FFT: ASM'D main info/discussion

[The Damned]

Yeah, as much as I like Archer (I plan on pretty much using the class for the majority of my current 1.3 playthrough if I can), they have multiple drawbacks the further on the game gets between their linear abilities that make movement sometimes impossible for them if they want damage, Arrow Guard at least halving their accuracy even if they have the brokenness that is Concentrate (which is kind of ironic since both abilities come from Archer), Two Swords being better with Charge (but that's because Two Swords itself is largely broken or, at least, overpowered), guns becoming available (more of a problem with magical guns than anything else), being height dependent when you often start at the bottom of the map and having to take really awkward and/or clumped up positions.

Oh, and there's also the really minor issue of having the accuracy reduced at night if you don't have Concentrate equipped, but that pops up so infrequently that it's hardly worth mentioning.

That said, there quite a few just outright redundant skills that you could cannibalize to give Archer a completely different set (and it would definitely work if you gave Archer was the only one that you were giving a lot of abilities). Off top of my head I know that you can use one of the Seals, two of the Small Bombs, the Panther's Blood Suck (since Elmdor is the one with "Must Live as a Vampire!"), one of the Fire Bracelets, one of the Ice Bracelet, one of the Thunder Bracelets, maybe one of the Tentacles (I keep needing to test to see if there's a difference between the Squid and the Morbol graphically; I don't think there is though) and probably some crappier abilities that no one uses like Steal Exp and Negotiate to make up a new skill set.

It's too bad that I don't think we can get replicate Faster (in both terms of the ability and in speed) without ASM (wink) since that was one of the few good things about FFTA.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Well, we can at least GIVE Archers completely different abilities without their class acting up like a jackass like Chemists--damned Chemists--

Well, Philsov did mess with the effects of the non-Remedy, non-Holy Water healing items to make them do odd things like Slow + Protect, though the options were kind of limited IIRC.

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.

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.)

It's a good thing that Teleport will only exist on enemy boss units in ASM'D then, as far as I remember.  The ability to Float over water and such is better in ASM'D as well, since your average movement is going to be 2-3 squares per turn and cutting over that river will save eons of time in ways that sometimes even Fly won't be able to match perfectly.

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).

I don't find the straight damage : HP thing to be an issue since the 1.3 carryover changes make Swordskills evadable.  He's healing full but only hitting half to three quarters, so it kind of balances out.  That, and he can end up manascrewed for a turn and forced to waste a turn Dark Sword'ing for more MP.

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.

Unholy Sacrifice from the PSP version could be a cool addition to his moveset, but Crushing Blow is really ridiculous IIRC and is like Night Sword -healing +more damage and range.  We can't replicate the cone thing, though?  That sucks.

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

Heh.  People usually hate me on forums because I can type not-Twitter levels of text.

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.

Well, the Archers in ASM'D use 1.3 Archers as the baseline, so the Charge skillset and Archers themselves already start out a good bit ahead.  It's just that many Charges that are close together are useless.  I can't think of many instances where I used something that wasn't Charge 1/3/5/10/20 and had it make a game-breaking level of difference from the nearest in those five.

Considering their entire skillset can be consolidated into 6 abilities, it seems kind of wasteful to have the others since (unlike Black Magic) its not like there's a true power scaling going on... if anything, the skillset scales in reverse as you level up.

That said, there quite a few just outright redundant skills that you could cannibalize to give Archer a completely different set (and it would definitely work if you gave Archer was the only one that you were giving a lot of abilities). Off top of my head I know that you can use one of the Seals, two of the Small Bombs, the Panther's Blood Suck (since Elmdor is the one with "Must Live as a Vampire!"), one of the Fire Bracelets, one of the Ice Bracelet, one of the Thunder Bracelets, maybe one of the Tentacles (I keep needing to test to see if there's a difference between the Squid and the Morbol graphically; I don't think there is though) and probably some crappier abilities that no one uses like Steal Exp and Negotiate to make up a new skill set.

...Heh.  So many redundant skills.  To think Philsov was already going to consolidate the entire Bio series into one spell set, and I was trying to get him to consolidate Sleep/Sleep2 and Toad/Toad2.   I think the two Seals are different, though (IIRC, one is straight petrify, one is damage w/ procs), and Vampire's Blood Suck has a radically different success rate from Elmdor's.  Besides that, though... it's almost depressing to see that there's at least 4 abilities (maybe 6, pending on if all the Small Bombs are actually different some way or not) that can be bastardized on top of all the others.  Such a waste of space to have so many redundant skills.

It seems like the game has plenty of room to toss Mustadio, Gafgarion, and the Archer all a few abilities each and have plenty left over for whatever Philsov is planning while barely changing anything at all before factoring his new abilities in.  That really is just outright depressing.

[The Damned]

It's a good thing that Teleport will only exist on enemy boss units in ASM'D then, as far as I remember.  The ability to Float over water and such is better in ASM'D as well, since your average movement is going to be 2-3 squares per turn and cutting over that river will save eons of time in ways that sometimes even Fly won't be able to match perfectly.

Ah, I wasn't aware of that.

That's very good then, especially since it makes Float one of the few things to be able to take advantage of Depth 2 water. Very good.

I don't find the straight damage : HP thing to be an issue since the 1.3 carryover changes make Swordskills evadable.  He's healing full but only hitting half to three quarters, so it kind of balances out.  That, and he can end up manascrewed for a turn and forced to waste a turn Dark Sword'ing for more MP.

Oh, so he won't have Innate Concentrate like he has in 1.3? That's a good start, then. Still, I'd personally for him to not absorb as much HP just because it makes the Lionel ambush kind of stupid.

Unholy Sacrifice from the PSP version could be a cool addition to his moveset, but Crushing Blow is really ridiculous IIRC and is like Night Sword -healing +more damage and range.  We can't replicate the cone thing, though?  That sucks.

I wasn't aware of Crushing blow.

We definitely can't replicate the cone thing since it's hardcoded. I'm pretty sure it would probably be one of the harder ASMs even though I don't know exactly what the attack looks like.

That said, there is perhaps a potential problem with giving Gafgarion more Dark Knight-esque moves from other games. A lot of those techniques (such as Dark Wave) tend to hit the user for a bit of damage as well, and the only formula's that work like that are the Workers' formulas, which don't except Status. (Outside of maybe Compress's slot since they can add Dead.) I don't think those formulas take elemental attributes either, but that I'm not sure of.

Heh.  People usually hate me on forums because I can type not-Twitter levels of text.

Ugh. Please don't get me started on Twitter.

...Heh.  So many redundant skills.  To think Philsov was already going to consolidate the entire Bio series into one spell set, and I was trying to get him to consolidate Sleep/Sleep2 and Toad/Toad2.   I think the two Seals are different, though (IIRC, one is straight petrify, one is damage w/ procs), and Vampire's Blood Suck has a radically different success rate from Elmdor's.  Besides that, though... it's almost depressing to see that there's at least 4 abilities (maybe 6, pending on if all the Small Bombs are actually different some way or not) that can be bastardized on top of all the others.  Such a waste of space to have so many redundant skills.

It seems like the game has plenty of room to toss Mustadio, Gafgarion, and the Archer all a few abilities each and have plenty left over for whatever Philsov is planning while barely changing anything at all before factoring his new abilities in.  That really is just outright depressing.

Yeah, it really is. If I remember correctly from my tests with On the Skulls of Dragons, there's at least 20 outright redundant abilities.

That Seal difference that you're talking about is something that Voldemort did. The only difference in the Seals that exist in vanilla is that the Assassin Seal is unusable because its marked wrong for the AI and it has a different animation (Sunken State, which makes no sense); otherwise it was just supposed to be 100% Petrify like the Zodiac's Seal.

Similarly, there's the only real difference between Elmdor's Blood Suck and Panther's Blood Suck is that Elmdor has the "Must Live as a Vampire!" sign hardcoded into it. The reason for the really different hit rate is because they use different Inflict Statuses (something that I finally noted in the Wiki over the weekend since apparently no one had done in the year that I've been gone); Elmdor's use All or Nothing Blood Suck, which is 100% Blood Suck, where as the Panther uses Separate Blood Suck, which is 25% Blood Suck even when the formula says it can hit at 100% like the formula they both use does.

(I'm pretty sure I'm remembering this correctly, but I'm currently going off memory since FFTPatcher isn't opened and I'm kind of in the middle of something else.)

The only difference between all three Small Bombs is graphics that are supposed to match up to the type of Bomb using them; I just decided to go with red personally and say "let's do something new" with the other two.

I can't believe I forgot Bio since I also consolidated them. Yeah, those definitely should be consolidated. 10 abilities become 3, saving you 7 spaces. Geez.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Oh, so he won't have Innate Concentrate like he has in 1.3? That's a good start, then. Still, I'd personally for him to not absorb as much HP just because it makes the Lionel ambush kind of stupid.

I can't believe I said that in reply to him having innate Concentrate and somehow forgot innate Concentrate canceled that out.

Fuck, I'm stupid.

Eh, the lowered move rates combined with what I'm again guessing is a likely range nerf on Night Sword (though Phil may not, we've not really discussed Dark Knight until about now, I'm just hypothesizing based on precedent) means it should be more bearable.

It does make the ambush kind of stupid either way, but not drastically so.  It's still at least plenty doable, especially since the 1.3 base means you can try manascrewing him and positioning so you can get in close before he can Dark Sword, etc.
   

That said, there is perhaps a potential problem with giving Gafgarion more Dark Knight-esque moves from other games. A lot of those techniques (such as Dark Wave) tend to hit the user for a bit of damage as well, and the only formula's that work like that are the Workers' formulas, which don't except Status. (Outside of maybe Compress's slot since they can add Dead.) I don't think those formulas take elemental attributes either, but that I'm not sure of.

Well, I know Eternal's patch has Gafgarion using a bunch of moves that hit himself for HP damage as well.  So it must be possible to some degree.  It'd also further justify Night Sword doing full HP heal, since it compensates for his other techniques.

Either way, there's no reason his techs would need to be directly based on previous Dark Knight skills anyway.  They could just be kind of inspired by.

Yeah, it really is. If I remember correctly from my tests with On the Skulls of Dragons, there's at least 20 outright redundant abilities.

...Wow.  Just, wow.

Could you give a full list, if you can remember them?  I think it'd make everyone's life easier since there'd be a known limit as to how many abilities Philsov can cram in before actually needing to off things.

That Seal difference that you're talking about is something that Voldemort did. The only difference in the Seals that exist in vanilla is that the Assassin Seal is unusable because its marked wrong for the AI and it has a different animation (Sunken State, which makes no sense); otherwise it was just supposed to be 100% Petrify like the Zodiac's Seal.

Ah.  To be honest I kind of like Voldemort's version a bit better.  Maybe offing the 100% Petrify version would be worthwhile since it does seem kind of silly since its pretty much instant kill plus.

Similarly, there's the only real difference between Elmdor's Blood Suck and Panther's Blood Suck is that Elmdor has the "Must Live as a Vampire!" sign hardcoded into it. The reason for the really different hit rate is because they use different Inflict Statuses (something that I finally noted in the Wiki over the weekend since apparently no one had done in the year that I've been gone); Elmdor's use All or Nothing Blood Suck, which is 100% Blood Suck, where as the Panther uses Separate Blood Suck, which is 25% Blood Suck even when the formula says it can hit at 100% like the formula they both use does.

I'm getting the odd feeling a Vampire Cat with 100% Blood Suck would be broke though, and making Elmdor's go down to 25% seems not really worth it.  It seems like this is one case where it might be worth keeping the difference.

The only difference between all three Small Bombs is graphics that are supposed to match up to the type of Bomb using them; I just decided to go with red personally and say "let's do something new" with the other two.

Philsov's using a 1.3 base, so I'm pretty sure Small Bomb in this patch is pretty much a giant AoE explosion in the vein of Fire 4, unless he's edited it.  Even if he did change it back or re-edit it, I agree with your take.  No reason for 3 unless he's using the vanilla version of it.

I can't believe I forgot Bio since I also consolidated them. Yeah, those definitely should be consolidated. 10 abilities become 3, saving you 7 spaces. Geez.

Yeah, lol.  It's ridiculously stupid.

[The Damned]

(Aside: Lol. The forum server crapped out right as I tried to post this. Thankfully I didn't have to redo my post in its entirety.)

With regards to a full list, I'm a bit annoyed to describe that apparently I didn't bother to make a list in the lengthy Word document I had made regarding my testing. I think I pretty much listed everything already for the most part, but that's obviously not including things that I feel are extremely similar or could be benefited by either making them differing or getting rid of one of them. I'll try not to include those in the list:

• There are two Seals. (The Assassin Seal is the one that should be replaced since it was misflagged for the AI to Cancel Status instead of Add it, which is why the Assassins never use it; it also has Sunken State animation instead of Seal animation. It's between Sky Demon Back and Shadow Stitch.)
• There are three Small Bombs. (They only vary graphically. IMO, Red is the one to go with, especially since that is already among the monster skills. The other two are next to each other between Blind 2 and Confuse 2).
• There are two Blood Sucks. (Elmdor's is superior both due to status and do the fact that it has "Must Live as a Vampire!" That said, there is perhaps merit in what you said about it begin a bit too broken to give a Vampire. Still, the Vampire one is between Poison Nail and Tentacle (for Squid).)
• There are two Tentacles. (One for Squids, which has graphic "150 Tentacle" and has 2 Vertical. And one for Morbols, which has graphic "178 Tentacle" and has only 1 Vertical. They can probably be consolidated, though I haven't tested them admittedly.)
• There are two Fire Bracelets. (One for Reis which has more MA and one for Dragons which have less. IMO, just balance Dragon's MA growth and up the MA for whichever one you go with.)
• There are two Ice Bracelets. (See above.)
• There are two Thunder Bracelets. (See above.)
• There are three Bio 1 spells. (They can be consolidated rather easy since they're all about status and only differ graphically through color.)
• There are four Bio 2 spells. (See above. Their collective status inflict would probably need to be weakened to Separate since unlike Bio 1 and Bio 3 they use All or Nothing in their original form.)
• There are three Bio 3 spells. (See above.)
• There are two Shocks. (Personally, I would get rid of both Beowulf's and Byblos's because Shock is a broken attack, but that's just me. Regardless, they supposedly have a slightly different graphic but are otherwise the same. For some reason, neither of them are near the other skills in their skill set. Byblos's Shock is after the gap that's Stop Bracelet/Stop Breath and Beowulf's Shock is for some reason between Holy Bracelet and Braver. Maybe he wants to secretly have a threesome with Cloud and Reis? Who knows.)
• There are two Death Sentence's. (Mediator's is affected by Finger Guard and has more vertical, yes, but I would say that it's a lot more useless than an Ahriman's even though Death Sentence is pretty crappy skill. I'd personally change both of them to something else, but if you're only changing one, then Death Sentence's slot can make a Threaten that's legitimately guarded by Finger Guard.)

I think I got all of them, but that's already 16 (17 if you count Death Sentence and 19 if you get rid of the other Shock and the other Death Sentence) and that's not even counting stuff that's still extremely similar (Monk's "Spin Fist" is basically the exact same thing as Goblin's "Turn Punch" minus the fact that Spin Fist has no Vertical), stuff that is somewhat monotonous to the point almost being redundant in use like Black Magic, stuff that's just generally useless like Negotiate and stuff that's generally broken like Yell or Cheer Song or Slow Dance.

So...yeah. There's spaces. Not enough to give all classes 16 abilities (unfortunately, since that was what I was trying with OtSoD), at least with us still being unable to affect Math Skill or Items or Charge or Jump or Throw (being able to change this would gives us 54 more slots, but alas). Even by using the blank spaces I fell short.

(Well, the ones that can be used, which I think are seven in total. The one at the very beginning/top is Attack, and I believe other blanks one are actually used. IIRC, one of them is for the demon summoning that Zodiacs like Velius and Altima do at the beginning of the fight.)

So...yeah.

FFH WHERE ALL YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE!

[RavenOfRazgriz]

So...

-1 Seal (favoring the custom one from 1.3)
-2 Small Bombs
-1 Tentacle
-1 Fire Bracelet  (favoring whichever better fits the average damage output in this patch)
-1 Thunder Bracelet  (above)
-1 Ice Bracelet  (above)
-1 Shock
-1 Death Sentence (favoring the Ahriman's... though I think he already did this.)
-1 Cheer Song
-1 Slow Dance
(Yell was modified to just be Haste in 1.3)
Consolidate Bio-a : Bio-b : Bio-c
Consolidate Bio 2-a : Bio 2-b : Bio 2-c : Bio 2-d
Consolidate Bio 3-a : Bio 3-b : Bio 3-c
Consolidate Spin Fist : Turn Fist (favoring Turn Fist, imo)
Consolidate Sleep : Sleep 2
Consolidate Toad : Toad 2
Consolidate Blind : Blind 2
+2 for overlooked consolidations (something I likely did, to the point this number is probably too small)
+7 free spaces

...31 ability slots.  Heh.  For someone like me whose only looking for every class to have a useful ability set (which shouldn't take more than 12 per class, IMO) and ASM'D using non-custom Blue Magics over Math Skill (essentially making the fact it can't be edited null), I think 31 slots should be plenty to fluff the crappier skillsets up to usability and still have more than enough to give bosses and whatnot a few more unique skills.  Philsov's not above editing truly useless skills (or busted ones) directly (Gil Taking -> Muddle) either, so dead weight can/will likely also be cut that way, I'm sure.

He's already using some of these (Mediator has both 1.3 skills and vanilla skills), but a bit of finesse should leave more than enough room for new skills... assuming Philsov wants to put the work in.  =p

MY DREAMS ARE SLOWING COMING TO FRUITION, THANK YOU FFH.

[formerdeathcorps]

You can consolidate a lot more than that; just from a vanilla patch:

-1 Seal
-1 Blood Suck
-2 Small Bomb
-12 Monster Base Generics (16 monster classes, all of them use the same damage formula, one attack suffices for them all; the animation is always correct, the only thing glitchy will be the sound...only exceptions will be triple attack, throw spirit, leaf dance, and whatever move you keep to mimic across monsters)
-3 Elemental Breath
-1 Shock
-2 Bio
-3 Bio2
-2 Bio3
-15 Free Spaces (since replacing Teleport Send/Arrive will not actually glitch the game)
That's 42 right there.

Some more controversial ones:
TK/Oracle (+14+7 if you include Blind 2, Confuse 2, Lose Voice, Darkness, Despair 2, Hold Tight, and Threaten)
AK/Knight Stat Breaks (+4+2 if you include Circle and Beaking)
No Speed Boosts (+3)
No Invite/Steal Gil/Steal EXP (+5)
DS (+1)
Level Up/Down (+2)
Turn Punch/Spin Fist (+1)
No Stat Boosts (+4)
Cheer Up/Praise (+1)
Frog/Toad 2 (+1)
Death Cold/Slow (+1)
Don't Move/Chicken Race (+1)
Redundant Work Skillset (+3)
Loss/Stop (+1)
Allure/Charm (+1--though this is if you really want to restrict charm)
Wish/Energy (+1)
That's 53 more for a total of 95.  Of course, 1.3 had its own uses for some of the above, so this number's too high, but you should get the picture.

[The Damned]

It may be the fact that I've been up for 24 hours, but I'm not understanding this bit.

For someone like me whose only looking for every class to have a useful ability set (which shouldn't take more than 12 per class, IMO) and ASM'D using non-custom Blue Magics over Math Skill (essentially making the fact it can't be edited null)....

What do you mean by non-custom Blue Magics? If they're non-custom, why wouldn't you just use the ones already in the monster slots?

[RavenOfRazgriz]

It may be the fact that I've been up for 24 hours, but I'm not understanding this bit.

For someone like me whose only looking for every class to have a useful ability set (which shouldn't take more than 12 per class, IMO) and ASM'D using non-custom Blue Magics over Math Skill (essentially making the fact it can't be edited null)....

What do you mean by non-custom Blue Magics? If they're non-custom, why wouldn't you just use the ones already in the monster slots?

...That's exactly what I said.

Math Skill is replaced by an ability set that already uses all existing abilities, so the fact its space can't be used doesn't mean much even if it does mean we're down 10 or so custom abilities, since we're not down the additional 10-16 skills that will be Blue Magics.

[The Damned]

Oh. I thought you had meant that you were some how able to ASM'd hack Math Skill and replaced it just with monster skills; I'd literally kill to be able to change those spaces, so I was confused to say the least.

What you're talking about is basically just making Calculator into Blue Mage by replacing all of Math Skill, correct?

(Since this is somewhat off-topic, I will now attempt to remain topical: Seriously, Masamune having the change to cast Choco Meteor [or even Meteor] would be lulzy and you know want it, Mr. Spoof Text patch.)

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Oh. I thought you had meant that you were some how able to ASM'd hack Math Skill and replaced it just with monster skills; I'd literally kill to be able to change those spaces, so I was confused to say the least.

What you're talking about is basically just making Calculator into Blue Mage by replacing all of Math Skill, correct?

Lol, yeah.  The same way 1.3 made Calculators into Sages.  It'd be cool if Philsov does a spriteswap with a Blue Mage sprite (I'm sure there's more than one lying around), but I doubt he cares that much.  Or at least he hasn't let on he does yet.

(Since this is somewhat off-topic, I will now attempt to remain topical: Seriously, Masamune having the change to cast Choco Meteor [or even Meteor] would be lulzy and you know want it, Mr. Spoof Text patch.)

Masamune proc'ing Meteor... too bad it'd be a single-target Meteor (lolwut?), because I'd love to see Elmdor walk up, swing, proc Meteor, and kill himself along with the player's entire party.

Best.  Fight.  Ever.

Choco Meteor would be lulzy, though.  If only because you're equating Sephiroth with a meteor that falls down and goes "Ding!"



EDIT:

I remember a long time ago there was talk about being able to remove Guests from the formation screen (and instead have them spawn in during each relevant battle) and instead allocate the 4(?) spots Guests had to the player for more units.

Is this possible?  If it's possible, is it possible to add more Worker 8 and Byblos-style monsters to the game without overwriting either of those / Holy Dragon Reis?  If the answer to both is yes, I think I just had an epic idea.



Also, has Golem been edited in any way?  If not, should it be edited so it can't be used to cheese the AI?  Maybe it's just me, but I can't stand abilities that straight-up allow AI cheesing like that.

[philsov]

Holy piggy-backed text wall.  

The Axe proc was removed in ASM'D if you're offering it to Katanas, I'm assuming?

Yes.  With the new formula Axes don't need much else, and certainly not the decapitate proc.

Charge skillset.

Is its own little island much like throw and jump and draw out and elemental.  What is possible are charge-like abilities, since the Swordskill formula -- PA * WP + K is quite similar.  Still bones the everliving crap out like 50% of the weapon types (SP/PA, PA/MA, WP*WP, etc) however.  And then they can be given new skills to boot.  But continue reading.

However, the charge abilities themselves aren't normal abilities in the first place, so I can't remove them and insert a spell into that slot.  

On an odd note, Gafgarion.

Is due for a new skill or two, likely borrowing a formula from Worker 8 and hopefully be given AoE, effect/animation permitting.

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?

Don't think Aqua Soul was ever up there.  I may have put Drown (<3 Skip Sandwich) up for a blip or two, but I'm pretty sure that's been the list for the last week+.  But.. I'm not seeing any typos, either.  Choco Cure (chocobo), Goblin Punch (gobu), Blaster (kitty), Small Flame (bomb), Drain Touch (ghoul, melee-range MP drain), Leaf Dance (tree), Thunder Breath (dragon), Wave Around (bull), Sudden Cry (behemoth), Dark Holy (skeles), MAYBE triple-attack (tiamat), and then Bio3 plus melt/tornado/quake funsies.

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

Windslash bow and tornado and... uh... think that's it :p

With regards to Masamune, you could make it proc Choco Meteor

A-ha, forgot about that one.  Time Mage Meteor is overkill, but choco meteor is just awesome -- I just need to delve into FFTPatcher and see if the monster abilities are past the FF mark or not, since iirc only the first 256 abilities can be used as procs on weapons.  Otherwise, I'll just resort to a Comet (new TM spell) proc, which will also have the choco meteor effect.  

~

@ability listings -- those are excellent, thanks to all of you.  I'll do a tally hopefully over the weekend and we'll see what's still left to mess with and go from there for archers/musty/gaf/etc.  

I remember a long time ago there was talk about being able to remove Guests from the formation screen (and instead have them spawn in during each relevant battle) and instead allocate the 4(?) spots Guests had to the player for more units.

Is this possible? If it's possible, is it possible to add more Worker 8 and Byblos-style monsters to the game without overwriting either of those / Holy Dragon Reis? If the answer to both is yes, I think I just had an epic idea.

I don't know.  I know how to rig up guests to never be in formation, but opening up those last 4 slots for normal characters will require some forum prowling.  

As for the monsters, not that I'm aware off unless I consolidate Ultima and Archiac demon which is the only thing I'm willing to combine/lose.

Golem

Isn't easy to hack.  At this point I'd rather have Golem, exploitable, than no Golem.

Blue Mage Sprite

Most of the custom sprites to date are for (LAME~) special characters and lack the palette to be a complete generic class, coupled with the fact that I need both male and female variants.  Besides, Calcs are blue >_>.

[Dokurider]

Do you have anything in store for Scream?

[philsov]

Hadn't thought much on it -- in retrospect berserk is more of a liability than a boon.

How does 100% self haste/regen/defending sound?  Haste and Regen of course from the modified Cheer Up and Yell (dammit, need bring back old cheer up too imo, and Old wish would be kinda cool too), with the defending perk to make said action mean a little more.

[Dokurider]

Sounds good, I like it. I would like that for the Ramza 1v1 battles...err, battle.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Is its own little island much like throw and jump and draw out and elemental.  What is possible are charge-like abilities, since the Swordskill formula -- PA * WP + K is quite similar.  Still bones the everliving crap out like 50% of the weapon types (SP/PA, PA/MA, WP*WP, etc) however.  And then they can be given new skills to boot.  But continue reading.

However, the charge abilities themselves aren't normal abilities in the first place, so I can't remove them and insert a spell into that slot.

Well, like you (and others earlier in the thread) said, you can take Charge skills out of the skill set then put new ones in their place (if I'm reading the previous posts correctly in relation to Charge), but you merely can't overwrite the actual Charge skills themselves.  Cutting the unnecessary Charges and adding a couple abilities seems like it'd be highly worthwhile, even if you can't use the slots from the removed Charge abilities.

There's more pressing stuff to give abilities to (Mustadio / Gafgarion / some other guys), but Archer doing something beyond "I shoot a bow!  Now I shoot a bow STRONGER!" would be nice.

Is due for a new skill or two, likely borrowing a formula from Worker 8 and hopefully be given AoE, effect/animation permitting.

At least.  A Gafgarion who actually has an ability pool and lowered predictability would be a very nice change of pace.

Don't think Aqua Soul was ever up there.  I may have put Drown (<3 Skip Sandwich) up for a blip or two, but I'm pretty sure that's been the list for the last week+.  But.. I'm not seeing any typos, either.  Choco Cure (chocobo), Goblin Punch (gobu), Blaster (kitty), Small Flame (bomb), Drain Touch (ghoul, melee-range MP drain), Leaf Dance (tree), Thunder Breath (dragon), Wave Around (bull), Sudden Cry (behemoth), Dark Holy (skeles), MAYBE triple-attack (tiamat), and then Bio3 plus melt/tornado/quake funsies.

Eh, could've sworn I saw it.

Anywho.  Small Flame was what I was talking about.  There's a Small Bomb and a Flame Attack but no Small Flame I'm aware of, unless you're adding something to the Bomb skillset.  =p

Triple Attack could be cool, I hadn't thought of that.

Windslash bow and tornado and... uh... think that's it :p

Oh.  Hurricane.  But that's an enemy only skill unless you Monster Skill a 1.3 Juravis.

I don't think its worth worrying about.

A-ha, forgot about that one.  Time Mage Meteor is overkill, but choco meteor is just awesome -- I just need to delve into FFTPatcher and see if the monster abilities are past the FF mark or not, since iirc only the first 256 abilities can be used as procs on weapons.  Otherwise, I'll just resort to a Comet (new TM spell) proc, which will also have the choco meteor effect.

I was kind of expecting you to shoot that suggestion into the ground.

I am totally psyched and ready to steal Elmdor's shit in this patch now.

I don't know.  I know how to rig up guests to never be in formation, but opening up those last 4 slots for normal characters will require some forum prowling.  

As for the monsters, not that I'm aware off unless I consolidate Ultima and Archiac demon which is the only thing I'm willing to combine/lose.

The last part sucks.

I was thinking you could add some really special random battles where you run into Join After Event special monsters like a White Chocobo with Mimic or something.  That'd been a very nice touch.

Rigging Guests to never be in the Formation Screen should be done, personally.   IIRC it means you can ensure that Guests have levels equal to the party (relevant for Delita / Algus / Beowulf and possibly Rafa, mostly), and that they've got an equipment / ability loadout that's at least moderately useful for the fight at hand, which are two of the more infuriating things to deal with when you have a character whose a Guest that sticks around for half the Chapter.

Isn't easy to hack.  At this point I'd rather have Golem, exploitable, than no Golem.

The Damned's old patch thread (which I looked at out of curiousity when the two of us were discussing, lol) said he had heavily weakened Golem, which caused me to remember it.

Though I'd disagree with the stance entirely about exploitable > none.  Causing mages and such to never use magic is a fairly ridiculous level of exploitation.

Most of the custom sprites to date are for (LAME~) special characters and lack the palette to be a complete generic class, coupled with the fact that I need both male and female variants.  Besides, Calcs are blue >_>.

Heh.

I'm just sick of looking at that damn Calculator sprite.  It's so... clunky looking.

But you're right.  At least it's blue.

[The Damned]

Is due for a new skill or two, likely borrowing a formula from Worker 8 and hopefully be given AoE, effect/animation permitting.

Excellent.

A-ha, forgot about that one.  Time Mage Meteor is overkill, but choco meteor is just awesome -- I just need to delve into FFTPatcher and see if the monster abilities are past the FF mark or not, since iirc only the first 256 abilities can be used as procs on weapons.  Otherwise, I'll just resort to a Comet (new TM spell) proc, which will also have the choco meteor effect.

Yeah, I just turned it into Comet in my own patch.

Well, like you (and others earlier in the thread) said, you can take Charge skills out of the skill set then put new ones in their place (if I'm reading the previous posts correctly in relation to Charge), but you merely can't overwrite the actual Charge skills themselves.

If only.

You seem to misunderstand. Charge can't be with anything else BUT Charge skills, just like Jump, Item, and Throw.

It's rather annoying. Charge, however, can be replaced entirely by another skillset just like Jump can without acting like a bitch, like Item does (and Draw Out...and maybe Throw, IIRC).

Windslash bow and tornado and... uh... think that's it :p

Oh.  Hurricane.  But that's an enemy only skill unless you Monster Skill a 1.3 Juravis.

I don't think its worth worrying about.

There's also Air Knife, Wind Soul, Iga Knife (or whatever its opposite is) and that's about it.

So I guess that means you're not adding any Wind attacks then, philsov.

The Damned's old patch thread (which I looked at out of curiousity when the two of us were discussing, lol) said he had heavily weakened Golem, which caused me to remember it.

Though I'd disagree with the stance entirely about exploitable > none.  Causing mages and such to never use magic is a fairly ridiculous level of exploitation.

To be fair, I just made Golem add Protect and even then I was uncertain of doing that and I only did that because got rid of Protect 2 (which was part of the uncertainty).

The only other way I could think to "nerf" it could be if maybe you could limit the protection to just the person that's casting it, but even that still doesn't solve the problem of AI exploitation. That or make it be able to fail or have a really low success rate, but even then....

[RavenOfRazgriz]

If only.

You seem to misunderstand. Charge can't be with anything else BUT Charge skills, just like Jump, Item, and Throw.

It's rather annoying. Charge, however, can be replaced entirely by another skillset just like Jump can without acting like a bitch, like Item does (and Draw Out...and maybe Throw, IIRC).

Oic.

I guess I was having a hard time distinguishing "Charge" from "Charge"... heh.

There's also Air Knife, Wind Soul, Iga Knife (or whatever its opposite is) and that's about it.

So I guess that means you're not adding any Wind attacks then, philsov.

I'd forgotten Wind Soul existed.  Dayum.

To be fair, I just made Golem add Protect and even then I was uncertain of doing that and I only did that because got rid of Protect 2 (which was part of the uncertainty).

The only other way I could think to "nerf" it could be if maybe you could limit the protection to just the person's that casting it, but even that still doesn't solve the problem of AI exploitation. That or make it be able to fail or have a really low success rate, but even then....

...That's exactly what I was thinking, having it add Protect to all allies or something.

The only possible problem with this is that ASM'D's Protect 2 probably won't be utter useless shit (see: lessened AoEs, movement ranges, etc., including on the original Protect), but some MP / CT scaling should be able to handle that problem, I think.



EDIT:  Quick thought, can specific monster species be made mountable?  Mounting in ASM'D seems far more worthwhile, but being able to only mount Chocobos really holds it back.  If you could, say, mount Chocobos, Panthers, Behemoths, Dragons, and whatever monsters have a similar body shape to them, I think it'd be worth at least experimenting with mounts since you can at least make some decisions about what you're mounting, instead of being stuck with a Chocobo of questionable use.  This is really to expand on the question I asked previously about being able to put more Worker 8-like units in the game and expand how many units can be in the party at once - having custom, non-breedable monsters that you can get via Join After Events in especially hard random encounters (such as said White Chocobo with Mimic) would be a really cool touch.  And since these units could be gotten repeatedly (unlike Worker 8, Byblos), the player isn't obligated to get them or hold onto them to have a "perfect" party.

Hadn't thought much on it -- in retrospect berserk is more of a liability than a boon.

How does 100% self haste/regen/defending sound?  Haste and Regen of course from the modified Cheer Up and Yell (dammit, need bring back old cheer up too imo, and Old wish would be kinda cool too), with the defending perk to make said action mean a little more.

I like that.  Old Cheer Up should also definitely return (just give it the PSP name, which is what I'm assuming you did with the Mediator skills you returned), though I don't know about Old Wish.  Could be cool on a high-HP unit with Move-HP UP, but... Item.  Maybe return Dash and have it do light damage and Cancel: Charging?  I don't know if that was discussed earlier in this thread, but low move rates in ASM'D should make that acceptable since it'll take a while for anything intending to Dash someone to move in.

[formerdeathcorps]

EDIT: Quick thought, can specific monster species be made mountable? Mounting in ASM'D seems far more worthwhile, but being able to only mount Chocobos really holds it back. If you could, say, mount Chocobos, Panthers, Behemoths, Dragons, and whatever monsters have a similar body shape to them, I think it'd be worth at least experimenting with mounts since you can at least make some decisions about what you're mounting, instead of being stuck with a Chocobo of questionable use. This is really to expand on the question I asked previously about being able to put more Worker 8-like units in the game and expand how many units can be in the party at once - having custom, non-breedable monsters that you can get via Join After Events in especially hard random encounters (such as said White Chocobo with Mimic) would be a really cool touch. And since these units could be gotten repeatedly (unlike Worker 8, Byblos), the player isn't obligated to get them or hold onto them to have a "perfect" party.

This is easy to do, but is really tedious.  The ASM hack that allows you to mount all monsters changes 03 (just chocobos) to 30 (all 16 monster classes).  If you want less than that, just pick a multiple of three less than 30 (in hex) and reorder the monster classes in FFTPatcher accordingly.  The tedious part is that you also have to fix all the ENTDs manually.

To be fair, I just made Golem add Protect and even then I was uncertain of doing that and I only did that because got rid of Protect 2 (which was part of the uncertainty).

The only other way I could think to "nerf" it could be if maybe you could limit the protection to just the person's that casting it, but even that still doesn't solve the problem of AI exploitation. That or make it be able to fail or have a really low success rate, but even then....

I just cut the success rate in half in my patch, while increasing the MP cost by 15.  If you want to keep it as a protective spell, you could have it add protect and defend (unique and useful) to all units and delete protect 2 (with the Y value still at 200).

A-ha, forgot about that one. Time Mage Meteor is overkill, but choco meteor is just awesome -- I just need to delve into FFTPatcher and see if the monster abilities are past the FF mark or not, since iirc only the first 256 abilities can be used as procs on weapons. Otherwise, I'll just resort to a Comet (new TM spell) proc, which will also have the choco meteor effect.

Or you could just switch chocobo meteor with some other skill that is within the original 256 (like TM meteor) and then update red/black chocobo and all instances of time mage (so player TM and Rofokare) with the change.

Is its own little island much like throw and jump and draw out and elemental. What is  possible are charge-like abilities, since the Swordskill formula -- PA * WP + K is quite similar. Still bones the everliving crap out like 50% of the weapon types (SP/PA, PA/MA, WP*WP, etc) however. And then they can be given new skills to boot. But continue reading.

It mostly messes up mages and mage gunners.  Bows already depend on PA and SP.  All you really need to do is create some archery skills that deal SP*WP damage and some charge skills that do PA*(WP+K) and no physical class should be left out in the cold with having charge as a secondary.  But then again, I've never used of charge on a mage as a secondary past Chapter 1 or on a gunner past Chapter 2 (knight breaks > charge on guns) so not much functionality should be lost in the change.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

This is easy to do, but is really tedious.  The ASM hack that allows you to mount all monsters changes 03 (just chocobos) to 30 (all 16 monster classes).  If you want less than that, just pick a multiple of three less than 30 (in hex) and reorder the monster classes in FFTPatcher accordingly.  The tedious part is that you also have to fix all the ENTDs manually.

That's kinda what I figured it would take.  I looked up the ASM for mount all monsters and noticed the same kind of relation a few hours ago.

So.

Switch Goblin series with Behemoth series (B3 : D7, B4 : D8, B5 : D9), Bomb series with Dragon series (B6 : DA, B7 : DB, B8 : DC) and Pisco Demon series with Hyudra series (BC : DD, BD : DE, BE : DF), fix the ENTD, and make the 03 into 0F (IIRC? That's what windows calculator says.) and we have sensibly ridable monsters.

Yeah, that's a bit of a pain in the ass, but pending how much each particular monster appears in battle it might be worth it.

I'd do something like that myself and pass it along but I'm still learning FFTPatcher.

It'd be nice to find a way to make stuff like Worker 8 mountable (mostly for proof-of-concept and changes that could be made based on that, not because someone should be mounting Worker 8 ), but I don't think there's anything on it.  Possibly an answer could be found in the code used to make that Undead Oracle mountable?

If you want to keep it as a protective spell, you could have it add protect and defend (unique and useful) to all units and delete protect 2 (with the Y value still at 200).

No reason to delete Protect 2 in ASM'D.  Protect 1 has 0 Vert Tolerance in this patch and base / max Speeds took a heavy hit, so Protect 2 would still be incredibly useful in something wanting to use White Magic > Summon Magic.

Unless there's a technical reason for offing Protect 2, but I can't think of one.