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Brave New World 1.9.0 is now available!

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11 hours ago, hypernova said:

 

Are the 8 dragons designed to be fought at a later time once you've amassed a good deal of some of the better equipment?  Earth destroyed me early in the WOR, kinda expected it.  I probably got through nearly all the fire dragon later on by wasting it with Ice3 for 4k each time with Celes along with the constant sap and sporadic other damage via Sabin blitzes and counters, but eventually a Southern Cross wiped me.  I probably spent about 30 minutes on it.  (Low-mid 20s, but I have NOT spent any ELs yet.  Trying to amass them all before spending the points.)

The dragons are optional, so they are definitely designed that if you want to fight them at the time you encounter them, you will need a very good strategy and equipment setup. Southern Cross will 100% wipe you if you don't have fire resistance. 

I would really recommend just spending your ELs, they are a huge component of your effectiveness in battle and if you want to change your mind later, you can respec at the Colosseum (although respeccing anyone but the first four characters is very expensive.)

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You are at a noticeable disadvantage with not having spent ELs. Even a handful of HP ELs will go a good way into making you more effective in combat.

Fire Dragon virtually requires Fire gear because of S.Cross.

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Oh, I'm aware I'm at a disadvantage.  Sabin & Celes were able to withstand a Blow Fish, Edgar and Terra cannot due to HP.  I either gave people the limited fire resistance I have (Tiger Mask) or Shell in some form or another for the fire attacks...figured none of the 4 could equip Ifrit.  Like I said, I think I was very close.  I had to have dished out 60-80k in damage, and survived half a dozen Southern Crosses, but the last one was just too much.  I'll probably just grab Locke and continue on then come back later.

The Dragons are optional...As if.  That's downright blasphemy.  :D  Who would play this mod, and not play it to completion at least once to see all the changes from vanilla?

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All this talk of nerfing bosses and people complaining about the difficulty actually has me worried that the awesome bossfights of yore will fall flat and underwhelm me when I start a new playthrough in the near future. I never felt the fights were too long for a second.

If it dragged on or I had trouble I simply changed my strategy and that was the whole fun of it. And I'm not a hardcore player or a BNW veteran with only that single playthrough completed 1-2 years ago. Do the veterans also agree that the nerfs were actually called for and it wasn't just done at the whim of some lazy people who expect to steamroll bosses vanilla style without doing any strategizing whatsoever?

Not trying to sound like an ass but the heart and soul of the mods on these forums have always been the challenging and epic boss fights, for me at least... Seems weird to jeopardise that challenge that people are looking for when they come to these mods in the first place.

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3 hours ago, Hapanpappa said:

All this talk of nerfing bosses and people complaining about the difficulty actually has me worried that the awesome bossfights of yore will fall flat and underwhelm me when I start a new playthrough in the near future. I never felt the fights were too long for a second.

If it dragged on or I had trouble I simply changed my strategy and that was the whole fun of it. And I'm not a hardcore player or a BNW veteran with only that single playthrough completed 1-2 years ago. Do the veterans also agree that the nerfs were actually called for and it wasn't just done at the whim of some lazy people who expect to steamroll bosses vanilla style without doing any strategizing whatsoever?

Not trying to sound like an ass but the heart and soul of the mods on these forums have always been the challenging and epic boss fights, for me at least... Seems weird to jeopardise that challenge that people are looking for when they come to these mods in the first place.

You can rest assured that no one balancing BNW is interested in nerfs that make the game easier for its own sake. Any nerfs are either to make a fight more fun (there's nothing interesting in spending 5 more minutes on a boss than necessary once you've already figured out how to beat it) or to make sure the fight is properly balanced. However, I also don't think any fights have been nerfed in the past two years. If you're referring to Vargas, he hasn't been nerfed, but if he were, it would be because his difficulty is higher than he should be the options available to you at the time, since you don't have espers yet. But still, most of the proposals here to make him "easier" simply involve giving the player more information, not decreasing his difficulty.

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5 hours ago, Deschain said:

You can rest assured that no one balancing BNW is interested in nerfs that make the game easier for its own sake. Any nerfs are either to make a fight more fun (there's nothing interesting in spending 5 more minutes on a boss than necessary once you've already figured out how to beat it) or to make sure the fight is properly balanced. However, I also don't think any fights have been nerfed in the past two years. If you're referring to Vargas, he hasn't been nerfed, but if he were, it would be because his difficulty is higher than he should be the options available to you at the time, since you don't have espers yet. But still, most of the proposals here to make him "easier" simply involve giving the player more information, not decreasing his difficulty.

I referred to messages on the previous page mentioning nerfs to hidon and dragons, hence my opening statement. Though to be clear, my post was nothing more than me jumping to a conclusion based on those few remarks.

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Hidon is pretty infamous for being very fat (tanky, bulky, high HP, etc), yet doing nothing with that fat. As an example, I had difficulty with the Soul Fires with my team in NHT just the other day because they're so fat. I couldn't rush a victory, I had trouble keeping momentum going with their attacks, and things could quickly get out of hand, and they just wouldn't die!

Hidon, otoh, isn't hard because of his bulk. Once you've got his buddies under control with a good healer around, he's just a wall of HP that isn't very threatening. So the problem lies in a non-threatening script. I've thrown out a 2.0 suggestion for making Ebot's Rock as a whole a time-based dungeon, like the Imperial Banquet was, so that we see the concept again in the WoR and make Ebot's Rock / Hidon more interesting in general. (Also taking @SuperHario's suggestion of a poison-weak Hidon, though with normal mg.def, but that's another issue really). But that's just one of many possibilities. The real problem is that Hidon isn't that difficult, so his high HP feels like a chore rather than a serious obstacle to overcome.

The dragons are different, as some of them are difficult (Holy, Ice, Earth), so nerfing their HP does cheapen an otherwise difficult boss fight. Same with the Warring Triad. I wasn't a fan of the nerf to HP on dragons, but then again, I also think the dragons, in general, need to be looked over, because some of them are boring (Fire, Water, Poison). Warring Triad at least had their bulk nerfed in more interesting ways (low defenses), but, again, not a fan, as they weren't boring.

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12 hours ago, thzfunnymzn said:

Hidon is pretty infamous for being very fat (tanky, bulky, high HP, etc), yet doing nothing with that fat. As an example, I had difficulty with the Soul Fires with my team in NHT just the other day because they're so fat. I couldn't rush a victory, I had trouble keeping momentum going with their attacks, and things could quickly get out of hand, and they just wouldn't die!

Hidon, otoh, isn't hard because of his bulk. Once you've got his buddies under control with a good healer around, he's just a wall of HP that isn't very threatening. So the problem lies in a non-threatening script. I've thrown out a 2.0 suggestion for making Ebot's Rock as a whole a time-based dungeon, like the Imperial Banquet was, so that we see the concept again in the WoR and make Ebot's Rock / Hidon more interesting in general. (Also taking @SuperHario's suggestion of a poison-weak Hidon, though with normal mg.def, but that's another issue really). But that's just one of many possibilities. The real problem is that Hidon isn't that difficult, so his high HP feels like a chore rather than a serious obstacle to overcome.

The dragons are different, as some of them are difficult (Holy, Ice, Earth), so nerfing their HP does cheapen an otherwise difficult boss fight. Same with the Warring Triad. I wasn't a fan of the nerf to HP on dragons, but then again, I also think the dragons, in general, need to be looked over, because some of them are boring (Fire, Water, Poison). Warring Triad at least had their bulk nerfed in more interesting ways (low defenses), but, again, not a fan, as they weren't boring.

I can certainly see why in a case like hidon it gets toned down if most people feel it's just a chore. I must simply be in the minority. And it took me a few tries to beat him too, I remember a few surprises towards the end that I wasn't prepared for at all with my underleveled party so essentially I fought the entire length of the battle at least thrice and still didn't get battle fatigue. Maybe I'm just weird.

With regards to the dragons, I appreciate the honest thoughts - my question now is, when were they nerfed? I hope it was before I did my playthrough. Maybe about 1.5 years ago give or take. I'd be reeeally bummed if they've been made easier since.. Especially when considering that, if I've understood right, this current version will be the definitive version for years to come until 2.0 eventually happens or something. 

Hate to get hung up on this stuff but difficult bosses really are the lifeblood of mods for me. Some bosses were super disappointing already back then, although I've been given valid reasons as to why doomgaze and phunbaba are super easy for example. The warring triad are Gods; why in the world would you ever make them easier? Especially when at that point in the game you have endless options and tools at your disposal to experiment with. Now imagine if you're experienced and know how to gear up - you just walk over the most grand and epic enemies in the climax of the game.

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1 hour ago, Hapanpappa said:

The warring triad are Gods; why in the world would you ever make them easier? Especially when at that point in the game you have endless options and tools at your disposal to experiment with. Now imagine if you're experienced and know how to gear up - you just walk over the most grand and epic enemies in the climax of the game.

Longer boss fights aren't necessarily harder. Just to use arbitrary numbers: If a boss takes 25 minutes for the average player to kill, but the player has already seen the full boss script and survived it multiple times within 10 minutes it's very unlikely that the remaining 15 minutes are going to result in a game over. The player would have already figured out the patterns (even if only on an intuitive level) and so it's just going through the motions until the boss falls down. (For multi-phase bosses, just tweak times appropriately and change the concept to being 'per phase)

In this situation, changing the fight to take 10-15 minutes is not going to have a significant impact on the difficulty of the fight. You are 'really' over-focused on "fight length = difficulty"

Each boss is a puzzle. You have your set of characters/abilities/gear and have to find a way to solve the puzzle within the constraints that you're currently under. Once you've solved the puzzle that is any individual boss it more or less comes down to execution. If your solution isn't a good one it's clearly going to be harder to execute, but still... From a broad standpoint these changes are more or less making it take less time for the confirmation of "You solved the puzzle!" to appear.

If you want to have things harder for yourself, why not go for something more substantial than HP sponges? Why not try a LLG or simply being lower levels or using weird character builds or even putting Nowea Hard Type on so enemies will still get all the turns you want them to get even though they die faster? ;)

Edited by Nowea

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2 hours ago, Nowea said:

Longer boss fights aren't necessarily harder. Just to use arbitrary numbers: If a boss takes 25 minutes for the average player to kill, but the player has already seen the full boss script and survived it multiple times within 10 minutes it's very unlikely that the remaining 15 minutes are going to result in a game over. The player would have already figured out the patterns (even if only on an intuitive level) and so it's just going through the motions until the boss falls down. (For multi-phase bosses, just tweak times appropriately and change the concept to being 'per phase)

In this situation, changing the fight to take 10-15 minutes is not going to have a significant impact on the difficulty of the fight. You are 'really' over-focused on "fight length = difficulty"

Eh, fight length seems like a natural extension or product of higher difficulty, at least when it comes to rpg's with tactical elements. However discussing the philosophy of it further is beside the point, I think. Your words on the matter make it seem like nothing has been done to cheapen the challenge, or in other words, fight length/hp had nothing to do with the challenge these bosses offered. I'm not sure if that's the case either. Assuming nobody had difficulties with these fights past the first 5 minutes and they were simply a boring timesink for most people, then your thoughts would ring more true.. But I remain a bit skeptical, since the impression I've gotten from the replies to my initial question that I directed at veterans hasn't been a unanimous "none of the bosses are any easier than before, the fights were all a drag so it was a net positive to reduce their hp/defense".

It's not that I want to artificially make things harder for myself, I'm asking whether the sweet spot in boss difficulty that I once experienced has been tampered with and whether it was done for right/compelling reasons.

Edited by Hapanpappa

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25 minutes ago, Hapanpappa said:

Eh, fight length seems like a natural extension or product of higher difficulty, at least when it comes to rpg's with tactical elements.

Assuming nobody had difficulties with these fights past the first 5 minutes and they were simply a boring timesink for most people, then your thoughts would ring more true.. 

Suppose an ideal strategy for boss fight X exists. By increasing the duration of this encounter, all other factors being equal, following the same ideal strategy will still yield the same challenge — it simply imposes a higher tax on expendable resources (MP, recovery items).

Thus, arbitrary increase in battle duration (which is in practice identical to already having a battle that is too long in duration) will only serve, at worst, to encourage additional grinding (either for more levels/ELs for MP growth, or money for consumables). At best, it will cause the set of viable strategies to gravitate towards the ideal solution. This runs counter to BNW's design philosophy.

* The above argument assumes that boss fight X is already longer in duration than certain limited-duration buffs, such as Golem, that can trivialize certain challenge elements for their duration. In such a remote case, yeah, more duration does change the challenge.

Edited by SirNewtonFig

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31 minutes ago, SirNewtonFig said:

Suppose an ideal strategy for boss fight X exists. By increasing the duration of this encounter, all other factors being equal, following the same ideal strategy will still yield the same challenge — it simply imposes a higher tax on expendable resources (MP, recovery items).

Thus, arbitrary increase in battle duration (which is in practice identical to already having a battle that is too long in duration) will only serve, at worst, to encourage additional grinding (either for more levels/ELs for MP growth, or money for consumables). At best, it will cause the set of viable strategies to gravitate towards the ideal solution. This runs counter to BNW's design philosophy.

* The above argument assumes that boss fight X is already longer in duration than certain limited-duration buffs, such as Golem, that can trivialize certain challenge elements for their duration. In such a remote case, yeah, more duration does change the challenge.

I agree.

 

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8 hours ago, Hapanpappa said:

Assuming nobody had difficulties with these fights past the first 5 minutes and they were simply a boring timesink for most people, then your thoughts would ring more true..

Hmm...

Hidon is definitely an example of the fight being over after the first 5 minutes. Hidon is "Clear Hidonites, See Lores, Clear all but one Hidonite, Kill Hidon." Four phases, except the first 3 go quickly while the last one is extended way past the stage that it's interesting. Therefore, Hidon has more HP than necessary.

Some of the dragons are the same way, especially Water and Poison (or Fire, once you've gotten Fire gear).

There's more ambiguity when it comes to the Warring Triad or harder dragons (Holy, Earth, Ice). Another complicating factor is that, by the Warring Triad, I expect that even many new players may stop sitting on their piles of Ethers & X-Potions and start using them, meaning that the available resources to consider tactically (number of puzzle-solving tools) for the Triad increases. Iunno quite how that fits in, but it seemed important to mention. >_>

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I don't know about the other bosses, but it almost sounds like part of the problem with Hidon is that players aren't given a good reason to keep killing off the Hidonites throughout the whole fight after the first time, probably not something directly damage related but something strong enough that just getting damaged by Black Omen would be preferred.
I don't know what exactly though, like maybe he starts using Rasp a bunch if the Hidonites are left alive for so long, and that timer gets reset after clearing them, so if you try to just leave one alive your MP starts getting drained away but if you keep on top of clearing them you don't lose as much of your resources over the course of the fight. (Or something along those lines anyway.)

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5 hours ago, thzfunnymzn said:

Hmm...

Hidon is definitely an example of the fight being over after the first 5 minutes. Hidon is "Clear Hidonites, See Lores, Clear all but one Hidonite, Kill Hidon." Four phases, except the first 3 go quickly while the last one is extended way past the stage that it's interesting. Therefore, Hidon has more HP than necessary.

Not to mention that if you have Relm or Gogo you can use Sketch on Hidon to use Black Omen which will make Strago learn it and so skipping the first phase which make the fight even less interesting. 

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13 hours ago, A Dummy said:

I don't know about the other bosses, but it almost sounds like part of the problem with Hidon is that players aren't given a good reason to keep killing off the Hidonites throughout the whole fight after the first time, probably not something directly damage related but something strong enough that just getting damaged by Black Omen would be preferred.
I don't know what exactly though, like maybe he starts using Rasp a bunch if the Hidonites are left alive for so long, and that timer gets reset after clearing them, so if you try to just leave one alive your MP starts getting drained away but if you keep on top of clearing them you don't lose as much of your resources over the course of the fight. (Or something along those lines anyway.)

Yeah, problem here is that it's too easy to keep Hidonites under control. Leave all but one alive works too well. Even barring that, the player should have really strong AoE options by now, making it still a relatively simple task to clear them as they respawn.

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About the hidonites: Why don't just make them respawn after a set amount of turns like number 128 and his pals?

Edited by ronlyn

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Everyone is bad mouthing the mod and it's discouraging me from starting a new game. Should I wait until this mod cleans up a bit or is it worth playing? 

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1 hour ago, Nomjitsu said:

Everyone is bad mouthing the mod and it's discouraging me from starting a new game. Should I wait until this mod cleans up a bit or is it worth playing? 

Who's everyone?

BNW is probably the cleanest mod out there, at least in my books(relative to the base game), and one of the most well-loved&popular, as indicated by download rates. Also with an active community, as indicated by these forums. All in all, you'll be hard-pressed to find a mod with better overarching quality - there's nothing you ought to be 'waiting' for. 

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12 hours ago, Nomjitsu said:

Everyone is bad mouthing the mod and it's discouraging me from starting a new game. Should I wait until this mod cleans up a bit or is it worth playing? 

You know that something that actually piss me off a bit not only for BNW but for other things so I will put it this way : It's NOT because you love a game/mod that you have to act like a blind fanboy and say that everything is OK.

Of course BNW isn't perfect (nothing is really) it has some problem but it's still the best FFVI (if not the best FF mod) mod to date in my opinion.

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Nobody who shows up to badmouth BNW sticks around. All you're seeing here is the sort of feedback that has kept it under ongoing development and has continued to help improve it for the last five years.

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Sorry for coming off as offensive. I've been lurking for years in anticipation for every update that comes out, especially the esper bank addition which is really amazing, I'm seriously grateful. I've read the readme from start to finish many times like they're literally bedtime stories. The new update's cover/counter is something I used to love equipping on Cloud from FF7 except it's going to be way more interesting in FF6 due to the game's various character personalities that handle C/C in their own way. I only have the patience to play the game once hence my morbid curiosity. I enjoy envisioning all the changes from every update I read without requiring a vast amount of time to test them all for myself, therefore, eventually, I will play the game when I feel it has reached its utmost balance to my liking. The brilliance of the mod's constant balance inventions leaves me hanging in anticipated drooling, there's just so many cool new things worth waiting for. 

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Nah, you didn't come off as offensive.

I have been quietly working on a new update these last few weeks and it's looking to be a major one. I'm hoping to have a tentative changelog to post in the near future, but no clue how long it will take given that I wish to include a number of patches that are currently in testing.

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