anything that can equip anything else.

Quote from: "woodenbandman"So equipment options are in order of goodness: Spears/Crossbows, and everything else. Spears grant + PA, have elemental strengthening and reach, and Crossbows have a big range, which is huge in a game where the move range has been gimped. Guns would be phenomenal on a unit with 7 move (Squire + Equip Gun + Move + 2 + Germinas Boots), so they're pretty far up there on the equip options chain too.

You're overrating Crossbows.  With only 4 range, you're forced to play poke and run to not eat a powerful Katana / etc blow to the face in reply, and the enemy can just stay out of your range since there's no reason to rush a gunner unless there's no other enemies left.  And again, they can easily use ranged skills to match your Crossbow.

Also, the max Move in this game is 6 as far as I can see.  Highest base Move is 3, Move +2, Germinas Boots give +1 Move.  Rubber Costume might also give +1 Move, but its essentially on the level of Maximillian in this hack.  I'm also of the odd opinion that it might be worth Philsov just tossing Move +2 entirely, but eh.

Guns also currently only have 6 range, and I intend to try making all-gunner parties at some point to see if I can break ASM'D with them or not in the spirit of the Chemist SCC or something.

Quote from: "woodenbandman"I think that something should be done so that no weapon is objectively better than another, Especially with this new set of abilities that open up universal equip options.

That's always the goal, but one must remember that using an ability to equip a more powerful weapon means you lose out on your Support Ability, meaning no (X) UP skills, no Concentrate, etc., so you either forgo those in a game where they're probably more important than ever or get stuck to the small pool of units that uses Crossbows / Spears / Sticks.

Quote from: "woodenbandman"It'd be really nice if early weapons still retained advantages that made them better suited to a certain situation than other weapons, similar to how a Twist Headband/Power Sleeve combo remains good even in the after-game, when rubber costumes and thief hats are around (admittedly I'd take a thief hat over a twist headband any day). Is my previous suggestion of making all weapons work like accessories that modify PA, and making all weapons do damage as fists do, at all feasible? That way a sword would pretty much always do more damage than a spear, and it'd have a cool effect besides, like one sword has better evade, and one sword grants protect.

I'm thinking if we end up making Spears / Sticks Two Hands Only with a minor boost to compensate for lack of L Hand weapon / Two Hands boosting, everything evens out a lot except maybe Guns.  4 range on Crossbows is noteworthy, but without Equip Bow only two lower level classes have access to them while still being able to use Concentrate and many other weapons should be out-WP'ing them or otherwise providing noteworthy benefits.  Plus like I said, 4 range isn't enough to keep away from melee units with ranged skills... or Magic, honestly.  You must also remember all forms of magic in this as well, since if the weapon gets crapped on by mages its going to be less attractive anyway.