QBS_ZODIAC_FFT

[Quillbeatssword]

Been working on this mod off and on for a couple years. It's a total rebalance mod. I have changed every job,spell and piece of equipment in the game to make it as balanced yet difficult as possible without resorting to cranking up the stats. I simply made it harder to deal huge damage by adding CT,Mana and range decreases to almost every ability as well as higher class evasions. Most  spells don't lock on making them easier to avoid. I would like to use a handful of the communities asm hacks in the final project with permission.

I'm going to try a bunch of gameplay screenshots when I have time to play tonight

Some of the class changes

Squires have knight break abilities and some special squires have beowulfs versions

Ramza can learn sword skills on hit as squire
I nerfed and balanced them

Most base npc jobs have Knight breaks or sword skills, some have both variations based on the type of character they are also keeping their original skills.

I removed all status immunity from human npcs excluding invite. As a result they are more likely to learn instant kill abilities and use them on you.

JP to master job levels is 0-1000,2000-8000 so most npcs will have a larger skill set at their disposal

Chemist becomes-Merchant, has move JP up,JP up, gilgame heart and item usage

Knight becomes Paladin, has protect,shell,wall, silence, Dispel magic etc
As a result priest is more healing orientation and gets "Heal" wish and the two healing summoner spells.

Black mage becomes Sorcerer and has most low cost spells from black magic,yin yang magic and time magic with reduced cts

Oracle becomes mage and has modified versions of stronger black mage spells.

Thief becomes Barbarian and has accumulate, yell, Insult and scream
With Dragonheart and HP restore
Scream and accumulate now add Berserk status.

Lancer becomes weapon master (still tweaking the skillset) Has blade grasp, meat bone slash, double hand and two swords.

Combined dancer and Bard into male and female rogue
Have negotiate, steal skills and I'm considering giving them something more. I'm leaning towards eye gouge, a Poison weapon strike and maybe the assassin moves like Shadow stitch.

Anyway. I spent a lot of time on this. I release a beta sometime this week if I'm able

[Quillbeatssword]

Update- Decided to flop some classes around.
Knights now have 3 types Holy,Dark and Ultima
Replaced standard knight with holy knight
Replaced lancer with dark Knight
Ultima knights are NPC and special characters only.

Holy knights have - magic,speed,power, and mind break as well as fire sword, Lightning sword, ice sword, holy sword and holy.

Dark knights have - Shield,head,armor and weapon break as well as Blood sword, life sword, dark sword and unholy

And
Ultima Knights have - magic,speed,power and mind ruin
As well as blaster punch, Hellcry punch, shellbust stab, icewolf bite and Ultima

Keep in mind that all the sword skills are heavily nerfed for balance.

[Aiolon]

Hello there. first of all i want to let you know that i am interested in your project and while im a nobody in this forum i still would like to try it out. i have a few questions, observations and a bit of curiosity.

these are a few questions that i believe are important and help generate more interest and posibly but rarely "hype". Note that im not a pro with mods or anything like that but i would like to know how serious and prepared you are for this task! <-- just kidding.

feel free to skip them or ignore them if you want to avoid spoilers or if theres no answer yet.

1. in terms of difficulty what can we expect from this project on a scale of 1 to 10? you mentioned you want something difficult.

2. How exactly is that rebalance for Swordskills working? i remember reading you turned them into spells so that means MA is
more important now wich is something rarely seen on knights.

3. Are we going to see New items? if not all of them then maybe a few exclusives?

4. i see you talk about human jobs but what about monsters? are we going to see new stuff?

5. Are you touching random encounters? i ask this because ENTD editing can drive a man insane and it takes FOREVER to finish.(that if you are planning to change every single battle in the game)

6. outside of FFTPatcher there are many tools and tasks that i believe are extremely important such as the spritesheets and stuff involving graphics. i know your patch is a rebalance but its always nice to see something never seen before and many of the hacks out there are pretty good for that. are you planning to delve into these things?

these are some of the questions i have but since idk the current progress of your mod maybe i should stop there. you did mention you've been working on this for a couple years but for what i can see it looks like its still in early development stage.

Observations.

hopefully im mistaken but i remember reading that each job level is going to be 1000JP.......... have you tested this? based on a very improvised and most likely wrong math calculation it should take about 35+ actions for a single unit to reach lv2 in a job.. and the average amount of actions per unit in a fight its 4-7 i could probably finish chapter 1 and only have ramza level squire once, unless i do a huge grind (wich i wouldn't mind doing since i love grinding but overleveling has consequences in this game).

I removed all status immunity from human npcs excluding invite. As a result they are more likely to learn instant kill abilities and use them on you

i failed to understand what you wanted to do here.  if im not mistaken almost every generic and player unit have no immunities  to status effects in vanilla or are you talking about immunities from items? the only "Human NPCs" aside from generics are the bosses.

[Quillbeatssword]

For starters. Thank you for your interest in my mod.

I'm Very serious. I have spent the last year or so playing with FFTpatcher, FFTtacktext, FFTorgasm and tried my hand at some minor spriting.

I've never hex edited FFT before but I have used hex to mod other games so I'm somewhat familiar with it.

Most of the year has been trial and error deciding what I do and do not want to include/Change in the patch. I'm confident in the decisions I have made and Incorporated.

1- One thing I have always disliked in games is artificial difficulty through stat boosting/A.I immunities etc. I feel certain bosses should have some immunities, Namely monsters/Zodiacs. But human characters should be just as vulnerable as the player and also have access to the same abilities including instant kill moves as the player.
To accomplish this I removed most status immunities from human characters while buffing monsters and Zodiacs to make them tougher and more useful. Then changed every skillset in the game to give the a.i access to the strongest spells in the game more often by increasing certain "Chance to learns"
I'm expecting a game far more challenging than vanilla, without the masochism of 1.3.
It should be an enjoyable experience. I'm making stat abuse impossible also by changing level drain abilities to HP/MP Drops etc.

2- I've played through chapter one a few times preparing to release a chapter 1 beta.
I have enjoyed the change personally. It seems to have genuinely balanced the skills. The still remain useful without being a roflstomp.
Especially now that they're evadeable and the damage has been nerfed.

3- I'm remaking every weapon and armor piece in the game. I'm hoping to use one of the asm mods to add % Damage reduction to armor and magic damage reduction to some cloaks and rings. The goal between job stat and item stat adjustment is to make the game more about strategic decisions instead of insta-melting each other with one hit kills.

4- I want to replace some of the monsters I personally dislike with others using available sprites on the site. I can change in game sprites but still need to watch a few tutorials on replacing formation sprites. I have a few ideas so this will definitely be happening.


5-ENTD can be a serious pain. But I do plan on changing every fight in the game, from equipment to enemy composition. I'm going to refer to 1.3 to see how they added so many extra encounters and probably do the same. Will give credit of course. A rebalance wouldn't work without a serious ENTD rework. So it's always been part of the goal. 1 chapter at a time starting with chapter 1 in the beta.

6- Absolutely. The sprites are there and I love many of them. I'd like to use some to place battles with custom join up characters and enemies as well. Also wouldn't mind using the custom miluda and golagros sprites etc. However as mentioned in 4 I need to figure out how to replace formation sprites. I have the idea I just haven't messed with it much yet.
I also noticed that a lot of times when swapping sprites there are graphical issues during some in game scenes. I haven't messed with them enough yet to know how to fix that.

The mod is in early development however all my trial and error over the last year and a half has given me a definitive plan and like I said I'm confident I'll have a release of up until the algus fight ready hopefully Friday.
TBH I'm a security guard and I get paid to sit on my laptop working on this for 10+ hours everyday and that doesn't even count the time spent on it at home lol. I have most jobs ready, I still want to tweak pretty much every spell in the game which has been a lot of getting halfway through before deciding I'm not happy with the result and removing them etc. Trial and error. Lol.

Look forward to the beta release. I'd love your feedback

Edit- And on the subject of experience. I plan to make the battles take longer so experience grinding won't really be a necessity if the fights take a lot more turns.

[Aiolon]

thanks for the reply.

1- Quote in spoiler

spoiler

1- One thing I have always disliked in games is artificial difficulty through stat boosting/A.I immunities etc. I feel certain bosses should have some immunities, Namely monsters/Zodiacs. But human characters should be just as vulnerable as the player and also have access to the same abilities including instant kill moves as the player.
To accomplish this I removed most status immunities from human characters while buffing monsters and Zodiacs to make them tougher and more useful. Then changed every skillset in the game to give the a.i access to the strongest spells in the game more often by increasing certain "Chance to learns"
I'm expecting a game far more challenging than vanilla, without the masochism of 1.3.
It should be an enjoyable experience. I'm making stat abuse impossible also by changing level drain abilities to HP/MP Drops etc.

pretty nice, i personally didnt like 1.3 because of how luck based it was most of the time.

2- just a tip! BE CAREFUL with evade %. evade its always good for the purpose of balance but this is a public project and the most infuriating and frustrating thing is missing an attack. having high evade% kills a lot of tactic and makes it more luck based and its specially annoying when your attacks always have 50-60 chance to succed.

3- glad to hear that! its very time consuming but absolutely worth it!

4- sent you a pm regarding this topic.

5- mmm yes ENTD takes several days of work but its essential. chapter 1 its easy but every chapter there are new areas unlocked to the point that when you reach chapter 4 you have acces to random battles 1,2,3,4 and 5 for each area and theres 19 green dots + 40 Deep dungeon battles + story battles. infinite respect if you finish this abomination, i did it and i wanted to quit fft forever... developers seem to get the boring part of the games ; -;.

6- the graphical glitches happen because of a magical thing called EVTCHR. those are files containing specific frames for events. open your shishi and you can see them by yourself. editing them requires spriting skills so if you like to keep the mod clean in that aspect then you are going to have to get those spriting skills leveled up...or be like the others and just ignore them 

[Quillbeatssword]

I might ignore them initially but definitely going to have to polish that up in the final release. Gameplay and balance first. Including asms. Then ENTD then finishing touches on sprites.

Also ive been a DND player for years so some degree of miss chance is a must. It will make CC spells and abilities important. But I didn't get to crazy. Base C-Ev is 15%
Then tbh if I can get the damage reduction asm to work than Armor/Shields/Cloaks will probably add Physical reduction or Magical Reduction %'s instead of evade and possibly even hp. Still messing with it to decide.

[Aiolon]

um Nice!

(Post edited)

[Quillbeatssword]

Yeah lol.. Elric pointed out that we should have just used that sticky in sprites. Put future posts there. Thank you! I'll have 1-2 Incorporated into the beta!

[Quillbeatssword]

QBS-ZODIAC PROJECT UPDATE-

Finished(Mostly) job list. Each has been nearly finished complete with Skillsets and all TactText done.

Base Job-
Jack of All-(Part of me thinks this concept was used in another patch but I don't recall. If I discover otherwise it will be changed out if respect)
Skillset- Trades
The base job for every human character and NPC excluding monsters and Lucavi.
Has some of the low JP abilities of every other job as learn on hit abilities.

Ranger-
Survival-
Reworked the charge system. It's now called focus 1-4
They also poach and have two swords innate

Monk-
Martial Arts
Tweaked the class to be more melee dependant
They can use poles and wear hats.
Wave fist became a melee stun
Earth slash is a melee strike that adds blind
They also have dash and counter tackle with 100% knock back but it's evadeable.

Barbarian-
Rage-
Has innate brave up, this mod will probably include Xifs fury system so Everytime brave up"Fury" activates the barbarian will deal and take more damage.
They also have accumulate and yell but yell is caster only.
Barbarian Rage adds Berserk, Regen and Reraise. Making them very dangerous if allowed to sit idle and build stats.

Necromancer
Necromancy-
Has a combination of spells from Demi and Poison to zombie and life drain.

Priest-
Holy Magic-
Modified vanilla priest. Lost some spells like cure 3, Holy and wall. But gained silence, Dispel Magic and The vanilla summoners beneficial abilities.

Illusionist-
Illusion-
Nothing special. A faster version of the vanilla summoner
But missing the healing and protect summons.

Evoker-
Evocation-
Still working on this one. I don't want fire, ice and lightning, 1-4. I'm trying to make each spell unique with different ranges and areas.
Like burning hands(Triple Breath)
Fireball (Flare)
Lightning bolt(Bolt 1) with a linear attack range 8 area 1 etc.

Arch mage-
Arch Magic-
Literally just a calculator with different A/S/M

Shadow Dancer-
Shadow Dance-
Ninja with jump instead of throw but I modified jump similar to charge. New A/S/M

Rogue-
Dirty Fighting-
Still tweaking. Weapon steal "Disarm", Arm and leg aim. Etc.

Samurai-
Sword Spirit-
Same with tweaked formulas and A/S/M

Druid-
Nature magic-
This one is tricky. It's a Geomancy but, I'm sorting through what monster abilities work with human sprites. The idea is to have the Learn on hit from beasts while having counter flood so I can use a different skillset instead of boring old Geo.

Merchant-
Merchandise-
Chemist, essentially. However the A/S/M Is geared for finding treasure and gaining bonus money. Gilgame heart etc.

Trader-
Goods-
Swapped the talk skills for "Throw"
A/S/M similar to chemist. Extra JP and EXP
Safeguard.

Now before you even say it. Yes. Both of them will be appreciated in this mod. Death will be easier. Item breaks far more Common. Money,JP,EXP all at reduced rates. You will starve. You will farm. And you will rage. Respect the merchant classes!

Psychic-
Psionics-
Oh yeah.
Converted most of the talk skill into free to use, faith based status inflictions. This job will P+*- you off

Holy Knight-
Dark Knight-
Ultima Knight-
All mentioned in a previous post.

Beta is coming along smoothly.

[Quillbeatssword]

Sneak peek. I haven't permanently edited the ENTD yet so the equipment they have will be different in the beta. I just quickly patched a fresh iso just to snap a couple screenshots. Tommorow probably after a few tweaks I'll go through and finish the ENTDs for chapter one in preparation for the beta release.

[Quillbeatssword]

Working on finishing up the Illusionist and Evoker skillsets and making sure to balance them as best I can in preparation to release the beta for the patch.
I've decided to flatten the job tree so that all jobs are available for the beta so they can be tested and balanced but the final release will have job requirements to unlock others. Some of the skillsets are small ATM while I decide on more customized abilities but all suggestions will be welcomed and considered.
I'm also going to try and modify all of the equipment available in chapter 1 for now but the rest will not be balanced correctly until later so if you ask chapter one things might get silly.
For now I'm just using mostly baseline vanilla modifiers and growths but I plan on changing changing them and the initial stats also.
More later.

[Quillbeatssword]

Small delay. Been fighting a migraine all day. Will finish up the patch tommorow. Sorry

[Quillbeatssword]

Dark wisper used by human

[Quillbeatssword]

Wave Around used by human
Just a couple of the learn on hits the Druid has.

[Quillbeatssword]

"Nature Magic" replaces Geomancy but retains counter flood "Natural Defenses"
Have to be learned on hit

[Quillbeatssword]

Summoning Magic became "Illusion"
They now cause statuses, have reduced Mana cost but no damage.

[Aiolon]

i hope those summoning changes are not as awkward as they sound :p
watching a giant monster electrocuting a bunch of dudes but not damaging them its plain weird in my opinion.

i need to see that in action

on the other hand~ i really like blue mage jobs (strange thing is i have never made one for my projects).
You need to be extremely careful when adding innate abilities to the jobs. if i remember correctly, innate abilities always take priority over equipped abilities and some of them don't stack with each other, making the equiped ability completely useless and in the case of reactions none of them stack.
to resume it: having an innate reaction ability makes any equipped reaction completely useless. <-- i could be mistaken but im sure im not.

[Quillbeatssword]

Actually. I made the decision to remove innates entirely.
TBH this new summoner class is good. I just got my ass handed to me in the tutorial because the chemist got Illusionist as a secondary and just kept spamming don't act and Poison while steady popping ether. Lol..

[Quillbeatssword]

I'm very close to releasing the demo. I had intended to have it ready Friday but was dead to the world with a massive migraine and to top it off some of the ASMs weren't compatible and I've had to shift some things around to compensate. Others are temperamental and only seem to work occasionally. Large headache tbh.
I'm trying to balance everything just enough to make the demo enjoyable before release. I'm also split very on a couple of the ideas ive been juggling and am still not satisfied with my current job system so I'm constantly tweaking it.
More tommorow.

[Andre Pratama]

Amazing what the name of the goods in the dressing