FFT Arena: Balance Discussion Thread

[logus]

What I have observed so far in stats/abilities (and the most blatant items):

-light robe is still not fixed/a bit too good. HP nerf should do it

-yell costing mp is a very good idea. I'd leave it at 4 mp though.

-met..what? Meteor? Give short charge and you got huge splash damage really quick and good. I might have to make a team to show proof on this one. But here's a tip that I'll show at items thread: the mantle that gives init:faith. This, ladies and gentleman, calls for rape. Actually, a lot of the AoE big magics with init:faith = rape.

- make raise cost around 16 mp, raise2 around 24 mp.

-change thieves' ruins to breaks. The class doesn't have the mp to support ruins, and double stat breaking/ranged stat breaking should be really nice (we'll see if it gets TOO nice with 14 speed).  And if anyone is thinking "oh, but knight had the same problem with ruins, it was balanced!": a) knights have twice as much mp b) knights can equip robes.

- "Unyielding" obviates mdef up. The meta is highly turned to physical attacks, and here we got a skill that helps you with the 70 faith issue AND helps you deal with the massive physical attacks.

-berserk needs a nerf. +30% increased received damage works for me. But as it is right now, it's too good, especially with abandon + defender.

-loved the nerfs on oracle's paralyze and sleep

-overwhelm is still kinda weird. It's not as good as atk up or matk up in terms of raw damage, and I don't think anyone would use it merely for the extra healing...

-mad science... what? 100% reraise on your entire party every 4 ticks or am I reading it wrong?

That's all I got for now. Some might be off, but who knows, just throwing some opinions out there.

[FFMaster]

-fine
-1 MP wouldn't make much of a difference. fine
-Meteor is overpowered yeah. i'll probably make it random like Skip wanted, since I have no ideas for it.
-fine
-c) Thieves can equip Golden Hairpin
-Yeah, its probably too strong, but we will see. 20% was just a number I pulled out of nowhere.
-not gonna happen. i don't have any idea how to edit the constants for status effects. Find a different solution.
-Overwhelm is just for mixed units. Like a person who wants to run a mixed Samurai or Ninja or something. Its there for those who want it. 25% seemed too much, so I left it at 20% for now. We will see how it goes.
-Mad Science is single target.

EDIT: I just realised that I forgot to change Half of MP. Damn.

[Skip Sandwich]

keeping an AoE of 3 is 25 panels to potentially hit, so you'd need an average or consistent result of 12-13 hits to cover effectively (effectively in this case meaning at least a 50% chance to hit any given target in the area at least once, adjust this up/down to your own taste/sense of balance). It's up to you if you want it to be able to target allies or not, if you still want it to have that massive AoE, i'd suggest not, otherwise just adjust the # of hits and/or vert tolerance to whatever your comfortable with. Also, reflect + random fire spells is a nono, since if even one hit gets reflected, the ENTIRE spell will be duplicated onto the reflect target.

as for berserk, what if the Salty Rage item also inflicted permanent blind status? Then stacking Berserk + Attack UP becomes a real gamble (except with guns, but ranged direct fire berserkers tend to not make very smart targeting choices). The oracle's blind rage spell and mediator's insult could likewise inflict both berserk and blind status (it would also make those two abilities more useful as the AI views berserk as more of a debuff status anyway, even though our player base views it as a buff status)

Also, since we're running fury anyway, any chance of using your reaction % hack to simply set reactions to 50% constant activation rate?

as for the mixed M/Attack UP-M/Defend UP abilities, could it be possible to make it so that instead of combining both attack or both defend abilities, it combined the attack and defend abilites for a single type? so you choose either Attack UP (+30% phys damage dealt), Defend up (-30% phys damage received) or Might UP (+15% phys damage dealt AND -15% phys damage recieved)

[logus]

the AI looks at berserk as a debuff cause it CAN be used like that. Aim a caster with berserk and you got a useless unit. I somewhat like the blind idea for salty rage, as I suggested poison, but blind might be countered by concentrate (which always has been a good option for berserkers). I don't think you got to change the skills, since AI will hardly, if ever, use it on it's allies or strong physical enemy units.

I'd go for 60-70% with the reactions, although I still do love the idea. You shouldn't have to make yourself a huge target for physical attacks just in order to get a decent reaction working.

Just one thing: did finger guard die? I was thinking of making it give status protection instead of just protection against some skills. Is that even possible?

[FFMaster]

If I change Meteor to random area hits, it will be in a smaller area, of course.

Zodiac and PX were very much against a set reaction%.

Finger Guard died because it was useless against half of the Talk Skills.

Now that I think about it a bit more, I am actually considering INCREASING Yell MP cost a bit more. It hits 100%, regardless of compat/faith/whatever. Pride's team is making very good use of it, with some battles I didn't record. He is also making extremely good use of Weak/Absorb.

I was thinking... what if I made absorb only 100% absorb, so no weak + absorb at all. Right now, Pride's team is healing for about 300 HP while attacking at the same time.

[Kaz]

Kind of completely off topic but I think throw-stone should be 100% hit and dash should go bye bye.  No one really uses dash anyways, and the the cancel charging special on throw stone doesnt really get utilized by the AI.

[Melancthon]

Has there ever been any talk of getting rid of Haste entirely?  I'm sure most of you would be against the idea, but I for one wouldn't be heart-broken to see it go.  I just feel like the AI prioritizes it highly (as it should), and that anyone that doesn't bring Haste is at an immediate disadvantage, thereby limiting options for team creation.  Just my two cents.

Actually, I wouldn't mind seeing Confusion completely gone either.  It just makes the AI stupid and makes fights drag out longer than they should, without the advantages of Sleep, Charm, and Death Sentance (which can also screw with the AI and make fights go long).

[Skip Sandwich]

I think haste would be more managable if it followed the FFTA/2 pardigm, basic haste is single target, Haste 2 is AoE 1. Yell would be changed to inflict quick at a decent %hit (just don't let it target the caster, since we don't want the AI casting it on itself over and over till they run out of mp)

[Gaignun]

Could somebody justify the nerfs to Yin Yang Magic?  The Oracle has always been an unreliable class due to the hit-or-miss nature of its spells.  Lowering the success rate of Yin Yang spells only makes the Oracle weaker.  What's more, Yin Yang spells are magic evadeable.  A 70 faith Oracle has a 50% chance of afflicting a 40 faith target with Don't Act prior to applying magic evasion.  At best, the Oracle has a 50% chance of making its opponent spend a turn casting Esuna and a 50% chance of wasting its own turn entirely (along with a juicy chunk of MP).  You may as well stack magic evasion and make yourself "immune" to all of an Oracle's spells (and all other spells, to boot) than fiddle around with status-resistant equipment.  Compare this to the Geomancer, who has an invariable 25% chance of afflicting ailments (including the nasty ones, like stop and sleep) at no MP cost nor charge time, and who at least deals damage if the proc fails, and you quickly see that the Geomancer beats the Oracle at its own job.

The one thing to fear from higher proc rates, I believe, would be crippling three or four target afflictions.  To that I say: "make your status manager status-resistant."  If that's still not enough, you can simply make all Yin Yang spells 0 AoE.

The most interesting fights in RPGs involve ailment management.  With Yin Yang magic as it is now, I feel that the Oracle class is wholly unnecessary.

[FFMaster]

If anything, I've increased the chances. The formula is MA*2+Y. I made it like that to make MA count for more, while decreasing the Y by about 10 for each spell.

[Gaignun]

The mainstays, Paralyze and Sleep, are reduced by 25%.  MA*2 recoups 1% per point of MA, so an oracle would need 25 MA to be back to where it was before.  The female Oracle has 11 Ma, so Paralyze and Sleep are at negative 14% prior to equipment bonuses.  Recouping the remaining 14% would require a full set of Ma equipment and MagicAtkUP, which would leave the oracle very fragile.  Again, this is at 70 Fa, so the oracle is susceptible to magic damage, unlike the geomancer.

The weakness is compounded with the lack of a minimum Fa requirement.  Removal of the requirement incidentally buffs physical-based teams that can afford to keep all members' Fa at 40.  These teams can forfeit status protection with no fear for the oracle.  Case in point: Pride's double draw out team has no status protection (aside from slow) and sticks together to take advantage of full-party healing.  One would think oracles threaten that arrangement.  However, an oracle with full Ma gear and MagicAtkUp (which, by the way, leaves the Oracle paper thin) has only a ~50% chance of inflicting the samurai with Don't Act.  The Oracle cannot do its own job at exploiting Pride's team's weakness.

What I might suggest, at the very least, is making Yin Yang spells ignore MEv.  I say this after considering the numbers:

Code Select Expand

Oracle with 70 Fa
24 Ma attained with MagicAtkUP

40 Fa target
Ma (oracle)  MEv (target)    Paralyze %     Sleep %
     18           0              55           51
     24           0              58           54
     18          25              41           38
     24          25              44           41

70 Fa target
Ma (oracle)  MEv (target)    Paralyze %     Sleep %
     18           0              96           89
     24           0             100           95
     18          25              72           67
     24          25              76           71

I didn't truncate values mid-calculation, so I might be off by a percent or two.  Evidently, the target's MEv affects the success rate more than the oracle's Ma ever will, and the change is only greater for higher Fa targets.  Keep in mind that Oracles must sacrifice all forms of defensive gear to attain 18 Ma.

[CT5Holy]

You forgot to factor in faith.

Using your numbers, starting at 170 (just as an example, dunno what real values are). 70 faith to 40 faith -> 47%.
Again, using your numbers, 170-25+11 (from the MA*2) -> 156, 70 faith to 40 faith -> 43%.

That's 4% reduction in success rate. Not even close to 25%

From what I've heard, if the values weren't lowered, 70 faith to 70 faith was around 90% with paralyze. I think it's ok.

[Gaignun]

By 25%, I was referring to the Y value.  1.3's formulas are Hit_F(Ma+185%) and Hit_F(Ma+170%) for Paralyze and Sleep, respectively.  FFTA's formulas are Hit_F(Ma*2+160%) and Hit_F(Ma*2+145%), respectively.  The point I am trying to make is that nerfs to Yin Yang magic make a weak skill set only weaker.  The calculations I proceeded to write (which I was haplessly retrofitting as you posted) show that any contribution Ma has to the success rate is dwarfed by the target's Fa and MEv, so changing Ma to Ma*2 is inconsequential.  The target's parameters decide the oracle's effectiveness, and not the oracle's own as it were, so a bad success rate stays bad.  Setting the standard using 70 Fa targets is flawed when nothing keeps the player from making 40 Fa teams.

[PX_Timefordeath]

If the success rate is 30% at 70/40 faith, that says just how high the actually % to land is. If it were 70/70, I'm sure it'd hit every time. Do you want Paralyze/Sleep/Petrifies hitting 40 faith units at a 60% rate? That's just retarded, as it'll ruin the metagame.

[FFMaster]

Those 2 were nerfed because from tests, they were destroying everything. Everything else was reduced by 10. Also, if you are planning to use MA gear and MAUP for Oracle, you need to rethink it.

11 MA, 70 caster, 40 target, 0 M-EV - 50%

At least 50% to cripple at least 1 unit for 2 turns, 4 range, and a small cast time(might use Short Charge here to speed things up, or maybe Defense UP), while having great HP(maybe some status protection instead, but whatever floats your boat) for a mage since you don't need the MA gear that much.

[CT5Holy]

I never set the standard of targeting 70 faith units. I will point out, however, that there is usually one unit on a team with high faith -> this unit is easily shut down.
In my opinion, what's stopping people from running all 40 faith guys are the following:
Revival limited to PD, wish, and revive, all easily negated
Healing isn't too great - 120 with Hi-Potion, ~140ish with X-Potion, Chakra needs a monk/someone with Martial Arts to heal for a relevant amount
No buffs - Haste, Wall, etc
Not many ways to have AoE damage - Draw Out, Elemental, that's basically it.
No status infliction

Now, even if there was a Yin-Yang user up against a team of 40 faith guys, they still have their other skillset - they're not useless.

[FFMaster]

Small correction - Haste can be used by Squires (Yell - 8 MP, 100% hit)

[CT5Holy]

Well, the general argument still stands. =/
I'll also admit that 40 Faith teams can use element absorb as another way to heal, but that requires a lot of specialization, and mages are quite useful in that regard (better DO damage/healing, Black Magic)

[Shade]

Little correction also, Archer status attacks, grand cross(aoe), spin fist(aoe), cover fire(also aoe), dancers skills, ninjas status infliction, bards status buffs, samurai's buffs, samurai's muramase healing, geomancer and samurai has status infliction also, and another buff from squire(to me square) cheer up and bards healing.




I also think that mages aren't better at healing at all, more weaker to be corrected since raise, raise 2(these two on same skillset) and fairy(and maybe re-raise abilities, just maybe) are only way to raise and in healing there is cure spells and moogle.

40 faith units could crush almost any mage filled team easy and could stand to another teams.

So I am saying the argument falls pretty flat there.

[Gaignun]

If the success rate is 30% at 70/40 faith, that says just how high the actually % to land is. If it were 70/70, I'm sure it'd hit every time. Do you want Paralyze/Sleep/Petrifies hitting 40 faith units at a 60% rate? That's just retarded, as it'll ruin the metagame.

See my table above.  A 70 Fa target with MEv will take a chunk out of the success rate.  The success rate of Paralyze on a 70 Fa 0 MEv target for a 11 Ma 70 Fa oracle is roughly 90%.  Sleep is just above 80%.  Petrify is 65%.  They're not going to hit every time.  Against a 40 Fa target, by the way, the success rates are 51%, 41%, and 37%.  The spells are currently so unreliable against 40 Fa targets as to be useless.    When they do hit, the enemy can cure the ailment in one turn (and free of charge with items or Stigma Magic).  How is this any more imbalanced than one-shot Flare or Secret Fist?  A 70 Fa target is going to kiss the floor every time from a high-powered 100% accuracy Flare spell and force its team into sandbag mode, and all targets without death protection, no matter how powerful, will fall to the high-accuracy Secret Fist.

Of course 70 Fa targets will be vulnerable to Yin Yang magic; they're vulnerable to all other forms of magic as well.  There are so many lovely pieces of equipment that provide status protection: Gold Helmet, Gold Armor, Green Beret, Golden Hairpin, and so on.  Stop building status protection into the poor success rate and give players a reason to use them, or they'll default to stat boosting gear as they are now.

Also, if you are planning to use MA gear and MAUP for Oracle, you need to rethink it.

I was using max Ma and MagicAtkUP to demarcate the extreme.  Of course full Ma gear is silly.

At least 50% to cripple at least 1 unit for 2 turns, 4 range, and a small cast time(might use Short Charge here to speed things up, or maybe Defense UP), while having great HP(maybe some status protection instead, but whatever floats your boat) for a mage since you don't need the MA gear that much.

I agree.  In deference to the effect of other forms of magic against 40 Fa targets, a 50% chance to inflict a 40 Fa target with Don't Act is decent.  That is the best case, however.  Give the 40 Fa target a shield and the success rate goes south.  Hence, I suggest that Yin Yang magic ignores MEv.  Also, there's no reason to assume that the enemy will be afflicted with the status for two turns.  The AI is keen on curing status ailments.  A well built team should be able to cure status ailments on the fly, anyway.

This is how I break it down.  In the ideal case, the oracle spends one turn inflicting the status ailment and an enemy spends one turn curing it.  The net gain is zero.  Currently, the oracle has a 50% chance of failing (sticking with the 40 Fa target here).  The oracle initiates the offense, yet the oracle has a 50% chance of putting its own team down a turn right from the start, and that's before considering MEv and status protection!  In the real case, the success rate is less than 50%.  The oracle is now a liability.  By ignoring MEv, the oracle's chance to succeed does not dip below 50% for even the worst of targets (unless it's Petrify or Sleep, and rightly so, since those status effects are more dangerous).  Initiative now favours the oracle, as it rightly should, because luck is on its side.  In addition, Ma now possesses greater efficacy in increasing success rate on average.

I'll also admit that 40 Faith teams can use element absorb as another way to heal, but that requires a lot of specialization, and mages are quite useful in that regard (better DO damage/healing, Black Magic)

Draw Out is an effective way to heal 40 Fa teams.  All it requires is one piece of equipment that absorbs an element on all characters.  This immunizes your team from your enemy's use of the element as a bonus.  Admittedly, options are limited to fire and wind absorption.

Not many ways to have AoE damage - Draw Out, Elemental, that's basically it.

And both Draw Out and Elemental are two of the most potent forms of offense.  These abilities ignore Brave and Faith modifiers, which, in my opinion, breaks the system for everything else (unless the abilities are made incredibly weak or "unbuffable"), but this is all going off on a tangent.

Sorry for picking apart your posts, everyone.  Quoting simply helps me keep my rebuttals from being too wordy, which they evidently already are.