pogeymanz

Thanks for replying, Emmy!

1 hour ago, Emmy said:

If you're just looking for a vanilla-ish but relatively easy patch, these patches are popular:

http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=11789.0 

http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=7182.0

These are too vanilla for me. In particular, I hate the vanilla Archer, Lancer, and Wizard skill sets, and these preserve those, making those classes still very uninteresting.

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IMO the "1.3 content" changes are the exact opposite type of approach to making 1.3 less difficult than the kinds of changes that should be made.  Some things that could be done that you haven't mentioned:

Could you elaborate on the content changes that you think are the most egregious? I think the fixed story battle levels is a mistake, but what else?

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1. Fix the game's scaling and make status effects an important part of the game.  The game needs to not punish playstyles other than hyper offense and needs to not invalidate 3/4 of the game's skillsets; especially since status effects are one of the major ways to make the game have more depth than "punch shit" that doesn't require asm to change. If enemies are doing less damage to you but are now capable of don't acting your whole team, for example, suddenly they become more dangerous in a more interesting way.  This should go both ways - the player needs meaningful enemies that are vulnerable to status, and shouldn't be able to just null everything with a ribbon either.

I agree 100%. Can you give an example of how you might achieve this? Do you just nerf damage output from almost everything? Do you make statuses hit rate higher and/or make damage attacks miss more often?

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2.  XP/JP by battle, not by action.  This is a change I made to MT that I can't go back to not having after making that change.  No more beating yourself over the head for 4 hours to just be able to do something other than punch shit.  No more worrying about taking too many actions to beat a battle, and thus overleveling.  Of course if you make this change, you absolutely need to fix the game's scaling to not punish you for more levels, since your game will now have a minimum level for every battle.  The way I did it was to guarantee that no ability costs more than one battle's worth of JP to get, and action abilities are mostly cheaper than r/s/m including a few free abilities.  That way your character is never helpless and trying new strategies is not particularly costly.

If the enemy levels are always fixed to your party's, then the only concern for overleveling is from them having equipment that you can't get. That's not _that_ bad, but I do like this idea. The only thing I worry about with having abilities being too cheap is that you might have everything (you care about) unlocked long before the end of the game. The shitty thing in Vanilla is that I always know what is good, so I just get that stuff and by mid chapter 2, I basically have my end-game build.

How hard is it to implement this change?

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3.  100% transparency.  Why have an ability that can cancel charging/performing, that doesn't work on units flagged by class, with no intuitive reason for the unit to be immune to it?  It's one thing to have an ability that is immortal immune, that the player knows is immortal immune.  It's another thing to randomly flag things as immune to useful sounding skills.  Why even *have* a skill like that, if you don't want the player to use it?

Agreed. That's bullshit. What are some examples of this? Is this easy to fix in the patcher tools?

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4.  Make bosses other than Velius, Queklain, and Adramelk interesting.  Assassinations are generally garbage compared to a well thought out ??? boss, and the other ??? bosses aren't as well thought out here.  Zalera is a joke, Zalbag is a punching bag, and Altima is a slot machine.  Some of the issues with assassinations can be fixed with scaling/status effects, while those ???'s (and others) need to just be rewritten to have something interesting about them (status effects, nice abilities, etc).  Be creative!

Truth.

I really love the concept of FFT 1.3, but it can be quite frustrating and I just don't have the time or patience for that. I only got part way into Chapter 3 before I stopped playing (due to personal life things) and then I never felt like picking it up again because of how horrible I heard Chapter 4 is (and Chapter 3 was plenty tough enough).

But after seeing some of the great things in FFT 1.3, I just can't imagine playing Vanilla again. With shitty Archers, uninteresting Wizards, enemies that never unlock interesting classes, etc.

So my main motivation here is to change FFT 1.3 to be easier (like the "Content" version). Probably significantly so. But I want to do that by primarily taking away "cheap" shit, like having enemies be 10 levels higher than you, while also outnumbering you and starting with better field position. I feel like that isn't so much to ask.

I only want to make really simple modifications to FFT 1.3.

But there's another aspect to what I want to do. I also want to remove all speed growth from the game. @Emmy has discussed the issues with speed in FFT and has argued for several interesting solutions/mitigations. I'm going for simple and easy here, so I think I'll just take away speed growth altogether. This should keep mage classes useful and interesting for the whole game. I'll obviously need to tweak a lot of things to find a sweet spot for balance.

This is all really just being done for myself. I want a game that I will enjoy playing. But I'm willing to hear what you guys think would be good changes to make things more fair/fun/easy. I'll be happy to post the results here if anyone is interested. So far the only things on my list are these:

• Enemy levels = Party level for all battles (except some bosses/assassinations can stay higher)
• Fewer enemies in some battles, especially randoms- I want randoms to be mostly not hard
• No speed growth
• Far fewer enemies with immortal flags - this shit's annoying when they're so good at reviving
• Maybe some innate Gained JP-Up or just a general JP price lowering? Opinions?

I plan on only using the FFT Patcher Tools, etc, because I don't know anything about hacking PSX games. Unless someone can point me to some "Learn to hack FFT" guide(s).

12 hours ago, Augestein said:

It would without a doubt, be easier to bring 1.3.0.8 into a Content version, as the Content version still has older stuff in there.

In terms of things that need to stand out to refine 1.3.0.8 into a Content type: 

1) Reduce level of enemies to be either set, or consistently party level rather than this stupid party level +. It's fine for an occasional boss, but constantly doing that is just a way to artificially make the player gain levels faster than they have any business doing. Which really doesn't help anyone, as once your characters reach the 50ish area, you may as well hit 99. And by the endgame, you should be 99 if you're anything near level 75. IIRC, in content, they were set levels so this could be removed entirely? It'll take awhile, but certainly less time than updating Fire 1, Ice 1 and Bolt 1 to the Wizard set as it is. 

2) Certain goofs like Meliadoul would need to be fixed-- as she has Mime unlocked, which results in her having almost NOTHING unlocked when you get her making her nothing more than a glorified Javelin 2 user for the most part. This was a goof as Meliadoul was supposed to have a lot of stuff unlocked, and Mime requirements used to be higher and were subsequently changed which screwed people over. 

So, I actually did #1 for myself once. I went through with FFT Patcher Tools and changed the levels of all story battles to be fixed and the same as Content. The problem with that is that I didn't change the randoms at all. So the randoms were still insanely brutal and actually, the story battles were WORSE in the early game (I only got part way into Ch 2 before not having time anymore and not caring because it wasn't fun) because I was sometimes more than 1 or 2 levels below.

I think that having the story battles just be Party Level, with the occasional Party Level + 5 (or whatever) for bosses would be good, like you suggested.

The other thing, though, is how are the randoms in Content compared to regular 1.3? I've never played Content, but the worst part of my bastardized 1.3 run was that randoms were still mostly pretty brutal. I feel like an "easy mode" of 1.3 would have to edit most of the encounters- at very least the easy way out would be to just remove a couple of units from most randoms.

Yeah, I agree with most points you made except about Rafalak. I like using Rafa, even in vanilla, so it's a play-style thing. Especially if this mod is overall less brutal than 1.3, it means there's room for them to be legit party choices.

Nope. I just tried it now. It's nice. The only problem (for me) is that I often browse the site without being logged in. I can understand, though, how having the Unread Content kind of makes my complaint/suggestion seem redundant or not worth the effort.

On 10/2/2017 at 1:20 PM, Augestein said:

If there's enough demand, I wouldn't mind using 1.3.0.8 and fixing it up to be a "content" type if people really want that. May as well when I die to Monster Tactics. 

I would like that. Tell me- would it be easier to make "Hard Type" (1.3.0.8) into a Content version, or would it be easier to bring Content 1.3.0.6 up to the changes in Hard Type?

You can see more info about it here: http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=11170.0

It looks like it was "completed" in 2015, which is two years after the final version of 1.3, so I assume it's based on 1.3.0.8.

I can't say I agree with every change (also, I only skimmed through the changes), but overall I like the idea. I enjoyed 1.3 (I only got to chapter 3), but it was a little too tough for my old man self and stopped being fun at several points. A lot of these changes seem like good QoL changes (controllable guests, special units can go on props, inherent JP-Up) and some things to make the battles a little easier (not having the enemies have Party Level + 57 or whatever).

The only thing that I really don't think I like is that it says Meliadoul is a guest for every story battle after some point... that's weird.

EDIT: The other thing I don't like about it is that I can't find the patch to be able to play it...

I don't know how hard it would be, but it would be nice if the home page's "Topics" section (the one that shows which threads have recent posts), would also show some kind of info about which forum the thread is in. There's a thread right now called "Feedback and Suggestions" in there and I'd love to read about feedback and suggestions if it's relevant to one of the mods I enjoy. If it's for a mod I haven't played, then I don't really care.

It's true- the number of turns eaten by Battery/Osmose kind of cancels out the speed benefit. Is Gogo any better at taking a hit than Strago?

It seems like it would be easy to give Stam/Hybrid Strago some ground by just changing some of the Lores to depend on Stamina. Since they are unique to Strago, it doesn't seem like it would have any ripple effect across the overall balance of the characters.

It sounds like even with Haste, you don't seem to think X-Mog will be very viable. I just think it's a shame that 2/3 of the people who can equip this super-cool item don't even care about it.

I figured that's what you meant- just wanted to make sure. He's a pretty bad-ass Dragoon...

It seems like most people around here only think that Locke is worth having X-Magic on. I'm surprised, since I'd think that X-Magic would be considered pretty damn OP, even with a non-ideal selection of magic.

It looks like the README is updated to include the changes for 1.9. How did Cover and Counter work in 1.8(.6)?

On 10/10/2017 at 10:32 PM, thzfunnymzn said:

Mog's mid-game magic and his options for hitting elemental weaknesses are all solid. The elemental rods especially are ridiculously powerful. Pretty sure he can slam any elemental weakness in the game. Past the mid-game and without an elemental weakness, however, I've found that he's best just going on auto-pilot with Earth Blues or Forest Suite.

Better than Dragooning?

So, does anyone prefer Stam Strago? The way thzfunnymzn describes it, it appears strictly inferior to Mag Strago. He gets bigger regen ticks, fewer status hits, and more counter attacks if you decide to do that. But does regen actually help him? Isn't he going to fall over in one or two hits anyway? And shouldn't someone else be doing physical damage?

Also, if you aren't using Strago for big numbers of magic damage, isn't Gogo a possibly better Lore user? He can be geared up to be faster than Strago, which is important for these support Lores. He'd need MP support for sure, but he could Mana Battery himself, or have Osmose if Relm is in your party.

So I guess that's two questions: 1. Is Mag > Stam for Strago? and 2. Is Gogo > Strago if you are focusing on support?

I'm not sure I understand your definitions of difficulty scope and curve, but I'll try anyway.

I think that vanilla Chrono Trigger had a good difficulty ... thing ... for a mainstream, vanilla, game.

The "curve" is probably pretty flat for people here. I'd say the difficulty only really increases (slightly) once you open up the end-game sidequests. There are a few battles throughout the game that are more like difficulty "humps," rather than a steady increase. But I think the baseline difficulty is high enough that having it increase throughout the game would be bad for a mainstream audience.

If you think about the difficulty from the POV of a non-serious gamer or kid, there are plenty of battles that are tough: The dragon tank, with its stupid healing head; Yakra if you don't pay attention to positioning, Masa + Mune, Magus, Golem Twins, Nezbel, etc. Most bosses have a trick or two to make them easy, but if you're casually playing through, they're not easy at all.

Now, if you asked about *bad* difficulty curves, that would be easier to discuss *cough* FFTactics *cough*

I was asking about how expensive it is in terms of my precious time. Like, how long does it take to earn 100k toward the end of the game?

Another question- I saw a dragon at least once on the FC and I'm trying to get Gau to leap on it, but I haven't encountered another one in a long time. Do they only appear in a specific part of the FC?

I've got one more question that I might as well chuck in this thread.

How much to EL respecs cost, in a relative sense? I understand that the first few are cheaper than the full price, and I don't really care what the actual number is, since that will mean nothing to me until I get there in the game. I'm just wondering if respec'ing is something that takes, like, an hour of grinding per character or what.

Yes, I was just asking about those rages, specifically. I know that people seem to agree that speed Gau has, overall, a higher DPS.

Another, perhaps better, way to ask my question would've been "Which scales faster: damage from those rages with respect to stamina, or number of turns with respect to speed?"

Ah, yes. That makes sense. Thanks.

And, yes, I'm often triggered by status effects.

44 minutes ago, BTB said:

For the stam rages, Stam Gau definitely gets better DPS without even factoring in the fact that he will die less.

Why does he die less? Isn't the magical resistance benefit of stamina fairly minor? I assumed he would still die about as often.

So, would you say that DPS is better or worse for stam Gau using one of the stam rages than for speed Gau using the same rage?

My hesitation is that when dealing with an RNG, I rather have more chances to get what I want, which is part of the reason I wanted to do full speed on him.

19 minutes ago, Reiker said:

I recommend just don't run unless you know the fight is unwinnable and you're trying to avoid a game over. Even in that case casting the Warp spell or using a Warp Whistle is a better option. I feel like for the most part this mod is well balanced difficulty-wise if you don't run from fights and don't spend any extra time grinding.

If you want easy-mode Gau, put all of his ELs into Stamina and prioritize gear that raises his defense/evade and Stamina. A Stat Stick + Zephyr Cape, for example. In the WoB pick between Conjuror when you need Reraise + Sap, and Cephalid when you want DPS. Cephalid has auto-safe and the Tentacle attack will be one of your most powerful attacks if you're stacking Stamina. I believe the 1/3 chance Rage inflicts Slow too. That's a huge toolbox in just 2 Rages. In the WoR you switch between Tumbleweed for group healing and Mantodea for damage. Pick up Antlion when you first get Gau in Sabin's scenario and use that until you get Cephalid and bam, you have an extremely powerful character and all you need is 5 rages for the entire game. He'll always be a little squishy but still more survivable than characters like Strago/Relm, especially if you prioritize his Defense/Evade. Always have him in the back row.

I was only running when I wanted to backtrack and see if I missed stuff, or from the scary guys on the floating continent.

I didn't really consider that stam Gau would be viable. I'll try him out with some stam gear first before I "waste" my ELs.

44 minutes ago, BTB said:

What typically happens with the FC is that the randoms are overwhelming when you first get there, but a combination of a few levels and figuring out how to shut them down quickly makes them very manageable by the time you get through it.

Running being more difficult is an unintended side effect of nATB. It has been brought up on numerous occasions. Are you running 1.8.5 or 1.8.6?

Gau more than any other character rewards experimentation. He's fragile, but he's also fast and has access to a lot of attacks that can disable enemies. This goes hand in hand with my above point about dealing with randoms.

And you have all of the WoB espers, yes.

Okay, I wont pull my hair out over the randoms quite yet.

I'm running 1.8.6.

31 minutes ago, Nowea said:

Gau is the hardest character to use well. You need to experiment and pick up what rages are good in what situations. It's worth noting that Gau gains access to things earlier than other characters, sometimes gaining near exclusive things. Example, Conjourer Gau is the only source of reraise in the WoB. In addition, Gau is easier to help keep up if you remember that Gau gains the elemental and status properties of the monster he is raging.

He is difficult to use and he does get some better rages in the WoR, along with gaining the Fenrir Magicite. The spells on it and speed ELs are a great boon.

If you want an outside guide on rages, in the character section I do have a spreadsheet for Gau, that might help to fully inform on all of the rages.

Yeah, I used Conjourer quite a bit around Zozo. I did forget to think about the elemental and status protections- thanks for the reminder. And I actually had already downloaded your spreadsheet. It's much appreciated!

I intend to go full speed ELs with him, because that seems strictly superior than including stam levels, so he's not fast, he's fragile, etc. I'll study the spreadsheet a little more and see if I can make better use of him.

Thanks for the tips, guys.

First, holy crap the FC randoms are rough. I may be underleveled- my guys are mostly levels 16-17, Cyan is 18. I haven't run from too many randoms as I've played, so I don't think I can be that far behind what's expected.

Speaking of running. Running is really ineffective in this game. Running is almost never a viable option because you're just going to get your ass beat while you wait forever for your guys to run away. Why was running made so hard? Consider this my official request to make running way easier in the next version.

Does Gau get better in the WoR? I feel like he's basically unusable for the latter half of the WoB- he's so fragile, and of course the randomness is always a steep cost. But he can't seem to stay up long enough to do anything against many bosses (I'm thinking of the magitek tracks boss, both of the later Ultros battles), let alone the randoms in the sealed cave and FC. I fully accept the possibility that I'm a freaking newb and don't know how to play, but I know what a good number of his rages do and I still just have the hardest time getting him to do much of anything before falling on his face.

I have an idea for Relm. From another thread, it seems that a lot of people agree that Sketch is not that great of a skill. It's hard to know if something is sketchable, it's still random, and it's arguably way more situational than even Rage or Dance (maybe comparable to Runic?). What if Sketch just did some boring, old, Stamina-based damage? Maybe set a random status or something. Doesn't have to be a lot of damage, since Relm does have ways to do lots of damage, but maybe it can be something that gives a reason to do a Stam build on Relm? Or maybe it should be a lot of damage, that way you really have to choose stam-nuke Relm vs. mag-nuke Relm. Just throwing it out there.

Also, potential spoilers, but I have a full esper list up to Seraph. Is that all of them for the WoB? The only optional ones I attained were Golem and Seraph.

Does the mystery egg's use have anything to do with it being an "egg"?