Insane Difficulty: Balancing the feather, speed bracer, etc. (v9 mechanics) - Insane Difficulty

As mentioned in the title, this thread will be discussing mechanics that only appear in v9 and later. If you don't wish to learn about them before playing the game, stop reading now.




Anyone who saw my stream will know that the double turns provided by various items completely overpowers all the other accessories. Rather than make DK shoulder all the burden of figuring out how to balance this (or limit it to only a single late item), we should see if we can come up with potential "balancing" changes that would keep double turn items from being strictly better.

First, here are the base benefits of double turns:

• Can deal twice as much damage per wave at double the FP cost and double the counter rate
  
• Alternatively, can take 1/4 damage per wave except the first turn and when defend would normally be used
  
• Can heal and defend, heal and attack, etc.
  
• Gives more options in general, such as attacking, getting countered, then healing and defending

Looking at the above, double turns could be balanced by effectively having them apply a permanent "full break" to the user. This could either stack with full break or overwrite it. The net effect would then be the following:

• Deal normal damage per wave at double the FP cost and double the counter rate
  
• Alternatively, can take 1/2 damage per wave except the first turn and when defend would normally be used
  
• Can heal and defend, heal and attack, etc.
  
• Gives more options in general, such as attacking, getting countered, then healing and defending

With the above balance change, double turns would turn into a tank-healer-class item as opposed to a DPS-tank-healer-everythingexceptstatusailments-class item.

Thoughts?

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I come to this site to learn more about modding and hoping I can make a good mod game.

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Adding a "Full Break" effect on top would effectively turn the accessories into "Take One Turn, then immediately Defend Everytime" unless you need a very fragile Glass Cannon (Very rare). You could have them lower your Damage/Healing output to 60-75%. This would have you need to make a choice during battle: DO I do two attacks for 120-150% total, or do one attack and then defend. IT would add some more choice without totally breaking the game (I think).

I love the items as they are.

GilesDarkwater, on 30 December 2016 - 07:49 PM, said:

You've never fought a boss before while hit with full break? Depending on the situation, you don't even need to defend.

The problem with what you're proposing is that you're not comparing the double turn accessories to the OTHER accessories. A free defend every turn is going to beat just about every other option.

How was he able to do double turn moves?.

Jonathan Goad, on 30 December 2016 - 11:10 PM, said:

There's plenty of unused bits lying around in the character battle memory. A few of those were used to track the new "buff" and determine which turn it was. If it's the first turn, the "Once Again" mechanic from vanilla was taken advantage of.

There's some more technicalities (that were admittedly really annoying to deal with), but that's the high-level explanation.

Is it possible to make two types of double turn?

I have two ideas in mind:

-Glass Cannon Double Turn
• User raises attack and magic attack stats but decreases both defenses
• Cannot use Defend nor Item

-Tank healer Double Turn
• User raises both defenses stats but decreases both attacks
• Cannot use Special nor Attack

Edit:

I want to imagine some accesories disabling some actions could really balance the double turn feature

Catarina, on 30 December 2016 - 11:40 PM, said:

I mean... that's not a bad idea for a new feature... but... what's that have to do with double turns?

Doomsday, on 30 December 2016 - 11:53 PM, said:

Mostly to assign some early accesories like Speed Bracer, Feather and Troopa Pin some more balance by disabling some actions (if they are still going to have double turn in the future). Even if debuffing or giving them a full break, they might still be overpowered because they can still use all the actions to recover themselves and/or the rest of the party.

Speaking of alternatives, another one is only giving a double turn by using a spell.

After using a spell, the following happens:
• All commands but Special disabled
• All FP consumption reduced to 0 for the remaining turn until a spell is used
• Resets the counter and the character can use any command again.

For this it's like FF6 with X-Magic. To prevent any bugs if the character has disable and they use a spell, they would be able to use a spell even through disable.

For the first suggestion doomsday, I think that adding full break to the character for any double turn item (except for one late-game item that does not do this) is probably the best idea. OR, maybe an easily obtainable one time item is giving the full-break/double-turn combo to an armor piece, and only handing out the accessories later (and ultimately, one without full break but with double turn).

Double turns are broken in general. Compared to items like the life orb (which I assume was added in for the purpose of buffing your main damage output early and providing faster setups for the party to prepare for bosses and such) it completely outclasses them just for the benefit of using extra turns in general regardless of stats or armor/weapons with the only negative being that it doesn't protect you from the variety of status effects that alot of enemies can inflict. Why use anything else when you could theoretically have something like mario attacking for 15k on both strikes, or have geno equip lazy shell or demain mail+, buff the other party members and debuff the boss with chaos/frag grenades or just heal with keros then defend. Most of all damage provided by other items do at best around 65-80% of the damage that you can theoretically do with the two turn items. I think the full break is nice but I think it would be kinda alright if it just had you attack physically twice and not be able to do anything else like using a item or spell twice. What if it was like with the shield material you get from emerald weapon that haves your character automatically attack as if they're bezerked. If they use a physical attack then they'll immediately attack again but if you want to use items or spells then it won't activate twice. Idk just throwing ideas out there.

Edit: You could also have it lower your attack stats on equip so that its more of a utility item.

Swat Kat Omega, on 31 December 2016 - 12:56 AM, said:

I'm having a really hard time wrapping my head around this as I'm not familiar with X-Magic. That doesn't sound like a double turn so much as a "free" spell (with the cost being the "double turn" cost). Also, I don't understand what you're saying with the counter. Is that just to internally indicate which mode they're in?

Darkcelestrian, on 31 December 2016 - 03:48 AM, said:

That sounds like an interesting mechanic, but again, I don't see what that has to do with double turns. The only relation is the new feature might be used to balance double turns.

To be clear, I'm hoping to keep the discussion to ideas that are already implemented in the game or are relatively easy to add.

Doomsday, on 31 December 2016 - 08:56 AM, said:

Would it be hard to make double turns just apply only on attacks?

Darkcelestrian, on 31 December 2016 - 10:33 AM, said:

The only comparison I can make is when Bowyer disabled options, but I have no idea how that works, what the limitations are, or if the functionality is still there (Bowyer no longer does that, after all).

So.... maybe? It might be a relatively simple change, but it might be incredibly annoying. For comparison, I know exactly how to apply the full break effect, and it's a very small change.

Will there be a next Final Fantasy game in the future?.

Doomsday, on 31 December 2016 - 10:43 AM, said:

I honestly think double turns in general is broken af and takes alot of the challenge out of the bosses even if they are on a standard difficulty, that's not to say I don't like it cuz I do (reminds me a little of final fantasy 10, and dragon quest monsters double trouble ability). But it's too beneficial especially with the really helpful items in the game like keros, mighty gaurds and the galaxy shrooms, most notably the galaxy L shrooms because it gives you a free turn also.