Insane Difficulty: WOTL Development Discussion - Insane Difficulty

Kjata, on 19 April 2014 - 02:44 PM, said:

No one uses the Engineer Rifle for its damage output, though. >_>

Advent, on 19 April 2014 - 02:49 PM, said:

I did!

Just wanted to give a brief outline of the revamped speed growths (well, a sentence about end-game speed stats at least. )

My current vision (which may well need adjusting*) is that Human modifiers will end up having speed at 10 for generic classes (bar Thief (11) and Ninja (12) ) with monster modifiers ending up with much higher speed ("slow" monsters peak at13, "average" at 14, "fast" at 15 ) due to lack of equip options. Been playing with the idea of "fast" monsters being immune to Haste, but I doubt this'll be necessary.

The possible exceptions to this will be special classes, which will have modifiers that allow 11 speed in base class (because I'd like a reason for Uniques to stay in base because, well... unique.) I say "possible" because I worry that this is pretty bad design and I don't want bad design to be an aspect of this mod. The other exception would be the Onion Knight.

Aside from this post, my main focus is going to be on:

Skillset/ Ability fixes and rebalances
Jobs/ Stat growths
Item rebalances
ENTD

As of right now, I've been changing stuff willy-nilly with no structure or prioritising (as you can probably tell from my posts) which has to stop now I'm being all "srs mod tiem with deez nutz" for the sake of turning out a good quality product.

* I say this will probably need adjusting, as I'm not particularly great at visualising the ramifications/ dynamics of revamping stat growths, as up till now I've just taken the role of "player" and worked with what I was given.

On the subject of stat growths, if anyone wants to recommend stat growths/ modifiers for Balthier's Sky Pirate job, I'm all ears as I've got no fucking clue where to start.

Smooth. I like it. Have a beer:

Hart-Hunt, on 19 April 2014 - 08:27 PM, said:

Cool, glad you like. I'll save the beer for later.

I wouldn't drink that. I don't think that beer is beer.

Advent, on 19 April 2014 - 02:49 PM, said:

That was my entire point. In 1.306 the engineer was a thief hat that fired bullets. Giving it to a support unit was awesome. The summon gun on the other hand was a range 8, 100% accuracy beatstick.

It's like comparing a two swords thief to a 2 swords monk. One is just fast and does eveyrthing well but damage, and the other kills people dead.

I'm currently at work, so I can't download Raven's awesome stat utilities, but for anyone who's interested: http://ffhacktics.co...hp?topic=9143.0

I suggested this to Bretto the first time stat rebalancing came around, and I'll go ahead and suggest it again. I'd like to see stat growths normalized through all the generic classes, and have stat multipliers and gender differences do most of the work when deciding on finalized stats.

There are a few benefits this would give us:

• Removes the stat penalty for exploring the other side of the job tree
  
• Removes the concept of a "super stat" class that gets used just to level up in
  
• Removes the incentive to level to 99 early in the game in "super stat" classes, just so you don't miss out on a point or two in the late game
  
• Makes my play-style of high faith, high brave units with physical and magical abilities a lot less tedious

This would leave special jobs and enemy-only jobs open to any kind of crazy stat growths that you please. So, you could still make OrlanDEAU a super meaty slow tank, or MARACH a wizard ninja or whatever.

The main backbone of FFT's unique job system is that any unit can be any job they wish, and take on any role that they wish. But, currently, if you level up in Monk for 50 levels, then you're a pretty bad Summoner and you always will be. Since there's no way to re-spec your units, it sucks to have to train a new generic just to get the right stats that you need for a certain strategy. And since LionEditor doesn't work with anything but vanilla stats, that's not an option for us either.

So, before this begins to sound like a thesis defense, let's just call it quits here. I just like the freedom to play in whatever class I deem necessary for the next fight without being penalized down the road for getting levels in the wrong job.

kyozo22, on 19 April 2014 - 07:02 PM, said:

A vision is not an accurate layout of what the mod is going to be when finished, just a general idea.

Stann, I'm definitely up for normalising stat growths. Just got home and transferred the utilities to my laptop. Having a look at the spreadsheets now.

Stann, on 20 April 2014 - 04:30 AM, said:

I've always wondered about this since vanilla, but I deemed it a necessary evil for rewarding dedicated characters. however, having, say, your monk hit for 45 and an enemy monk of the same lvl hit for 97 is just wrong.

I'm thinking of a who hits first vs who hits harder escenario, but I'm not sure right now.

Mayhap I speak in nothings.

Personally, I'm constructing this mod with fights encouraging the mentality of "who strategizes best" as oppossed to "who hits first/ hardest."

Ok, I'm going to hammer on with the stat growths/ modifiers tonight, so since the Jobs tab( where these figures are input) also lists the innates for changing, I wondered if anyone had ideas or insights for these (be they generic or special) then let's hear 'em. As it stands:

Generic

Squire - Monster Skill
Chemist - Throw Items, Move-Find
Knight - Defend, HP Boost
Monk - Brawler, HP Boost
Thief - Concentrate
Mediator - Monster Skill, Monster Talk
Geomancer - Ignore Terrain, Ignore Weather, Lavawalking
Lancer - Ignore Height
Samurai - 2 Hands
Ninja - 2 Swords, Waterwalking
Sage - Levitate
Mime - Magick Counter, Monster Skill, Brawler, Counter
Onion Knight - Maintenance, Counter, 2 Swords, 2 Hands

Special

Heretic - Move-Find
Dragonkin - Monster Speech, Dual Wield, Monster Skill, Tame
Machinist -Maintenance
Sky Seer - Defense Boost, Arcane Defense
Nether Seer - Waterwalking, Dual Wield
Game Hunter - Monster Tongue, Monster skill, Waterwalking, Brawler

Monster

Chocobo - Swim, Counter
Black Chocobo - Swim, Fly, Counter
Red Chocobo - Swim, Ignore Height, Counter
Goblin Family - Counter Throw, CT 0
Bomb Family - Cannot Enter Water, Levitate, Critical: Quick
Tonberry Family - Cannot Enter Water, Ignore Height, Bonecrusher, Counter
Squid Family - Waterbreathing, Nature's Wrath, Arcane Strength
Skeleton Family - Swiftness, Critical: Recover HP
Ghost Family - Cannot Enter Water, Levitate, Shirahadori, Teleport
Ahriman Family - Cannot Enter Water, Fly, Magick Counter, CT 0
Jura Aevis/ Steelhawk - Fly, First Strike
Cockatrice - Fly, Archer's Bane
Pig Family - Cannot Enter Water, CT 0, Critical: Quick
Dryad Family - Cannot Enter Water, Soulbind
Minotaur Family - Cannot Enter Water, Counter
Malboro Family - Waterwalking, Regenerate
Behemoth Family - Cannot Enter Water, CT 0, Mana Shield
Dragon - Cannot Enter Water, Dragonheart, CT 0
Blue/ Red Dragon - Cannot Enter Water, Dragonheart
Hydra Family - Cannot Enter Water, Fly, Counter
Cactuars - Shirahadori
Byblos - Cannot Enter Water, Ignore Height, Poach, Counter
Automaton - Cannot Enter Water, Ignore Weather, Ignore Terrain, Counter

So, main thing I'd like to see is a bit more innates on magic generics. However, all I can think of (without being broken, of course) would be Absorb MP, which could have the odd, niche use, but is still fairly "meh" as a reaction. Thoughts?

Haven't looked through the monster innates, but here are my thoughts on the human ones:

Squire and Mediator both have innate Monster Skill. Why?
What is HP Boost?
Ninja with innate Waterwalking is absolutely ridiculous. They don't need yet another advantage.
Sages should retain innate Oil, for the lulz.

Mediator had it originally in vanilla, I think. I believe that Squires were given Monster Skill to give them further use - decent skillset and an improvement to monsters for those that use it.

HP boost is a WoTL only support skill that increases HP by 20% (so, essentially, it's 20% less damage. Fuck knows why KNIGHTS were given this one.)

Duly noted re: ninjas.

Lulz be damned... "ser".

kyozo22, on 21 April 2014 - 11:13 PM, said:

Nah, they only have monster talk (or Beast Tongue) in vanilla.

kyozo22, on 21 April 2014 - 11:13 PM, said:

Assuming you can't stack innate HP Boost with a set HP Boost as your support skill, this seems like it could disadvantage those classes by locking them out of using that support ability. You should be able to get the same effect by increasing their HPM accordingly.

kyozo22, on 21 April 2014 - 11:13 PM, said:

Also Malak's base job has that issue, but I'm on the fence about that one. His base job sucks (at least in PSX 1.3, growths excluded)

i wilt hast mineth lulz, ser!

Generics:



On the Monsters...

FOR FUCK SAKE! WHY, WHY DO I ALWAYS FORGET TO SAY "This is what's in the CURRENT version."!? Urgh, I'm dense.

Agree with both of youon your points, and yes Hart, we should brainstorm this shit. PM me if you want.

P.s CT 0 is non-charge. The only addition I made to monsters was adding a CT to Goblin Puch so it was less abusable,then giving goblins innate non charge.

Nether Seer is Malak, by the way.

kyozo22, on 22 April 2014 - 08:24 AM, said:

Right, right. My bad, I really didn't consider that.

Very nice workaround with the Goblin Punch, by the way .

One thing I'd suggest is the removal of Ulmaguest on the Behemoths, though. It is too stronk, really.

Give them All-Ultima instead.