Insane Difficulty: Deep Dungeon/Side Quest Planning - Insane Difficulty

So, I'm at that point where I'm up to optional areas of the game. I want it to be harder than what the main course game is, but very little/nothing that's so hard that it can't be meaningfully tested. But outside of looking at my main course's harder battles (Altima 2, Balk 2, Rofel, Finath, Poeskas, etc) and just kicking it up a notch with different mooks/abilities, I'm low on ideas to fill 40 iterations of DD battles.. This is where you can help! If you have any idea you'd like to see in a battle, post it here!

Also, does anyone familiar with FFT modding (Archael, Raven, 2a?) know if anyone has figured out yet how to make it so that beating a DD battle automatically opens the next floor, instead of requiring the player to stand on a seemingly random square that you pretty much need a vanilla guide or to have played the game too much to know where it is? I hate that feature of vanilla, and if it's fixable, why the hell not fix?

Free classes: I have 8 slots for classes that are not being used in any way at all, and are free to use for any purpose (Actually 9 but reserving 1 for Elidibs, who definitely deserves a special class). 5 additional class slots that I'm not sure yet if are useable, but can't be renamed if I do decide to use. 3 enemies that are currently random encounter enemy only. And 4 class slots that could potentially be used, but are currently only open to prevent bugs caused by hard coding that could be prevented via work arounds (marked as "use last" on my list). So I have some room to play if you can think of some evil innates combo that I somehow didn't think of... Keep in mind, if what you're thinking could be done by giving a secondary skillset to, say Adramelk's class, or playing with his Br/Fa, I'd rather go with that route since there's far more open skillsets.

Open abilities are numerous (20+), but keep in mind that in order to create a new ability, it needs to be different enough from other abilities (different proc/element combo/status infliction/AOE, etc) to be worthy here of a new slot.

Rejected ideas:

Poach or Train on an enemy - Some recruitable monsters (such as Demons and Holy Dragons) are actually immune to the effects of these, while some are not. Also, I have the ability to change the number of useable units in a battle, so if I wanted to go the route where I'd consider making one or more unit permanently unuseable, I'd rather just make it so you start out the battle with 1-2 units instead.

Damn. I'd be the one jumping to help here, but I know shit about your mod lol. I have to play it first.

Emmy, on 28 June 2015 - 02:36 PM, said:

I hope you have no problems after I helped you out with this. If you have any more questions feel free to shoot me a pm here or on FFH (which I am more likely to check).

I have a few ideas that could work:

One map full of bosses, whether they be the buffed mook classes like Big Bird / Cthulu Priest or the Zodiac monsters themselves (maybe both!). Feels like almost a must have, but that's just me.

A map with a realllyyy good completely human fighting team. The player has fought so many monsters, how would they fair against 5 - 12 human enemies?

A floor with a buffed Altima fight. Superboss, why not? This'll probably be basically what Elidibs is though

Three 1.3 Altima2s.

Kjata, on 02 July 2015 - 10:23 PM, said:

Stat scaling (speed especially) in my mod is different, so a direct port of 1.3's Altima 2 wouldn't exactly work. Something with a bunch of OP af moves (1.3's Terror, Ulmaguest, etc) wouldn't be entirely out of the question, though. I'll think about it.

@Jumza - your instructions to add the variable to the victory conditions had an unintended side effect. It opened up floor 3 if you beat floor 1 a second time, due to the victory condition being triggered again. I was able to just open up all floors at the bar instead, and change the tile event to not trigger a variable (just an event with an easter egg type quote). This was the easiest way to do what I wanted to do. Thanks for your help.

I'm surprised neither of us thought that that would happen while we were discussing it
Oh well, glad you figured out something that works for you!

Since, with Elric's help, I was able to get Colliery open and change the battle conditionals where necessary, Deep Dungeon is temporarily placed on hold. Mainly because Colliery is going to be the milder sidequest (between main course and DD difficulty), where players will get characters/items that'll help them with the DD insanity.

Sinogue encounter changed to "beat Sinogue" instead of "save Reis" - this is important to make a hard/interesting encounter that isn't terribly reliant on RNG, especially given the starting positions of the characters and how the ai works. Reis will almost always attack something she starts next to instead of running away from the big bad scary monsters, and at least one of the nearby monsters will kill her. Sinogue itself is a souped up Infernal, with several mini-boss mooks.

Nelveska's new battle condition is "beat 1" - there will be 3 super bosses, player's choice as to which one must go down to end the battle. Each will have some sort of significant drawback to attacking them - possibilities here include reaction abilities like Speed Save and Fear, large AOE defense ignoring attacks like Ulmaguest, etc. Anyone have any ideas here? I have enough open class/ability/skillset slots if entirely new ones are needed.

Since Colliery/Nelveska/Zarghidas are done now, DD planning has started. Some notes:

1. Elidibs will have some special eventing, assuming it works. This will turn it into a boss rush (similar to Altima/Altima 2 events). You do not have to be a summoner in this battle to get Zodiac as a missable thing like in vanilla, since the Archmagus enemy on the overworld can cast it.

2. Battles will be designed out of order. The reason for this is in testing some of my prototype ideas, some are more suited towards large/small maps. With movement in general nerfed to something a bit more reasonable, enemies must be able to reach the player to be a notable threat, and just sticking teleport 2 on everything is boring/kinda a copout. Enemies designed to run away (such as Movers) are too easy to deal with on smaller maps like Nogias, as is anything that is arrow/missile/magic bait. As such, battles will be designed in the order I come up with ideas, on suitable maps for the ideas. All maps are unlocked from the beginning, so they can be tested in whatever crazy order I come up with them.

3. Move finds are in the same locations as vanilla, but the items that were something that are buyable in the mod are now something that's not. What this means is all Move Finds are worth getting, and not just the ones that aren't a Feather Mantle or Elixir. With the new update, Move Find will be disabled for enemies so you don't have to worry about enemy Goblins/Squids stealing your shit now. You do not have to have low brave to find the good item anymore. Who out there really enjoyed picking up a Phoenix Down instead of an Excalibur? This is especially necessary due to not being able to permanently alter that stat anymore.

4. In addition to the Move Finds, several of these battles will have enemies that you can steal from. This will allow a "reasonable" way to get enough Masamunes/Chiris to use the Draw Outs, while still being enough of a deterrent to farm unlimited amounts of them. It also offers an alternative to Move Finding, again while still being decently hard to do.

5. Some, not all, battles will have recruits! These recruits will be like Reis/Beowulf/ Worker 8 (regularly recruitable stuff with a secondary moveset in addition to their primary set). This will allow for additional rewards for beating hard battles.

With the feedback I've received from my Deep Dungeon tester, DD is revamped into something a bit more tolerable. By tolerable, I don't mean I'm going easy on you. I mean less of a chore to write, test, attempt battles. It also will offer a much better prize for winning these than just items that you can steal/move find that only 2 guys can use.

1. Preliminary battle: This battle with the Undead Super Moogle at Warjilis City opens the DD. Prize for beating USM is access to the DD, and a ribbon. This replaces the bar scene, because let's face it - it's no longer a place where the player can farm rare stuff with little consequence, but a place for players to bang their heads on the wall a bit. (Good rewards for ultra hard battles)

2. Battles are derandomized in a way that allows me to use the space elsewhere, thanks to Xifanie. What this means is stepping on Bridge will give you one battle (yes, Laith, *that* battle), and so you're spending more time attempting these than you are attempting to get the battle you want to play.

3. Uber units - each battle will give you an uber unit - random zodiac, 74/74 stats, secondary skillset, and 3 additional r/s/m. Like the rest of the mod, you can control this guy for the fight, and it joins when you win.

4. Battle formation reduced to 4. You get 4 guys of your choice plus the uber unit for these fights.

Since only 2 of the battle concepts from my previous dd I was actually pleased with in any way, the rest will be fully rewritten when I think of what to put there.