FFT: ASM'D main info/discussion

[formerdeathcorps]

I'd rather split punch be darkness elemental considering that night sword won't accept elements and the attack quote (the devil's spirit of restlessness) fits the description.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

I'd rather split punch be darkness elemental considering that night sword won't accept elements and the attack quote (the devil's spirit of restlessness) fits the description.

Possibly.

I was just doing some rough thinking-out-loud to be sure I had the concept straight.

So...

Stasis Sword (Ice, Weapon Element Ignored)
Split Punch (Darkness, Weapon Element Ignored)
Crush Punch (Weapon Element)
Lightning Stab (Lightning, Weapon Element Ignored)
Holy Explosion (Holy, Weapon Element Ignored)

Something like that, lest someone disagrees?

We'll need to see what Phil thinks of such an idea, though.  At least we'll have the idea all hammered out and ready by the time he posts a y/b at this rate, though.  =p

[Dokurider]

Mustadio: Give his class the ability to Equip Robes. Simplest solution to preserving his later-game utility once the player has Magic Guns. With his middling Faith, Generic Mediators with Black Robes, higher permanent Faith, and Magic Attack UP make the best player-controlled gunners, oftentimes, as they cause noticeably higher damage. Allowing Mustadio to at least match the Black Robe + Magic Attack UP portion of the equation with his lower (62, IIRC?) permanent Faith only seems logical, honestly. It'd at least put him roughly on par with said Mediators in terms of gunning potential, especially if his skillset actually gets a skill that's worthwhile during a boss fight. Stat breaks have questionable accuracy (especially since, IIRC, they're PA based and this is Mustadio) and if you're bringing him in to stat break, he's probably a Ninja anyway. His original 3 skills are obviously worthless against most boss-level enemies and are Speed based (and this is ASM'D...), meaning the times he actually CAN use them... he's again probably better off as a Ninja half the time to ensure they stick. Robes and some skills that are useful against bosses in some way are the main things he needs, imo.

Mustadio's been able to equip robes in 1.3.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Mustadio's been able to equip robes in 1.3.

He has?

Well fuck my life.  I honestly never noticed.  By the time I started using him, I had Rubber Costumes and stuff I was slapping on him, so I never bothered to scroll down and look... heh.

*Checks against my own Mustadio*

Well I'll be damned.  So all he needs is a few abilities, preferably useful against bosses without being better suited for Ninjastadio.

I'll need to mess with Blast Gun / Thief Hat / Black Robe / Vanish Mantle on Mustadio with Abandon now once I'm out of the god-forsaken Colliery, though.  I can't believe I never noticed that before.

[Zenius]

Just an idea since everything else is being given an element...
Make Crush Punch Earth? The entire animation (from effect to color to everything) gives me the impression of "Earth"
Kinda like how Stasis Sword is Ice (I always thought that couldn't be anything other than Ice falling from the sky)

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Just an idea since everything else is being given an element...
Make Crush Punch Earth? The entire animation (from effect to color to everything) gives me the impression of "Earth"
Kinda like how Stasis Sword is Ice (I always thought that couldn't be anything other than Ice falling from the sky)

Heh.

You just gave me a thought:

Do above.
Make 3 more Holy Sword skills for Fire/Water/Wind.
Give all of them Element + Weapon Element.
???
Profit!

I'd assume animations would be the main issue here, though.  Then again, could always recycle some obscure ones like the Archaic/Ultima Demon's Hurricane animation and one of the fiery explosions of death that exist in the game for two of them, though IDFK what could possibly be used for Water.

Would be really cool, though.

[Zaen]

Yeah... and if you make those, you could give one to Meliadoul or something to break the monotony of ranged Weapon Break + damage.

What I thought would be interesting, would be a Draw Out-like attack. Maybe use All-Ultima animation, or the non-Ramza Ultima, and call it Heaven's Wrath, with a giant holy explosion in a 2-3 radius around her for a good amount of damage, but moderate to high MP cost. In fact, I might do that now...

[The Damned]

Meh, I really don't know how worth it is giving Agrias pretty much all elements. I'm not sure how I feel about any class having all elements, actually, though I guess a special class would be a fine exception.

I could see the "Heaven's Wrath" for Meliadoul though. It's kind of weird that she's called a Divine Knight and she's basically a glorified Berserker Knight--I guess Heaven doesn't like people having nice things (unless they're the Vatican...or one of those "mega-churches", but I digress).

[philsov]

Minorly related but not really question: If I'm remembering right, some monster attacks are really nothing more than a glorified attack command. Could these be removed and simply replaced with the actual "Attack" command without glitching something out so we can om nom nom on their ability slots?

Almost.

What I can do is give just one of the PA * [PA*Br/100] abilities (choco beak, e.g.) to multiple monsters.  The kicker, then, is animations -- but if I can rig up an animation or two that works on multiple monsters, then we're money and free up at max 8 more ability slots to go hog wild with.  

How about something like Odd Soundwave for Blue Mage? We don't have any Squid ability,

Nah, clashes too much with Talk Skill refute.

Also, LVL abilities!

Would require Math Skill to be active, regrettably.

EDIT: Those shitty Movement abilities that no one uses: Make them Support Abilities?

Don't think that's possible, but I'm away from my fftpatcher atm so I'll check on that later.

That said, Blaster also doesn't work, though, and that's in the spellbook. Hey, philsov, did you change Blaster?

Not yet >_>.  Been trying to get down good animations first.  But... looks like I'll have to -- or create/modify another ability which does similar yet is learnable.

Musty's original 3 skills are Speed based (and this is ASM'D...), meaning the times he actually CAN use them ninja blahblahblah

Semantically I call them stat-neutral abilities. With him as a ninja that's at most a... 3%... success boost?  Ultimately I l kind of like Musty on the matter -- that is, full of PA + X, MA + X, or Sp + X abilities.  But hosting abilities that are thus AND boss-viable?  Will take some thinking to pull off :p

Elemental Sword Skills

I'm leaning toward mostly "no" on these, simply because elemental-based means elemental boosted, means 25% more damage potential.

Ramza: Remember the whole rumor about Ramza being able to consume Gafgarion's Crystal and get his abilities from waaaaaaaaaaay back in the olden days?

Oh yes.  In fact, doing so would be kinda funny.  I think I know the way to rig as well but feel free to expand on it.

More stuff for Meliadoul, Worker 8, Gaf

Should be space for em.  Dunno the exact number still, but enough that brainstorming is welcome.

What I thought would be interesting, would be a Draw Out-like attack. Maybe use All-Ultima animation, or the non-Ramza Ultima, and call it Heaven's Wrath, with a giant holy explosion in a 2-3 radius around her for a good amount of damage, but moderate to high MP cost. In fact, I might do that now...

That'd be cool.  Consider it in.

*runs off to Skill proposal thread for other random ideas*

[The Damned]

Speaking of animations, I killed my wrists typing for close six straight hours to catalog all of the default animations in the new Animations tab in FFTPatcher. All the Active Abilities are now in the Wiki; it was bitching at me with regards to length, so I just omitted the R/S/M animations (which largely seem like they're useless).

Oh, also, I finished my Learn on Hit research last night (alongside testing other things due to now being able to change animations) with Frog and Charm and, yeah, both of those statuses also hinder Learn on Hit like I had thought. But since you weren't going to use Nose Bracelet anyway, this is pointless to tell you. I've made yet another edit in the "Learn on Hit" part of the Wiki that speaks of this and the special exception that Frog has.

Besides that, I feel like there was something else I wanted to mention/ask, but considering I've been up all night again, I'm starting to forget things. Damned insomnia....

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Almost.

What I can do is give just one of the PA * [PA*Br/100] abilities (choco beak, e.g.) to multiple monsters.  The kicker, then, is animations -- but if I can rig up an animation or two that works on multiple monsters, then we're money and free up at max 8 more ability slots to go hog wild with.

You're enjoying gutting half the game and adding abilities everywhere, I see.

Semantically I call them stat-neutral abilities. With him as a ninja that's at most a... 3%... success boost?  Ultimately I l kind of like Musty on the matter -- that is, full of PA + X, MA + X, or Sp + X abilities.  But hosting abilities that are thus AND boss-viable?  Will take some thinking to pull off :p

He has MA+X?

O, Seal Evil?

Hm.

I'll need to actually do thinking on this as well to give you some suggestions.

I'm leaning toward mostly "no" on these, simply because elemental-based means elemental boosted, means 25% more damage potential.

That was kind of the idea in my original proposition: 3 attacks that can be boosted (but also blocked/negated/absorbed), and 2 attacks that can be manipulated by manipulating the held weapon but default to nothing.

This would make setting up Agrias (and to a small extent, Orlandu) a bit harder (especially during the end game) - do you want to use Chaos Blade + Setiemson / Salty Rage / Mantle?  Excalibur / Ragnarok / Save the Queen + 108 Gems?  Rune Blade + Kaiser Plate + Setiemson / Salty Rage / Mantle?  Etc.  End game setups, sure, but it means that your character still doesn't have a single "best" setup, which is good design and allows for customization.

Granted, I'm not sure how much this affects mid-game Agrias setups (108 Gems vs not 108 Gems is obvious, but unless Shields go the way of Mantles and go lower %s with abilities, it's still likely to be "Best Shield vs Ice Shield", etc), but it adds a bit of depth to her moveset and setups which I find is much welcome.

The others going Elemental was the tangent that built off - I'm not entirely sure of her having all elements myself, but it could be cool if pulled off correctly.

Oh yes.  In fact, doing so would be kinda funny.  I think I know the way to rig as well but feel free to expand on it.

This is how I figured it would work (assuming I understand all these buttons on FFTPatcher correctly):

1.  Make versions of Gafgarion's abilities that Ramza can learn, either exact copies or slightly modified.   Set them up to be like Blue Magic (Learn on Hit flagged, Learn with JP unflagged, etc.), and make their JP cost something piddly like 1 or 100.  Set their Learn Rates to 100, and make sure Target Enemies and Target Allies are both unflagged so the AI (shouldn't) use these abilities during battle.  This will mean Ramza MUST take Gafgarion's Crystal to learn them.

2.  Add these abilities to 27 Dark Sword, the one used by Enemy Gafgarion (but not 20 Dark Sword, the Guest version).  Whenever he comes into battle, he should have them learned at all times but never use them (instead only using "his" Dark Sword abilities).  Also add these abilities to 1A Guts and 1B Guts, the ones used by Ramza in Chapters 2-4.  They shouldn't show up on his ability list, in the same manner Ultima doesn't.

3.  Kill Gafgarion in cold blood.  Eat his Crystal.  The new "Ramza" Dark Sword abilities that Gafgarion had learned but never used should show up 100% of the time when Ramza takes his Crystal.  Dawn your funky PSP Dark Knight armor (sold separately) and bitchslap Queklain.

Unless I've forgotten something, that should do it.

Should be space for em.  Dunno the exact number still, but enough that brainstorming is welcome.

Worker 8 could get...

"Fragment".  Cross AoE or 1 step above.  4-ish range.  Insert one of the explosion graphics.  Probably one of his lower-damaging attacks, but hits multiple enemies, allowing him to break revival loops and such.  Name and animation obviously references a fragmentation grenade.

"Shield".  Old Draw Out AoE.  100% Reflect and (maybe or) Shell on all units (Ally or Enemy) in range.

"Self-Destruct".  Obvious.  It's a giant robot, it needs to be able to blow itself up.  Either the existing one, or a modified one that cares about things like Defense UP if you think the original would be too busted on Worker 8.  He's not the fastest bot on the block anyway and can't be Hasted, so I don't think him getting in explode range and being able to spam it would be likely, especially without hitting the caster.  (I foresee him with 2 Move due to the huge range on some of his attacks, ie Dispose).

I'd also take a bit from the enemy 1.3 bots and give him forced Fly.  Maybe a forced Item secondary (on both him and Byblos) or something, but IDK.  Probably not necessary, but I'm too used to playing 1.3.  I kinda see Worker 8 being around the speed of the slower human units, with 2 Move and Fly so that he takes a while to get in but can bypass obstacles between Fly and ranged abilities that don't give a damn about them.

I'd like to give him something like "Overdrive" (caster only Haste + Poison), but I doubt there's a way to rig Worker 8 to bypass his own immunities.  Tear.  Imo he still needs more than what I've suggested, since if you remove his "rehash" abilities he still only has like 5 abilities.  Above is a great start though, imo.

Gafgarion:

"Night Sword" possibly reduced to 2 range.  "Dark Sword" remaining at 3 range (or even going to 4) so Gafgarion's AI will actually use it.  I've found he almost never uses it even if he needs MP.

"Unholy Sacrifice", slightly modded from its PSP version to use a Work formula and the Kotetsu animation.

I'm tempted to say "Dark Holy", just because.

"Dark Pit".  Using the leftover Gravi 3 animation (since it sounds like you're taking the ability out), 4-5 panel range, cross or 1 higher AoE, moderate Darkness damage.  Charge Time.

"Abyssal Blow", again drawing roots from the PSP version.  Assuming you consolidate the 2 Shock!s, use the unused animation for this.  Should have huge single-target range (the largest range of all his abilities, and no vertical tolerance in targeting range), Work formula, but do less (non-elemental) damage than a basic attack.  75% or less.  It should also be weaker than Night Sword, damage-wise.  If possible, rig it to have a high chance of Petrifying Undead units.  If not, have it randomly dish out a bunch of lower-tier statuses like Blind or Poison.  EDIT: Should probably be unblockable.  Low-medium (again, between 50-75% of a physical attack's damage and lower than Night Sword) unblockable damage with status attached.

"Desperate Strike".  Lifebreak formula, weapon range.  Whatever animation or lack thereof feels best.  If possible, flag it to be affected by Defense UP and Protect since Gafgarion will probably have more HP than anyone in Ramza's party and its really early game.  Also, if possible, should have a 25% chance or rending the opponent's Weapon.

If you can, he should absorb Darkness so that he can heal himself with Dark Pit and Dark Holy, as well as be immune to his previously owned Blood Sword.  Then basic boss innates + Concentrate.

Seems like a good place to start with him.  Might need another ability or two, but above seems like a vast improvement.

ASIDE:  If you feel like doing a bit of text and/or event editing, an Undead Gafgarion (along with others you've killed, such as Algus and/or Miluda, pending the vibe you want to give and how many "teams" you want there to be during the battle) should appear during the Chapter 3 Yuguo Woods battle or the Chapter 4 Poeskas Lake battle.  This would give another chance to nab Gafgarion's Crystal as well as mindfuck the player in a way the original FFT should have, if done correctly.

I've no ideas for Mustadio, Meliadoul, other Specials yet, though.  Or Archer, should we end up giving it a new ability set.  Though I bet you can find a lot of abilities for Archer in that skills proposal thread you mentioned, anyway.

That'd be cool.  Consider it in.

I think it's safe to say that Meliadoul won't need Crush Punch anymore when we're done...

Evil/Dark Looking

What is that?  I'm assuming its a status, but what does it do?  I've never heard of it and Google fails me.



EDIT:  The "Death Sentence ignores Cancel: Dead" ASM should be applied so the player can't Secret Fist cheese the AI, Imo.  Similar to my argument that Golem should do something like Add: Protect to all allied units instead of its current effect or possibly be outright removed.  These kinds of changes help the AI by compensating for programming flaws (similar to removing abilities such as Hamedo because the AI can't "see" them and things like Abandon because they're outright busted and allow characters to absorb at least double their usual damage before even factoring in things like Defense UP), and force the player to actually have some kind of level of intimacy with strategic knowledge and not AI knowledge.  Granted, the Secret Fist strategy for cheesing the AI probably won't even be necessary most of the game since you're not designing the game to be uberhard like 1.3 inherently, but getting rid of it would still be a nice touch and follow through with many other changes made quite well.

[formerdeathcorps]

Evil/Dark Looking does nothing unless you make it do something.  As for Holy Sword, changing its elemental to have more varied elements is hardly a boost.  108 gems boosts elemental damage, regardless if Holy Sword is holy elemental or holy, ice, or lightning elemental.

As I've already noted, you can't use the work formula and still have elemental damage.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Evil/Dark Looking does nothing unless you make it do something.

I see.  So, empty status.  Sweet.  

As for Holy Sword, changing its elemental to have more varied elements is hardly a boost.  108 gems boosts elemental damage, regardless if Holy Sword is holy elemental or holy, ice, or lightning elemental.

It does matter with Kaiser Plate and Black Robe, two items that Agrias and other Holy Sword users can equip instead of 108 Gems.

It also matters based on the target's equipment as well.  White Robe comes to mind immediately, as does Chameleon Robe and a few accessories.

I used 108 Gems as an example, but it's not the only viable element-boosting piece of equipment in the game.  

As I've already noted, you can't use the work formula and still have elemental damage.

It's a good thing the only time I used the words "Element" and "Work formula" together on the same ability had me specifying that it shouldn't have any element, then!

The only ability I specified as having Darkness Element (Dark Pit) would be working a magic formula, if it weren't obvious based on the way it was described.

[The Damned]

I don't think Self-Destruct can ever care about Defense Up and since Worker 8 has a shitload of HP...yeah. Unfortunately, it's the same with Shock and Blade Beam and Climhazzard I believe.

I see.  So, empty status.  Sweet.

It's not completely a blank slate.

As formerdeathcorps noted in the Wiki, any status without a set duration originally cannot be given one. Dark/Evil Looking, perhaps because it was never used, has no set duration, which may be problematic depending on what you want to do with.

Also, it's tends to glitch in a minor way in that it causes the character afflicted with it to stop moving (even though I can't remember right now if I stops CT; I think it might even though it shouldn't).

Otherwise, yeah, it's "empty" and seemed to work for the most part when I was testing things years ago, though I haven't really messed around with status much in testing outside of the very recent Learn on Hit thing.

[formerdeathcorps]

It doesn't stop CT.

Learn on Status = Counterattack/Move-HP UP flag + Unit still is considered your unit (hence why charm doesn't work) - if spell is self-dispelling (like frog).

[The Damned]

Thanks for the correction. That made me carryover the changes I did to Dark/Evil Looking in "On the Skulls of Dragons" so that I could continue testing it.

When you get the chance, formerdeathcorps, can you double check the Animations (Tab) in the Wiki for me? I want to make sure I didn't screw up anything, especially since I was typing for hours (and it may take several more hours just to check over it).

****

Hijacking of the thread aside, I think I remembered the other thing I was going to ask, philsov: Did you decide/have you decided on what graphics you're using for three new items you made?

I ask this partially out of curiosity and partially because Palette 5, Graphic AA looks like it might make a decent Turtle Shell, but the Palette 5 row is apparently buggy, at least in some places.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Question on Ninja's "massive" PA nerf:  Are you changing Ninja Swords to PA*WP?

If this PA nerf is as massive as you're making it sound, you'll probably need to since elsewise they're still losing a good 3ish SP off their damage formula in addition to the drastic PA cut.

What I mean is that your post says average speed will be 9 at Level 99.  My level 50 straight 1.3 Ninja has 11 at level 50.  Considering he still has 50 levels to go if grown "straight", I'd imagine a 4 point gap to occur between the two before factoring in equipment.

I'd say only nerf their PA slightly, so that it with Attack UP comes out roughly equal to a no-Support Ability 1.3 Ninja of the same level (and as such would allow you to keep Ninja Swords as WP*(SP+PA)/2, but I know you're also compensating for Martial Arts... though I'd think having that level of PA would still be enough of a cut to stop them from being abusive.  I can do math to try and figure out what the multiplier would need to be in this case if you want later.

Monks... ugh.  I still have no decent ideas of how to deal with Two Swords Monk without making Monk itself suck.  I'm assuming we can't just flag fists to be immune to Two Swords.  That would make life hella easy for everyone.  

EDIT:

Hidden Knife - Always: Transparent?

It's the weakest Ninja Knife, so a Ninja trying to keep with it as one of their weapons and maintain 100% accuracy without Concentrate is losing a lot on the WP side of things.  It would also help Thief by allowing them to equip a weapon that's essentially innate: Concentrate for stealing but would punish them as the game progresses when actually trying to attack due to low WP.

I have more ideas for other Ninja Knives, but my battery is almost dead.  I'll post them when I can get back on.

[formerdeathcorps]

You can do what I did in my patch.  Namely, I removed innate martial arts and forced monk to learn it manually (by switching monk's place with summoners).  To do this, you have to reorder the unit classes in FFTPatcher (every instance of Mk and Su), ShiShi, WORLD.BIN, and WORLDFACE.BIN.  It's a hassle, but it's not really that bad, nor does monk lack endgame potential in that case.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

You can do what I did in my patch.  Namely, I removed innate martial arts and forced monk to learn it manually (by switching monk's place with summoners).  To do this, you have to reorder the unit classes in FFTPatcher (every instance of Mk and Su), ShiShi, WORLD.BIN, and WORLDFACE.BIN.  It's a hassle, but it's not really that bad, nor does monk lack endgame potential in that case.

...Why didn't anyone else think of that?

Heh.

Well, if Philsov wants to do some tedious work, he has his solution for Monk and possibly Ninja.  Though I'd just go with nerfing Ninja's stats directly and letting them keep their innate.  That's just me, though.

[Dokurider]

You can do what I did in my patch.  Namely, I removed innate martial arts and forced monk to learn it manually (by switching monk's place with summoners).  To do this, you have to reorder the unit classes in FFTPatcher (every instance of Mk and Su), ShiShi, WORLD.BIN, and WORLDFACE.BIN.  It's a hassle, but it's not really that bad, nor does monk lack endgame potential in that case.

...!

But that would mean...

no more Martial Arts Summoners...