Insane Difficulty: FFIX Unleashed - General Feedback - Insane Difficulty

Please post your non-technical feedback here.

Compiled this list from the other topic:

Spell Damage


Grinding?



Enemy HP



Minus Strike




Enemy Skill Rotation




Difficulty Curve

Spell damage is directly propositional to the way it was in the original game. Enemy direct damage attacks were set up primarily in three tiers: basic attack (generally physical), special ability (generally magical), and super skills (stats and multipliers calculated into base, then multiplied by the bonus). The special abilities generally do 1.5 to 3 times the damage of a basic attack, super skills generally do 1.5 to 3 times the damage of a special ability. Square countered the higher magical damage by adding a lot of elemental armors into the game. Neither the proportional damage nor the elemental equipment has been altered in the mod. I could increase enemy strength to be far higher than magic and balance it out that way, but that would just create some other problems. So, the proportional damage will stay the same as it was in the original game.

Grinding isn't actually all that necessary early in the game. A proper strategy is worth more than a couple of levels. In my first play-through I finished disc 1 in 5 hours at level 11. That said, sometimes it isn't a bad idea to grab a level or two before a tough boss fight.

I considered and tested quite a few different options for alteration before modifying FFIX. HP alteration was one of them, but it turned out to be a bad idea. I won't go into the details of why.

I know that Minus Strike is rather powerful, however I doubt that it can be altered except through the battle module of the engine, which in turn would likely mess up a lot of other things. But to be honest, I haven't checked the coding.

The problem with fixing enemy skills is that there are four Scene Files, each with hundreds of Formation Blocks, each with a few enemy skills stored in them. Manually editing them would take a very long time.

Difficulty is also roughly proportional to the original game. Easier spots in the original game are generally easier in the mod. Harder spots in the original game are generally harder in the mod.

I won't be posting anymore explanations like this because, frankly, it is too time consuming and a bit annoying.

That is understandable

Sometimes people throw out complaints about mods without taking into consideration the limitations of what is and is not alterable (nor how)



Thanks for the replies though

LandonRay, on 05 January 2012 - 08:54 AM, said:

Grinding is only really necessary to avoid being one-shotted, yes. So the only 'strategy' that's being avoided when you do so is spamming Phoenix Downs (instead replaced with hi-potions). Not to say that goes for every enemy though; but some can just use a Fire spell on you dealing well over your max HP. That's why I was concerned with not changing spell damage.

Boss battles are generally fun though because while they're supposed to be very difficult, there's often some kind of strategy to them (such as not using Vivi's magic on BW2). Thing is, normal battles very often lack any strategy so they actually become harder than boss battles. The Ghosts for example are harder than BW2 because while they can also one-shot you like BW2, there's more than one of them you're fighting and you have one less character to boot.

Thing is, I'm personally not at all incapable of clearing content low-level. I only was pondering if I needed to level so I can test the difficulty how it's intended (which may or may not require grinding) otherwise I'd have a wrong impression of the difficulty (apparently not). Every fight can still be won with a varied random combination of 'phoenix down', 'potion', 'attack' & 'defend' (latter probably not for certain reasons) there aren't really many options in that regard so far (which may make the latter parts of the game easier because you have far more options; status effects to inflict, summons, AoE healing, reflect, Quina's various abilities etc etc...).

Future boss battles do have some interesting mechanics so they will remain challenging, but normal enemies will get easier no matter how much they may one-shot you, because you'll have more options, including auto abilities (so a steep difficulty curve isn't really a bad thing at all; otherwise it will likely go backwards instead). But as you say, you haven't really gone into depth with balancing yet so some things are bound to change.

Archael, on 05 January 2012 - 10:18 AM, said:

Being a modder myself I do understand this. I usually tend to decipher everything or most things before I start modding. Not everything can be found and some games have more limitations, although most numerical calculations can be changed albeit difficult. Not something to expect though I suppose. There are many other ways to go around it though if they're found, such as changing Minus Strike availability to later equipment rather than earlier (and replacing it with something like 'Charge' or 'Mental Break').

Also I'm not sure 'throw out complaints' is the right term. I'm trying my best to be objective.

Switching out Minus Strike with a different ability is a good idea. I don't know where the data is off-hand, and there would be a lot of other miscellaneous data that would need changed as well (FFIX randomly scatters pieces of data all over the place), but it's doable. I'll take a look at it once the basic modifications are done.

As far as later game regular enemies go, I've been assuming the same thing. I already have a plan for dealing with it. However, once again, I won't get around to implementing it until the basic modifications are done.

LandonRay, on 05 January 2012 - 02:37 PM, said:

It'll be a good idea for lots of other things too; there's a lot you can do with it. Even removing abilities from the game altogether if need be.

Giving Garnet 'Healer' from the get-go? Freya 'Long-reach'? Zidane 'MP attack' (because he barely uses his MP for anything)? Vivi or Quina 'Chemist'? Steiner 'Counter'? Just some ideas to make the early game more interesting or characters more unique. You could try out lots of things.

^Definitely some things I'll need to try out. Could be tricky, but I think it would add a lot to the early game.

I've also considered making some of the less useful abilities 0MP to encourage there usage.

Well, I just got out of Evil Forest, so far my only issue on this mod is Zidane... He isn't any use.... I love how Vivi is built more like an actual spellcaster (perhaps could use a bit of a buff, his damage lacks something), Steiner is a full blown tank from the start and Garnet has bad ass heals. Zidane is easily out shown. If you could make him faster that would be great. that's just my opinion. He is useless. Granted that's only from 2.5 hours of playing.

that being said... I've enjoyed this 2 and a half hours more than I've enjoyed the 60 hours of vanilla. It makes me think, and try new things. Great work Landon. As I proceed I will be telling you more of my thoughts on this. I may throw my own ideas out of complete ignorance towards the actual hacking process because I don't know the limitations. Bear with me, I'm a dreamer

You'll notice Vivi's first tier spell damage gets pretty awful shortly before you can get Blizzara. But once you do get Blizzara, wow, his damage takes off. Once I finish up the rest of the game I'll go back and see if I can clean up the early parts a bit.

And Zidane? Vivi is the least of my concerns with this patch simply because he is optional in most instances of late game Zidane is the main protagonist.

Once you reach Lindblum, Zidane becomes more useful. Thief Swords deal good damage. Soul Blade works well for inflicting status. And, of course, stealing is always nice.

Zidane's and Quina's weapons have the highest attack power later in the game.

You'll notice a significant increase in Zidane's damage once you get the Ogre.

Honestly in the normal game Zidane is completely useless aside from his damage, Dyne, steal, and Thievery. But In this version i have actually found some use for some of his other abilities. For example...his Whats That!? combined with Vivi's sleep helps you get a back attack on mobs to do more damage. Flee has its uses also if you need to run from a group that you know will give you problems, and his trance is second to none except maybe Vivi. So far only Detect is completely pointless for any of us who have played the game a numerous amount of times. So he has his uses it just that the normal game was so easy we never had to think about alternate ways to use everyone to their potential.

Speaking of rebalancing damage, are you doing anything with Quina's skills yet? As an LLG fan, the first one that came to mind when you mentioned set-damage moves was Limit Glove.

Just heard about this through Archael's YT page. 9's one of my favorites next to 6, so really excited about this.

I'm not starting the major skill re-balancing until after the Scene Files are finished. However, since hitting 9999 isn't going to be a common occurrence without expending an exorbitant amount of MP, I was planning on seeing if a radical MP cost increase would work Limit Glove. If it doesn't, then the ability will be altered to do something else. A lot of Quina's abilities will need work.

Well you basically need Phoenix Down + Save or Autolife before it can be used, so it's still a pain-in-the-ass to set up before Cleyra.

By the way, for skills that might have changed effects are you planning on changing their descriptions too? I know finding script is a lot different from finding data, but it makes the mod feel a lot more professional so I'm making a personal request.

Can't wait to check this out some more later today. I hate fail interwebs and potentially gettin' sick. -_-

LandonRay, on 05 January 2012 - 12:42 AM, said:

Hi i am really excited with this project. I want to make a sugestion if not is to stupid.

Something that always bothered in FFIX was, Zidane useless Thief skills, in major part the steal skill, it really do not have any use in the whole game, i just dont have any reason to use it. So, i just want to make a sugestion of use for that skill.

Okay, in my opinion, a way to make the steal usefull is just drop(maybe even much) the money that you receive from every battle, it you make the player use steal to take items to sell and make some money to buy what he needs, also it you make then search more for items etc...

I know thats is probably a insane idea, but i always get bothered in FFIX how easy is get high amounts of money, and how Zidane Steal (and some others skills to) are so useless, so it is a sugestion.

Thanks for read
And sorry for the bad english again ^_^

Steal, useless? He can get all kinds of equipment early in boss fights o.o;

Steal is far from useless. It just...sometimes takes forever.