Insane Difficulty: WOTL Development Discussion - Insane Difficulty

Ok guys, big topic time! I'm making this topic in order to do the following:

a) get a note written down on planned changes to WOTL 1.3.1.3

b) get feedback on said changes

c) general discussion and ideas

Planned Changes

Removal of DK special unit and OK special unit

Reintroduction of generic OKs, including more prevalence in the storyline (with R/S/Ms)

Rebalance of stats to be more in line with the PSX version

Overhaul and rebalance of items (especially the multiplayer equips)

100% Move-Find

Special character moveset edits (less redundancy, etc.)

Concept that I'm struggling with

One thing I'd really, really like to try and include is a system that allows a balanced Multiplayer and Single player experience. The problem is, most games that tend to focus on such issues generally suffer from what is technically known as "crap and/ or boring design." (Archael and/ or Raven, your opinions would be invaluable, as this is far more your "bag" than it is mine!)

So, I'd like opinions/ insights please. What could, in your opinion, be done to promote a good system of play that accomodates these two fundamentally diffrent design views? I'll start:

Reduced/ neutral speed growth to allow Magic/ Skills with CTs to be a viable choice at all levels of play.

Everything needs to be planned thoroughly (every item, every stat growth, every ability) with a use in both single player and multiplayer in mind. Skill CTs, effects, Special units will need some sort of hefty overhaul to still be "special," but not broken/ over-used.

People to Thank

Archael - dunno what the hell I'd be doing right now if it weren't for this site or 1.3. Thank you.
DrBretto - for your WOTL 1.3 patch, and for trusting me with control over your 'baby.' Let's all hope I don't fuck it up, right?
Hart-Hunt, Ludovician, Stann - Balance ideas, feedback and, most importantly, the sheer mass of patience you all have when dealing with me saying "Well, what about this?" and blurting out the most idiotic "balance" changes. Thank you all.
Advent - Master Talker Big Mouth himself. Thanks. Your presence in Chat always ensures the banter will be great!
Darthatron - Frankly, if I don't credit you, I'm scared of what you'll do to "destroy the site" ( )

I think you should design the game primarily for single-player, to be honest. They're two competing parts of the game and trying to appeal to both usually ends up in a compromise that creates a worse product than one solely designed for one.

Ludovician, on 17 April 2014 - 08:06 PM, said:

I've just realised (mostly because ir's 5:21 AM here) that I should clarify that when I say "Multiplayer". what I really mean is co-op (meaning it's still PvE territory, just involving three of your units and three of your friends.)

Apologies for the confusion.

That said, focus will indeed be on the single player rebalance, stat growts and multiplayer/ rare items and Move-Finds.

Well, having given our fair amount of opinions, I think what you should do is post more potential ideas you have, so that we can give you feedback. I think you're steered into the right direction already.

I'm glad you did this thread, which certainly shows that you don't want to be working in a 1-man, single minded way, in a game that can be played in so different ways.

Hart-Hunt, on 17 April 2014 - 11:16 PM, said:

Ok, so first off: Sure, will do. Just can't right now as need to go to work. Will take my notepad in with me and write down a note of my changes so far, and why etc.

Will amend this post when I'm back home with said changes. Check back in about eight - ten hours!

And yeah, as well as the reasons you gave, I really want to stop clogging up Chat with my "What about this? Or this? Or this"?" type of post.

(that's not to say I won't ask opinions etc if any of you are in, I just know that all I've done over the past few days has been that type of stuff needs to reduce, especially now that I can just post on this board. )

EDIT: Ok, back from work, fed and watered. Without further ado:

Special Character Edits

Ramza - would like to keep some of his sheer variety of equips (barring the female exclusives) for Chapter 4 only.

Boco - Gains Dual Wield innate (thanks Stann for the idea)

Meliadoul - remove Reis' Dragon Skills from her set, give her Crush skills back. Also give her exclusive access to Cherry Blossom, which is now Holy element and named Papillon Reel.

Orlandu - Regains sap skills, loses Crush skills

Cloud - Loses Cherry Blossom

Balthier - Loses Marksman skills, gains unique skills as part of his new Quickening skillset, which will either be designed solely around team support and healing or damage, but I'm not sure of the details of either yet yet.

New recruitable Special Class to replace Hitoshi's Death Knight: Witch of the Coven, (Balmafula's Class) with an original skillset based around whatever Balthier doesn't have.

I feel like Fluffy, the Arch Demon should be removed but feedback on that would be appreciated.

Generic Skillset Changes

Squire - Loses Focus (as lolbroken) until such times that I've learned ASM in order to replace with Defy Pain.*
Also, replaces Beatdown with Wild Swing.

Removed Last Waltz (CT00 dance)
Removed Finale (Quick song)

*Regarding Defy Pain and the ASM issue, was considering turning Heal into a nerfed version of the Cactuars "Flourish" skill (so, for example, restores 25% HP and removes Blind, Silence, Poison, Haste, Protect, Defend as a trade-off. Thoughts?)

Item Rebalances

With the edits made to speed growth, speed raising items will need to be re-examined in order to keep the speed 'curve' (or lack thereof) from getting too far out of hand.

How are you going to add r/s/m to the generic onion knight? Has there been progress with that? Or are you intending to nuke a job?

Keep in mind that a lot of the classes are the way they are because of the enterprise, so when you make those changes make sure to take a good, hard look at what they'll affect not just in story battles but specifically in archs 5v5 randoms. That's how the easy way was to just keep two jobs for dk, etc. It can be a pain in the Ass. There have been too many changes to just start over clean, too. Believe me, because that's how I had to import the original to wotl in the first place.

But I know you got this, good luck on your reign!

DrBretto, on 18 April 2014 - 08:51 AM, said:

Thanks very much, Doc. Firstly, Onion Knights. When I said about R/S/M for the Onion Knights, I (again) should have said that these would have been implemented via the ENTD onto enemy units.

Regarding the "watch how this affects shit" I'll be making sure that this is thoroughly tested before I release this version, fo' sho'.

Very nice list. Looking forward to progress on all of those points.

kyozo22, on 17 April 2014 - 11:57 PM, said:

Wild idea: instead of 25%HP, either 5%MP or a fixed amount like, say 10 MP. I always felt Basic Skill lacked a "small MP recovery" skill, since Item is lots of times superior to Basic Skill only because of the Ehter command. Overall, I like the concept of the skill.

Huh, if the formula allows for MP restoration then yes, that sounds like a good change. I'd like to up that to 10% though to give you a good 'return' for sacrificing a buff.

(For sustained relevance throughout the game, I've always thought that % based healings were better in RPGs anyway.)

EDIT: Yeah, doesn't look like I can get that formula to heal MP. I could do a single target version of chakra, but I think that'd be redundant, personally.

EDIT 2: I could use formula 54 HealMP (MA*Y), but I'm worried that that'll be too strong early game.

Right then, multiplayer item edits!

(Note: As it's first thing in the morning here, I'm taking this info off of my psp file, and not the patcher. Since some of the actual multiplayer items
(in their original item slots) haven't had their attributes edited to match the single player counterparts, there may be inconsistencies. Will correct when back tonight)

1.3.1.3 b5:



Have some ideas for these written down, but can't post them just now as need to get to work. Will update when I get back in 13 hours! In the meantime, feel free to throw in your opinions/ suggestions, etc.

Edit: Still at work, but got 15 minutes break and can steal their wifi. General rules (that probably don't even need mentioning):

The "Always" equips to become "Initial"
(Barring Sage Ring, but will probably change effect anyway)
Reduction of WPs all round
Speed + Initial Haste? lol nope One or other, and probably just + 1 speed for any one piece of equipment. (requires testing though, obviously)

More to come! Yay!

Let me get some sleep; I'll see it thoroughly tomorrow. Awesome dude.

No worries man, I can wait. Like I said, it's gonna be about 12 hours till I get back home and sorted with clear ideas anyway.

Okay... Let's just say that the list overall has lots of things that give way too much power towards the player. Let me give you just a few quick examples (I'll try to put the most extreme ones):

kyozo22, on 18 April 2014 - 09:32 PM, said:

Anything that gives Initial Reraise and it's not in the accessory slot seems too much for me, imo. Especially giving so much HP, there's no drawback.

30 WP on anything is way too abusable. Even more with having a stats boost.

Speed + 1, Initial: Haste? Holy damn, that's hilariously broken. We have perfumes that can only be equipped by females and have Initial: Haste. What about Speed -1?

Speed +3 holy mother of waaat? Point made.

Immune to all status on an acessory? Then take out Ribbons and Barettes. Otherwise, give a solid drawback. See, the good thing about gearsets (Onion Glove, shield, etc) is that you could make something like, every piece having Speed -2, but with a somewhat interesting buff, and that would give the player an interesting choice. Speed is the stat that hurts the player the most, and he / she knows it.

A unique accessory with Initial: Faith sounds pretty damn interesting.

The Tynar Rouge... I'd say take out the speed boost, and for a unique item it would be interesting.

Overall, there's a general line I'm seeing where every end-game item gives not only good HP / MP, but also stats boost and ALSO immunities and/or buffs. Having so many equips with stats boost (and huge stats boosts) breaks any plan you make for your growths / multipliers, since the player can simply manipulate those stats by equipping different gear, right?

Those are my 2 cents. As always, feel free to scrap everything I say . Hope it helps, though.

Still at work, but just want to confirm that you're aware that thats' how the items are currently, right?

We're on the same page with those changes (including ditching ribbon. Ahead of you there,for once. )

Better go,I'll update with potential changes in few hours.

I'd just like to point out that when something is broken, the only way you can judge it is through contrast. Something can look broken, but it only becomes OP if the enemies you're up against aren't powerful enough to still pose a significant threat while you're using it.

I'm not familiar enough with the math of FFT to definitively say whether or not you could change the way the game plays (take the gear listed and make it not broken by playing with the enemies and not the gear itself), but it seems possible, however doing so would require a revamp of the entire game itself.

Advent, on 19 April 2014 - 07:35 AM, said:

Well, we're talking about diferent ways to interpret the word "broken". You're talking about "breaking" the difficulty, while I'm talking about "breaking" the game dynamics, by having an item that is clearly superior in practice and should be equipped 90% of the time, "breaking" the ability of the player to choose diferent valid strategies.

A clear example in the world of 1.3 would be the Engineer Rifle, pre/post 1.3.0.8. Until 1.3.0.6, it was a gun that gave you +2 Speed, and immunity to Don't Act / Don't Move. Unless you could come up with a niche way to use the Summon Guns (or farm in a very obscure and tedious way the Stone Guns in the Deep Dungeon, which 95% of the players don't know about), the Engineer Rifles were always superior, so that you could even consider putting Equip Gun to have that extra +2 Speed. Not having a legit choice is what gives me the reason to call an equipment "broken".

My definition is not exclusive to yours, though. Kyozo's ideal of having an overall lower speed stat and magic having a much major role will not be helped by huge boosts in the end-game gear.

Hart-Hunt, on 19 April 2014 - 11:12 AM, said:

No, we're talking about the exact same thing. The problem is that I made the mistake of having it look like I was speaking in absolutes when I wasn't.

Hart-Hunt, on 19 April 2014 - 11:12 AM, said:

This illustrates my point, as discussed in chat: all examples of "brokenness" exist as a contrast; that's why it's called the balance of power. You could have revamped all equipment and not touched the Engineer Rifle. That would have been an absolutely terrible decision, but you see my point.

Hart-Hunt, on 19 April 2014 - 11:12 AM, said:

Precisely, I just feel that if we're going to throw around terms such as "broken," it's important to point out (for those who may be lurking) that these terms exist by contrast and nothing more. If something is clearly preferable to all other equipment in that slot 90% of the time, that's just as bad as having a 50WP 10 PA 10 MA 5 Speed sword.

Broken is broken.

Advent, on 19 April 2014 - 11:34 AM, said:

Agreed. To expand on your point, from a developer's pov, what we have to think is what are we contrasting to what. Are we contrasting gear to modifiers and growths? Are we contrasting potential speed against the current enemy formations? I'm kind of burned out now to seek of better examples, but I hope my point is being made here.

But, for the sake of the argument to have shape, let's leave it as "broken is broken".

Hart-Hunt, on 19 April 2014 - 11:49 AM, said:

That's too rigid. Growths, modifiers, gear, abilities, enemies.. they're all the same thing: tools with which to deliver enjoyment to the player.

Hart-Hunt, on 19 April 2014 - 11:12 AM, said:

Except the Engineer rifle has a fixed damage of 100, and back then the summon gun could be 250 damage a shot. They were completely different items with completely different purposes.