Mr. Ultima

Brave New World is, as you can tell already, very different from vanilla. You should not let your first 15 minutes of play time judge the entire mod. This hack is not just a re-balancing of the game, but more like a complete overhaul. As for Whelk's turtling, previous versions did in fact have the boss go into his shell one time throughout the fight; however, this really just wasted the player's time. Unlike vanilla Whelk is not the "tutorial" boss, Vargas is. Many things have been cut back on since vanilla, such as the elemental beams that took up coding space. The game will start to feel much better once you have reached South Figaro as it will provide you with some actual options for your characters. The tutorial school might come off as demeaning to some people, as it emphasizes the fact that if you haven't played the mod before then you are a new player. But here's the thing: the game is right. The tutorial school may be just one big text dump, but it is a very vital and necessary text dump that will provide you with all the knowledge you need in order to play the game "correctly." If you play on you will see that this game provides quite the challenge. Play on until you have defeated Vargas, that should provide you with enough game play to form a solid opinion.

I honestly forgot all about Setzer's triple bar when I made my post. Most espers are based off magic unless they apply a buff, like Seraph, so having Setzer spam summons is not at all a bad idea. Triple bar is pretty inconsistent, though far from a reason not to use it as dice Setzer is one of my favorite builds. Just don't let summon spam overshadow his other abilities. But hey, if it works, then it works.

Summons are all based off magic unless otherwise stated. A notable example would be Odin, which us stamina based. Also, it's not a good idea to only focus on a single character for summons as you can only use a summon once for the duration of an entire fight. Setzer has some good summons, but keep in mind that for every esper he has access to one other character has access to it as well. Some espers, like Golem, will be more situational than others but are very effective when used correctly. Basically, don't focus on one characters as a "summoner" as every character is capable of summoning and every esper has a unique purpose.

Wrexsoul dropped Genji Armor for me, the unlockme files say that he drops Force Armor.

What if Chakra had MP healing over time? Have the power/number of tics based off stamina.

On 6/14/2018 at 6:45 PM, thzfunnymzn said:

Sabin's magic is a joke. 24 base, only enough equip options for 48 total, but if equipping the Nirvana for the precious +25% power, you can only get 41 magic. That's simply too low to make any WoR magic of Sabin's be useful (not without the spell power being equal or even stronger than endgame summons like Tritoch). Magic-based Fire Dance is fine, the numbers of the early game allow it to be useful despite Sabin's garbage magic stat.

My main issue with making both of Sabin's AoE blitz stamina based is that it gets rid of his magic synergy. Every character seems to synergize with the 4 essential stats in some way. Shadow, for example, uses magic for his scrolls. Cyan syncs with magic for his healing power. Hell, even Strago/Relm sync with vigor in order too use Rods/Brushes. Sabin's magic is a tolal joke, yes, but it should still have some use. If both of his AoE blitz used stamina he might as well have no magic at all. I also believe that his low magic can be mitigated with the introduction of the Force Robe, perhaps also include a magic cap of some sorts for him and Gau, I think they could benefit greatly from one.

On 6/14/2018 at 6:45 PM, thzfunnymzn said:

Any Blitz gotten at lvl.30 might as well not exist.

This is the exact reason that Sabin should have a way to learn them all at once, similar to Cyan. The master Duncan event would be perfect for this. Another idea, drawing inspiration from the auto crossbow, have the Duncan event increase the power of his Blitz (Bum Rush would need a bit of a nerfing to compensate.) I know Cyan's dream is suppose to be done mid/late WoR but this is why I suggested the boss battle with Duncan in order to prevent players from getting all his Blitz as soon as you get the airship.

1 hour ago, thzfunnymzn said:

Strago's design looks and feels like he's supposed to be tankier than Shadow and Relm, not trying to run as fast as them

The man used to hunt monsters, he should be able to take a couple hits before going down.

On 6/14/2018 at 9:46 PM, JohnFuklaw said:

I love this idea, a late game insta-kill would be much more appropriate for an ability gained at level 30 than a fairly weak AoE that most people will never touch. And much like Cyan's Cleave and Strago's X-Zone it would be great on Sabin regardless of his build, therefore giving his stamina build something nice for random encounters. I don't know if having a third guy with an AoE instant kill would be good for balance though (4 if you count Mog X-casting Doom), so maybe it would only target one enemy but remove the ability to counter it like X-Zone does?

I second this idea, everything becomes a lot more "gimmicky" near the end. Mabye also have Fire Dance apply a dubuff of some sort?

I should clarify, because I forgot it in my original post. By the time you reach the Floating Continent the player has already been accustomed to Locke's low MP, just throw a tincture or two at him every couple of battles and he will do fine; besides, you will only really use his healing in battle when necessary or to hit elemental weaknesses. His MP usage becomes exaggerated once you reach the WoR but he does have Pheonix to help mitigate this.

31 minutes ago, thzfunnymzn said:

Guess I'll chime in that, looking at the poll results, I think Terra is overrated, while Edgar and Shadow are underrated.

As someone who plays all three regularly, I agree. I think Shadow and Relm get low votes because people forget to apply buffs on them.

I’ve been giving this some thought and here is what I think. Stam based elemtal Blitz sounds nice but ultimately make Sabin’s synergy with magic atrocious as the only thing magic will affect is Quake. The fact that Sabin has 2 AoE Blitz that scale off magic is a little redundant, changing these to scale off stamina will be just as redundant.

Therefore, I instead of changing both Fire Dance and Sonic Boom to scale off stamina we should instead have only 1 scale off stamina. If one of them stay magic based vig Sabin would still have a decent AoE. We have two options, here are my thoughts on both:

-Fire Dance: While seeming like a nice option at first, as you get this Blitz around the same time you get your first batch of espers, it would do more harm than good. Sabin would have zero magic synergy until he gets Quake or Sonic Boom, both of which come at late game.

-Sonic Boom: Should function as an “in-between” with Fire Dance and Quake and should also switch places with Chakra. This would change stam Sabin’s function completely. He would no longer focus on being just a healer but rather his main asset would be AoE effects. Sonic Boom would be his main attack while Fire Dance would serve for enemies that are resistant/immune to wind or enemies that are weak to fire. Quake would be more powerful but would require a bit of setup. Mantra/Chakra are already AoE and having him be the only one with an AoE MP heal fits the build. Aurabolt could function as a powerful one hitter when necessary.

Along with the changes to Sonic Boom, Aurabolt should receive a bit of a buff to compete with AoE attacks. Mantra should also give him regen as this would free up a relic slot and make his healing more viable, Mantra’s formula should also be changed to have stamina have a greater impact on it

Lastly, something that would make Sabin better in general, have the Duncan event teach Sabin all of his Blitz, like Cyan. This is a little OP as you could do this immediately after getting the airship. I suggest having a boss fight to test the player. Maybe a 1v1 with Sabin and Duncan?

+1 to having Odin EL’s be HP/Stam, would make Holy Wind/Raid more useful

Not sure if any of these are known bugs but here they are:

Whenever I use Setzer's Jackpot he will inch forward and get cozy with the enemies. This seems to bee purely aesthetic.

When I had Cyan attack Gau to kill him to change rages the sword cast windslash on the enemies, it seems like it should be cast on my own party instead.

Shadow was fighting Siegfreid in the coliseum, Siegfreid uses vanish, Shadow attacks with the Kagenui dagger, attack misses but it still casts net, net hits Seigfreid and he was a sitting duck the rest of the fight.

If the Force Robe and Force Armor trade for each other than i don't think it will affect the coliseum too much.

The best way to go about naturally finding the Force Robe is to have it replace the Force Armor found in the Fanatics Tower. Elemental resistance on light robe sounds nice.

The +stam +mag on the Force Robe would fit in with pretty much all four of them. Obviously Sabin increasing stamina while providing nice magic defense. Terra has morph and therefore will always benefit from stamina. Celes has regen, but she also has fractional magic which have hit% based off stamina. Mog requires a mix of stam & mag for dancing, so that one is already covered. Only problem here is what will Sabin do with that +7 Magic.

While on the topic of changing terminology, I propose that the term "Status Ailments" be replaced with "Debuffs." I personally believe it's a much better term and will save a ton of text space.

So does this patch cause the Reflect status to simply make spells miss?

1 hour ago, thzfunnymzn said:

Thanks.

Force Armor and Force Robe both share Terra, Celes, and Mog as people who can equip these armors. So, that'd be unchanged. Strago and Gogo gaining Force Robe, yes, is redundant with their Hides.

If its possible programming wise, having both with some Colosseum trades is interesting. 2 of both might be a little much, I'd rather see 2-3 total

It would definitely be possible to have them trade for each other in the coliseum. The main issue is text space. If you open up the ROM with FF3usME you can edit the coliseum battles and choose which items trade into which. You can also edit the stats on weapons/armor. Neither of these effect game space at all. What would be difficult is making text space for the item to say "Halves Ice/Fire/Bolt Damage." More text space is probably possible via ROM expansion or by changing terminology that is already there. A good example would be changing the term "Stronger in 2 Hands" to "Stronger 2 Handed" as the first uses 19 bits(characters including spaces) whereas the latter is only 17. Only a 2 bit difference but could free up a bit of space if all instances of the quote were changed.

Also having 3 Force Armor/Robes sounds like the perfect amount, 2 is too little while 4 is overkill.

I'm voting for Locke for one reason: he is the most balanced character in the game. Every build of his is very good and not overpowered.

He gets a nice amount of HP/Stam making him a good "light tank" being able to equip sword/shield and heavy armor.

He is one of 4 character to receive a +2 speed esper, making him a very fast character with Mirage Vest/daggers.

Both build options above are partnered with the fact that he has access to Ranuh which allow him to compete with Terra/Celes/Edgar when it comes to Vigor.

X-Mage Locke can absolutely demolish machines and undead alike. Not to meantion he is the best healer in the game, being able to throw out a Cure2 AoE and a Cure single target on your tank will almost always get everyone back on their feet.

He does have one flaw that is prominent throughout the game: he has almost no MP. He runs out of MP fairly quickly in WoB, and once you recruit him in WoR you have access the more MP via EL's; but, you will have him using X-magic by this time so the +MP doesn't help too much. Basically just throw a Tincture at him every couple turns and he will be good.

The Force Robe sounds nice, but your cutting off more physical based characters from having magic defense to give magic users even more magic defense. Instead of getting 4 Force Armor you should instead find 2 Force Armor and 2 Force Robes, maybe have them trade for each other in the colosseum.

Also +1 to stam on spears, finding a mirage vest outside colosseum, and a relic that gives Relm Interceptor

I think the Espers and spells are fine the way they are. Merton damaging allies and being elemental ties into Celes being the more strategic of the two, and same with Ultima being Terra's best spell. I would be in favor of obtaining Ragnarok before Kefka's Tower and have the eighth dragon drop Excalibur instead. However, I don't think it should be the water dragon that drops it because you already get Odin in the sunken keep. Besides, limiting Merton to be used only for the warring triad/Kefka fight would make the spell far worse then what it already is. Also, most of your points are simply for flavor reasons rather than actual gameplay reasons.

Seems like the three biggest issues with stamina Sabin are:

-He cannot heal himself

-He cannot go on the offensive

-Everyone else can heal the party and do it better

I assume that the game wants us to use Sabin's Drain spell when his HP is low, as the hit% is based off stamina. But when your trying to heal the party constantly you simply don't have time for this. If mantra were to set regen on him this would be a nice workaround because it would help heal him without it becoming another slots.

Having his elemental blitz tied to stamina makes perfect sense, vig Sabin deals element damage via claws whereas stam Sabin deals element damage via blitz. This would give stamina Sabin more offensive options other than just Aurabolt, something he desperately needs.

Cyan is a better healer than stam Sabin, I'm not joking. Give Cyan the Hero Ring and a wind sword and just have him spam Cure2 while he uses Empowerer every so often to top up his MP. Cyan ends up being a better healer AND bodyguard than Sabin. You will come to this result if you compare him to every other character, they can all heal and then some whereas stamina Sabin can ONLY heal.

Stamina Sabin has one good thing going for him and that's Chakra. Compared to his brother Chakra is far better, at least from what I've seen. Chakra and Mana Battery both end up doing about the same amount of MP healing but Sabin can heal the entire party while Edgar can only recharge one character, slowly at that. I think the Mana Battery is in need of a buff as I find that Edgar becomes stuck using the damn thing every turn until you just throw an Ether at them instead. Besides, by the time you get Mana Battery/Chackra all of your mages have decent enough MP already and you already have plenty of ways of healing MP: Osmose/Soul Sabre/Raid/Ethers. The only ones who need the mana batteries are X-mage Lock and Rerise Shadow.

Yeah makes sense. I also happened to notice my own formula doesn't take into account the boosts your character receives to magic from equipment. Making the highest magic power in game to be 150.

Technically I have not beaten this hack yet, but I’ve made it to the Warring Triad twice already. Both times I lost my save data. On my third playthrough right now and thought I should stop being a lurker and pitch in a bit.

I think that the random spellcast rates of weapons should be tied to the magic stat, similar to how cover/counter are now tied to stamina. This would make Vigor/Magic builds much better, as magic would now offer more than just making spells stronger. I believe a good formula for this would be: (Magic+28)/210, with Rods having an extra 25%. This makes the highest chance of spellcast rate 90%, (Techinically 89%, achievable only by specing Strago into Shiva*30 plus the added 25% boost from Rods) and the lowest rate (Sabin) 24%. This formula also makes it so every 2 magic your character gains they get an entire 1% boost to cast rates.

Here is a “brief” rundown of how I believe characters would be affected:

Terra/Celes/Locke/Edgar: The elemental blades would have a greater longevity. Increasing cast rates won’t affect them too much until WoR, when your magic power is noticeably higher. This would make them able to compete with other mid game swords and be effective dragonslayers. All that and the Apocalypse & Illumina swords would be a bit better (not that they need it.)

Edgar/Mog: Dragooning without a spear would be more appealing. I think the “increased cast rate of swords” should be removed from the dragoon seal and instead let magic do the work, as you don’t get spellcast swords until IMRF when you can use Els (and relics) to increase magic; also, there is the fact that the Dragon Helm increases magic as well. However, I think the biggest change this would offer is that it makes Dragoon Mog viable in WoB. There is no way Mog can compete with Edgar when it comes to vigor and the poor guy doesn’t even have his moogle charm yet; but, Mog tramples all over Edgar when it comes to magic. Dragooning on Atma with an Ice Rod sounds more appealing now yeah? I also think this would give dragoons a build option other than pumping them full of steroids.

Strago/Relm/Mog: Attacking with rods will be better if this is implemented. All the characters who use rods have high magic combined with the 25% boost from rods make them a reliable way to deal elemental magic damage when you don’t know the spell (or have enough rods in your inventory.) Imagine this: Going to fight Hidon but you don’t have enough GP to stock up on flame rods. Instead you equip Strago with one and have him attack Hidon, higher magic lands Fire2 more often. Less effective than stocking up on rods, but still reliable. It would also be cute so see Mog Cover/Counter with some spell sticks.

Setzer: Doom Darts.

Cyan/Shadow: I don’t think these two would be affected too much. They both have decent starting magic and they will probably be doing something other than throwing wind at the enemies.

Gau/Umaro: Unaffected

Relm: Pretty much what I said about rods but your healing and buffing allies instead of throwing element weaknesses around.

Gogo: Ctrl+F “Rods”

Sabin: The only character who would suffer from this change. His magic starts low and stays that way. With the formula I gave his claws would have the cast rates reduced to 24%, looks like vigor Sabin is ruined.

I’m not sure if this idea has come up before or if I’m repeating somethings already mentioned, but I’ve been thinking about this recently and how much better it would make certain builds. Anyway, fantastic mod. Literally the best hack I’ve ever played and looking forward to more in the future

When I apply this patch it makes my game glitch when I enter combat, everything turns to static and the game freezes. I'm using a headered rom and playing on Snes9x. Tried patching a vanilla copy of FF6 but the same glitch happened.