rpschamp

Managed to play this for an hour last night; I had a great time! Even on normal difficulty the fights are much more exciting. Also, I noticed a bug: In Full Metal Hugger's cave some enemies would turn me to Chibikko; when this happened, the screen would glitch with random bitmaps and wouldn't fix itself unless I reloaded my game. Is this a known bug, and is there anything I can do to correct it?

So I take it from your previous responses that in general, while the original game may have encouraged a strategy based around offensive buffs (Power/Mind up, Protect/Mind Down), your mod demands defensive buffs (Protect/Mind Up, Power/Mind Down) as survival is much more of a challenge.

Sounds good, I think I can manage some or most of these conditions for four groups of distinct classes. I did think of one more question though which I'm dying to ask since I won't be able to play this for the next couple of days. I notice that a lot of people on this board indicate that they spend a lot of time running to avoid fights, enabled by the added mechanic of running during battle. Since this should only work for the character you control, how does this work out during gameplay? Are your AI-controlled partners able to catch on and follow you safely, or are they constantly getting slaughtered as they stick behind and try to fight?

It seems that with all the new weapon options and damage requirements, maybe planning everything completely in advance will prove too difficult and waste some of the discovery. One last question for today: Are there any skills that you would recommend be absolutely included on every team? If I have time, I'd like to start four groups so I can take every first class upgrade to the second class upgrade and at least have the option to experience each of the final classes. If I have to distribute the first class upgrades so that each party has potential access to, say, Anti-Magic or something by the second class upgrade, it would be good to know ahead of time. I'm thinking that it may be best to do this on normal or tough difficulty to start with so I don't box myself into any corners.

Thanks for the quick response! 1, 2, 4, 5, 6) Great, I will see how these play out more when I start playing through the game. 3) Ah, I didn't know about his final weapon. Makes sense. But the Duelist as a support character seems odd to me; this guy should be focused on the "duel", the single-minded one-on-one battle. I get that there's a distinction from the Swordmaster who can cast his sabers on multiple people, though, a limited buff capacity could make sense. Have you considered giving him both Moon and Leaf saber? If you think this is overpowering then you could make them both self-cast; that way he could still add MP for his final weapon, or HP instead if it was more important. One more general question: Effective team building in the original game was generally done by building groups with only one goal, physical or magical damage, so more balanced groups that could do both at the cost of maxing out one or the other did not work as well. Would you say that your build is similar, or do the requirements at each stage in the game vary enough to require a group with multiple damage focuses? It seems that your increased skill allotment for each of the characters might be designed encourage the latter.

Hi Praetarius, Returning to this game after several years, I am amazed that someone has put in the effort to follow up on old discussions about how to re-balance and improve this game. Team formation and battle strategy were the aspects of this game that always had the most potential for deeper gameplay, and from everything I've read, it seems that you've put a lot of thought and effort into developing these. Some quick questions from the class skill lists as I plan my parties for my playthroughs: 1) Grand Divina seems to be completely rethought and the only class of Angela's that does not graduate to Level 2 magic. It looks like you were aiming for a classical Red Mage with her.... But this leaves her one or two spell damage levels behind her other final classes. With these changes, is Grand Divina still an effective choice in the endgame? 2) Carlie's dark classes can no longer heal. I see the reasoning behind this, but in the original game her summons were not nearly powerful or varied enough to make her competitive with Angela in terms of damage. Plus, the stat/effect spells, like Mind Down or Anti-Magic, seem to be much more distributed among the other characters this game, further removing some of the uniqueness of Carlie's dark classes. Does this leave dark Carlie with any real advantage over Angela? 3) Why does Duelist get Leaf Saber? I understand the addition of Anti-Magic, but seeing as how Leaf Saber doesn't damage MP, wouldn't Moon Saber seem a more natural choice for a physical-based fighter? 4) The max stats of your final classes are more leveled (much less variation between stats of any particular class) than in the original game, but based on the level 99 cap, this may not matter too much because they appear to be unattainable. Is the purpose of this to give the player more flexibility in character growth? Also, just a couple of questions after a five-minute play-test with Duran: 5) I miss a lot. After reviewing the message board, it appears that I can increase my hit rate through using strong attacks instead of quick attacks. My question concerns the AI for my eventual partners. Will they automatically choose strong or quick attacks or a mix of both, and can I set their preference? 6) My quick attack did 3 damage, while my level-one tech did 48, with yellow numbers. Is this yellow-numbered hit the long hidden critical hit? Also, the difference between 3 and 48 is 16 times. Does the difference between these get tighter as the game progresses, or can I always expect to more than ten times as much with a critical hit on a tech? (This will affect how I raise my Agility for sure.) Thank you for your efforts and I look forward to more discussion!