AbnormalVoid

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About AbnormalVoid

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    FFT, Dark Souls
  1. AbnormalVoid

    AbnormalVoid
  2. It's less letting enemies gain an advantage, and more trying to keep the field as level as possible. Giving a pointless advantage in any situation only really devalues the inherent quality of the battle. Faith works better, I agree, and tying reactions to it made no sense at all. I really like your cowardly attack idea, though. Attacks that do more damage with an inverse brave formula is a fun concept. To fix Brave and Faith, I'd give the following addition to my previous fix for Br/Fa: Have Brave work the same as Faith, only with Physical damage instead of Magic damage. Consider how the stat is "Brave". Bravery can also be associated with rashness. From that mindset doing more and receiving more Physical damage makes sense, in the same way Faith works from the standpoint that when you believe more fervently in mystic powers, it makes them stronger, both for and against you. Mix that with my (theoretical) system where you can use equipment and job set-ups to determine your Brave and Faith, and you have an interesting system of give and take. Now, this would obviously require a reworking of the formula, I suggest: The Faith (and Brave, in this new situation) formula would work as (CFa/50)*(TFa/50) instead of (CFa/100)*(TFa/100). This way, 50 Brave or Faith would just be the regular damage of the ability. The lowest and highest Brave and Faith would be 100 and 25 respectively. Meaning at 25, they'd take and do half damage, and at 100, they'd take and give twice the damage. The ability to get as low or high as 25 and 100 would only be possible under extreme circumstances. Ugh, I spent way too long mulling over this theoretical situation, I'm like half asleep. In any case, I'd probably add the new formula to FFT vanilla, in place of the current faith formula. It would probably fix a lot of the problems with the accuracy of status effects. Would need to balance...every magic spell's power...but yeah, it's a good idea. rofl
  3. Yeah, useless jobs are another one. Or more accurately, less useful jobs. It's not that they didn't have their strengths, but compared to other jobs, they were severely outclassed. I feel in 1.3, too many jobs tried to do too many things, instead of being focused around doing one role really well. Now, there could be some variety within that role, but when designing a class for FFT, there needs to be a through line that ties it all together and subconsciously contextualizes it to the player. This is something I feel vanilla did really well. Some things just weren't as good as others for other reasons, like straight up power output, speed, movement and attack range. Wanna have the easiest FFT run of your life? Play with 5 Ninjas with item. You win, period.
  4. I was considering mentioning this possibility in my last post, but realized it wouldn't really be feasible, since it's more of a system that relies on having a larger selection of selection of units to meet the needs of each individual situation. Also, in this situation, you always get the upper hand, since the enemy has no ability to counter this advantage. While that's also true for the player's knowledge of static aspects of the opposing team's make-up, I feel like that's more in service to the enemy as a designed challenge, over the random nature of arbitrary strengths and weaknesses. In regards to Brave and Faith, they're definitely very different in regards to their applications, but I feel they could be valuable assets if only they reflected the actual inherent job and equipment qualities of each character. Such as how I had explained in this previous post:
  5. It's never encouraged, but people are still going to do it. People are always drawn to the path of least resistance, it's a well known concept. Putting exploitable systems in your game, especially when they provide no real depth, is a terrible idea. You cannot fight human nature, never ever try. Now, considering the fact that you're going to experience fortunes and misfortunes in regards to randomized elements, one must also consider how much depth is actually being added with this. If in the end, it, more likely than not, averages out, then was there any actual significance to the randomness in the first place? Over and above the actual structured depth of the game, did the randomness provide any real substance? I'll say it again, I don't think additional randomness adds any depth to tactical RPGs, or for that matter, any game with sufficient strategic depth. The variety of outcomes already available through the vast array of choices and possibilities is staggering. Adding on top of it merely creates an annoying layer of strategic obfuscation.
  6. I figure another way to make brave-faith better is to make their influence on chance-based abilities less noticeable. Say, reaction abilities chance could be like, 80% base chance and the formula could be ((Brave/5)+80)%. With a similarly lighter effect on spell power. Still a flawed system, but giving it a lighter influence to match its already forced existence in the game would at least be more tolerable.
  7. My point wasn't that Brave/Faith is a problem because of the unfair odds it may provide. My point was that it's pointless, in the grand scheme. Adding a factor of forced randomness that does little to affect the outcome of a match (beyond short, concise matches, as you mentioned) does nothing to increase the depth of the experience. Even in those short, cramped matches, where Brave and Faith do make a difference, one just needs to do a quick reset to roll the odds back and get something that's hopefully more preferable. It's very important to keep in mind that the worth of every engagement can only be judged by the best and worst case scenarios. If those scenarios are wildly different, for no other reason than because of an arbitrarily random, substance-less system, then it's a poor way to add randomness to the game. It's better to focus on creating a challenging engagement, without the worry that it will fall into the territory of unfairness, or otherwise, trivialize the engagement by becoming too simple. A game like Final Fantasy Tactics thrives around designed engagements. Where random engagements may be fun or interesting in certain situations, they're also, in all likelihood, going to suffer from not having a synergistic approach to their equipment, abilities and teamwork. Not that I don't think they should still be included, but a system that gives them a reliable leg-up is preferable. The system I detailed previously, in regards to a revamped Zodiac system, supports this concept instead of working against it. Instead of working in a manner that is unpredictable, where one cannot say if they'll have the signs necessary to be compatible with a foe, it's designed around altering the inherent qualities of the unit itself, providing sufficient context to the player in regards to what they're going to be up against. It allows for each unit to be given proper signs to enhance their most important qualities, and allows for units to function quite differently from one another. A Virgo Priest might be entirely different from an Ares Priest, but there could still be depth behind each. It's a best-case pipe-dream system, as I'm not sure something could even be implemented with FFT's limiting code, but I feel it accurately details the kind of system that would be desirable as opposed to the ill-conceived system in place by default.
  8. Go right ahead, all my ideas for FFT are fair game, since I don't really plan on modding it myself. lol I just really appreciate discussing the structure and possibility offered by the design of the game, since it's so vastly open to interesting design
  9. Yeah, they're a redundant factor. They're inherently balanced, but considering the fact that they're an independent system that doesn't rely on any outside input, the entire system balances itself into oblivion. A system where each Zodiac offered specific benefits and detriments, such as innate status buffs/debuffs, or innate stat bonuses/penalties, etc. would have been far more interesting. It would synergize nicely with existing systems, and create a huge opportunity for character building depth. Systems in a game should work like an interconnecting web. where everything feeds into the strategic depth of everything else. Not like a pile of blankets, where each system is placed over top of the rest, only tangentially adding depth. (Not a hard and fast rule, I know, but something to keep in mind.)
  10. I see, so jump is applied as long as a character has the Lancer skillset equipped, as Primary or Secondary?
  11. Did she? Huh, good shit. It's honestly the best way to go. Jump is too limited to build an entire class around, in something like FFT.
  12. I actually had an idea to make Jump a passive command, like Defend or Equip/Change, which is innate on Lancers, in addition to a more varied Dragoon skill-set. If someone else wants to figure out how to actually implement that idea, they're more than welcome to it. lol
  13. 1.9 Beta Bug Reporting Thread

    Not sure this has been addressed yet, as I'm still using an older Beta, but I figured I'd make you guys aware, in any case. https://clips.twitch.tv/DistinctMoralHummingbirdPlanking Jackpot doesn't seem to be working quite right...
  14. Instead of randomness for Brave and Faith, it would be better served by being a constant amount at its base, a straight 50Br/50Fa, for each character. (Or maybe 55/45 for males, and 45/55 for females, to match the existing delineation of Males as physical units, and Females as Magical Units.) From this point, the character's Brave and Faith would then reflect: Their job class, which makes sense, due to stats changing to suit the qualities of the job already. Their equipment, since there's already a tiered system of gear that either leans towards a physical side (Brave/Armor) or a magical side (Faith/Robes) or a middling side (Light Armor/No Preference). And, possibly, certain passive abilities and status effects. (Again, yeah, all wonderful but unrealistic ideas for a scenario in which you could work past FFT's heavily hard-coded bad game design. lol) Having it randomized gives it an arbitrary feeling, same with Zodiac signs, since it creates such a huge difference in outcome with no control or ability or optimize. In addition to this, most units have random signs/br-fa, therefore you arbitrarily gain either an advantage or a disadvantage that averages itself out over the course of all battles, effectively resulting in no real depth gained. Zodiac signs feel more like something that would benefit a game where A. You could see the enemy prior to a match, so you could match your stats with theirs, and B. Had a much larger team of simpler units so you could have a large variety of choices when assembling a team to combat your enemy's compatibility.
  15. And yeah, I know it is probably impossible without heavy assembly. lol It's why I started working on a new game instead of modding.