Nowea

First I'd like to say that this is a nice review, giving honest and opinions that are quite fair. It's also clear that you put thought and formatting into it (even something simply like green/red text). I'm not going to nitpick any opinions or anything here from you, but I'd like to address some statements you've made as far as factual accuracy goes and possibly explain some things.

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This implementation of ATB is a bit sketchy, too. While doing top-level menuing, monster ATBs continue to fill, but if you go into a submenu like items or spells, their ATBs pause. This can situationally be very advantageous, and I found myself abusing it in a number of fights. At times it felt like abusing the ATB this way was the intended method of dealing with some bosses who acted too frequently.

So, here's how nATB works. It only fills if you are in a top level menu and there are no animations being played. So the menu tricking you were doing doesn't actually accomplish anything. To reiterate, being in a submenu pauses everybody's ATB. When a monster's ATB is paused so is yours.

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The Colosseum, while more fair than vanilla, was also a lot less interesting, and very few bets felt like straight upgrades. I wasted quite a bit of time on battles just to find out that certain items just get swapped for a comparable item for another character.

The bets not feeling like upgrades anymore is by design. From a personal stance I kinda wish that the trades were completely public knowledge. In addition the player either has to already know what both items do or consult the printme to see what they're actually getting. As far as having to waste time on battles, I recall BTB has mentioned that he's just going to make all of the Colosseum battles much easier ones.

To add on to the "very few bets felt like straight upgrades" thing. There's an element of 'pick your poison' here. You either have to make the trades into upgrades, which basically makes it "just mindlessly do them and move on" or you have to make them not upgrades, to where a lot of players don't really see the point (especially when the details of what you'll end up getting and the full trade 'map' isn't visible in-game)

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The loss of the ability to switch weapons/shields caused me to lose a number of battles

Lastly, I feel like you know this one. But I feel it worth stating that the gear swapping was removed because it didn't work properly with how BNW puts the dual wield and two-hand properties on the weapons themselves instead of outside relics. Last I heard @GrayShadows was working on a method to allow people to swap a weapon/shield out, but it would cost a turn.

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Mana Battery and Mantra/Chakra feeling week

In regards to these, they scale off Magic and Stamina respectively. Chakra/Mantra are(were?) getting buffed a bit. That being said, it's a hard sell for them unless you're building Edgar or Sabin very heavy on Magic/Stamina. Since you did more 'general/well rounded' style of builds I can see how they'd seem weak.

As far as including summon info in game, as far as I remember that was unfortunately removed when the Esper equip bonuses were added. The response is likely going to be something about space (either in the overall banks or for the individual frames... or both).

Regarding the difficulty, you mentioned the rats going at you when you only have Terra. Early game enemies will behave more aggressively when the party is higher level. This is so that they still do something noticeable on return trips. A few examples are Wild Rats, Leafers, Repo Man, and Mammoth. All of these monsters have 'extra' attacks that they'll start tossing out after you reach level 7. Advice on handling that would largely be to avoid grinding unless you find you really need it.

5 minutes ago, F-Bomb said:

Is there any chance of reintroducing the hand equips during battle. I know they dissappeared with the optimize euip option, i was just wondering if a solution had been found for this? It is literally the only complaint I have about this hack.

The equipping issue comes down to how the game handles the dual-wield and two-hand effects. Because BNW has them on weapons it makes it so that the swaps don't properly swap those effects around. If that part gets fixed then it'd be possible to implement. I believe BTB has talked about allowing it to be done but it taking a turn for the swap to happen

Released v7 of NHT, see link on first post.

• V7:
• Standardized HP and MP ELs, now all HP and MP ELs give +20 (if with another stat) or +40 (if just giving HP or MP)
• Added 4 new items. 3 are rare steals and 1 is a Colosseum trade. Steals were only edited on current humanoid random enemies that had steals previously. Note: This version uses item indexes 16, 60, 66, and 247. In 1.9 and 1.10 these indexes are not used, but other versions are not guaranteed. In addition, for maximum compatibility, these new items don't have descriptions

A ton of treasure has been moved around. Just keep playing and I'm sure you'll stumble across Atma.

As to "Bomb Forest", that's now an area to make sure you can still encounter the Phantom Train random encounters for Rage learning purposes (as it's plausible to miss the formations needed).

1 hour ago, Eternal said:

For those who want to play it, but don't really have the money to pay full price, XII: TZA is on sale for 50% off on Humble Bundle.

https://www.humblebundle.com/store/final-fantasy-xii-the-zodiac-age

Hey hey, if anyone's getting something from the Humble Store it should be through my affiliate link  https://www.humblebundle.com/store/final-fantasy-xii-the-zodiac-age?partner=nowea
More seriously. Squenix does sales on FF stuff very often, to the point where half the time the 'sale' price is the standard. Might be the first time TZA's on one due to newness though.

For some more substantial feedback on the mod itself. I can't speak on FF12 much as it wasn't really my jam. But I kinda figured when I saw the post that this was gonna be another time where "Someone we don't recognize drops a poorly thought out difficulty hack then leaves." This looks like it was well thought out and I'd be curious to see how things go once some more tools come up as I imagine AI scripts aren't exactly the best.

Kudos

32 minutes ago, SirNewtonFig said:

And not even Siren. Does Locke even have debuff options? They'd have to come from weapon procs, and I can't think of any.

But yes, Locke is all about giving and taking away HP. Those are really the only tools in his kit. If he happens to be one of the better C/C users, I feel that it is appropriate – both balance-wise, and in terms of his character.

Why did I say Siren...

Level plays a huge difference on a character's performance. Just to compare things other than damage (as Fig mentioned that already). You mentioned that Locke was level 24 and everyone else 15-18. Here's what Locke's HP would look like both before any boosters at 15, 18, and 24 along with his HP if you boost only Kirin ELs (we're going to assume roughly that EL count = level count - 10 along with wearing +25% HP)

15: 336 (607)
18: 438 (847)
24: 696 (1395)

Your Locke is probably running around with like... 4x the HP of others by virtue of level/EL investment

I don't know how you'd reach this level differential when, just to use your levels given, level 24 requires a total of 43k XP gained (rounded) vs level 18's 18k. Without intentional grinding, this suggests that you probably spent a lot of time with everyone other than Locke dead at the end of battles. This gets Locke all the XP and can snowball things out of control. I checked a few random encounters in each post-Kefka@Narshe area for per character XP gain and here's what I found a typical battle would give (remember that XP is divided evenly among every living character, and I assumed that the expected party size would be alive after the battle). One could take umbrage with me not checking every single encounter in every single area along with overworld bla bla, but I feel this is enough to illustrate my point. Final note: I only checked areas where you can wander and get encounters freely

Floating Continent: 445 xp
Esper Caves: 250 xp
Burning House: 350 xp Note: I don't see how one could fight a significant number of these enemies without it being grinding
Sealed Cave: 188 xp Note: Locke isn't required here
IMF: 125 xp 
Zozo: 137 xp Note: Locke isn't required here

So Locke would simply have to get a lot of battles where he's the only one standing (or him + 1 other that is fluctuating) and you had used him for every dungeon that you could bring him to.

I don't mean for this to sound like an attack at all, but I can't help but feel like you didn't quite grasp how powerful levels were, combined with prioritizing gear on him, combined with stacking HP ELs to give him survivability. For me, your argument almost seems to be "I focused on making Locke powerful over other characters, why is he OP?" For the record, I'm not saying you're a bad player (my average party level when I beat Atma Weapon my first time was around 23-24) or anything, just that the situation you got yourself in is very, very weird.

Note: I don't disagree with HP ELs being too strong and think a nerf to 2/3 or 3/4 of current EL HP gains would be good, as HP ELs are practically an easy mode.

Now then, regarding Locke in general. Locke has a major, major flaw that isn't being mentioned. His ability to buff/debuff is limited to Kirin and Siren casts, meaning that all he can do is 1-time RegenX or enemy bserk. All Locke can do is play the numbers game. Even if he was top damage (I doubt he is, as his options are available at least to Terra/Celes at this point and there are other ways to decimate FC outside of that) that's all he can do, damage and healing. Haste, Regen, Sap, Slow, Safe, Shell, are all kinda... not things he's capable of doing. Keep this in mind when discussing Locke's balance.

21 minutes ago, Bropedio said:

* I used Shadow extensively in the end game, and despite parrying many physical attacks, I never saw Interceptor in Kefka's tower. I can't recall whether I saw Interceptor in the WOR at all. Is it possible that Shadow lost Interceptor status somehow, or could there be another explanation?

* I learned all of my magic a bit too quickly -- I think it would be more rewarding if it took longer to buy each spell, and you were forced to think more carefully about which spell to buy, when.

Just to cover these 2. I'm pretty sure that the Interceptor check is only if the standard evade check fails. Later game Shadow has a lot more evade and there are more tools to just not get hit. So seeing less interceptor is likely because of that.

Making it take more SP to learn the spells just means people are gonna grind SP 9 times out of 10

I'm guessing he modded Setzer's darts based on something BTB will likely make a post relatively soon on regarding 1.10 development

It's easier to just add it in via a save editor. Just have to go in and check a box.

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? 

56 minutes ago, Sealarkspur said:

It says 4000 but he only gives 1000.

On a related note, since Dinosaur Forest seems to be completely nerfed, what's the best place to grind XP in WoR?

XP is divided evenly among party members. Just to be sure I double checked and they're giving the correct 4k.

I'm not 100% on grinding spots but I'm pretty sure the deserts are the grinding spots now.

1 hour ago, hypernova said:

Yes, definitely some bugs with Palidor.  I didn't check all possibilities, but when using Setzer's slot to activate it via triple-bar, all characters seem to still be vulnerable.  Sounds like they're vulnerable regardless of triple-bar or actual summoning.  Characters are able to activate their own counters upon these hits.  Finally, when they land, Setzer, who was in the bottom slot, always ended up off screen to the right.  I haven't checked to see if it's only the bottom character or him specifically by switching party order.

Been a great mod so far.  I'm about 2/3 done with retrieving characters in WOR.

Palidor is basically a giant pile of known bugs that have yet to be cracked.

This change would destroy vigor builds on any character that has access to a decent proccing weapon. A big issue there is that it's basically 'double dipping' on magic for your damage on proc weapons. Not only do they proc more, they proc stronger.

A few times I've proposed having Stam affect proc chance in some way, in order to increase synergy between the stats.

The Vector elemental blades are fine, they serve a purpose for nearly half the game (sometimes a bit longer in niche situations).

Lastly, this would basically make it so that weapons that proc are useless for procs early game and overpowered late game.

5 hours ago, Kaffe Myers said:

Hmmm, better come up with something new to complain about now... Any ideas?

FF3US enemy sprites were replaced with the JP ones! THIS ISN'T WHAT I GREW UP WITH

Something that could be touched on regarding Sabin. Something that is indirectly responsible for Stam Sabin basically falling off... The access to healing that a player gets grows faster than the need for it does. Even with 0 EL investment and no Mag boosting gear a level 25 character can toss around low 4-digit AoE Cure3s. It doesn't matter how high spell power Mantra is, it can't compete with that under the design of not hitting Sabin. Similarly, Harvester/Sun Bath are able to nearly entirely heal the entire party at literally no cost. This makes it so that investing in stamina for the healing side of things is fairly pointless because you end up playing in a world where everyone is getting topped off by almost anything you toss out.

Combine this with the plethora of MP regen sources the player gets via items alone (a good amount of elixirs and ethers along with purchasable tinctures) makes Mantra only really viable if you build the entire party around Sabin just standing there and spamming Mantra. In addition, it's more than easy enough to get enough MP via +50% MP relics, MP ELs, cost reduction, or simply being self sufficient later on to the point where a player can easily just toss out the biggest stuff (short of X-Magic Locke) constantly...

It's less that Mantra/Chakra are weak and more that all the other options work at least as well without dedicating a character to mostly only be able to use those.

RegenX is not worth building a character stam for because all the characters that get RegenX also get Cure3, which is twice the power (when cast AoE). Harvester/Sun Bath are free and with just stam gear (and Blizz orb) and no ELs a level 25 Gau will heal for around 475 HP (about 70% of the HP of a character without HP ELs or boosting gear) with Harvester, double that for Sun Bath. These are being done at Super Gau Speed as well, so he's not unlikely to (potentially) get 2 of these off between enemy attacks. And that's not even accounting for Harvester's use as AoE Remedy.

The only stats that can matter enough for EL investment for healing is +MP (just so you don't run out at the wrong time) or +Speed (Faster turn = faster recovery). I think this may be the heart of the issue. Why build someone for healing? Stam Sabin is pretty much for healing as his offensive capabilities aren't that great and his ability to take hits 'and' cover/counter isn't really that good compared to your bulkier characters.

1 hour ago, magictrufflez said:

Also, I may have missed this in the changelog but is Locke supposed to get free turns when stealing? Every time he successfully steals something, he immediately gets another action--which is great for farming steals, but I don't know if you intended it or not.

Steal is working as intended, yes. It works with mug as well.

1 hour ago, Vaylen said:

I'd also like to see a shift in the stats it gives: Instead of 7 vig/7 stam, go 5vig/9stam. This would require a dedicated vig or vig+spd armor to equalize options... although, nigh any heavy armor user really enjoys stam, even if it is just for cover/counter.

The range for stats on gear is -7 to +7, Don't have an argument one way or the other on the rest of this, but it's a current code limit.

Also, HasteX will eat Shadow's MP pool, so suddenly you're spending 2 turns to chug a tincture at times. And a shadow that dies even relatively frequently ends up losing a lot of time rebuffing. Lastly, Just because Shadow and Gau can reapply Haste easily via HasteX (despite it still not being optimal) there's 2 other people that can wear Mirage Vest.

20 Mblock is pretty significant. I would easily take Mirage Vest on a non physical attacking Shadow (e.g. support Shadow)

After repeated edits, You can build a Shadow with over +25% HP and MP, over 100 speed, full status immunity, and one evasion at 94 and the other at 104 (depending on esper equip). This makes his evasion to where he can only get his 19% by one attack type and 27% on the other (rounding up). Just some food for thought here.

6 hours ago, vonriel said:

Nowea, I can't tell if that's a jab at my lack of skill, or my lack of interaction that has you calling me a new player. Either way, I've had a fair few runs through BNW at this point, although I don't know that I'd ever run a hard mode patch for the game.

Purely lack of interaction. Any personal jabs I do that are intentional are more obvious, usually.

1 hour ago, Mishrak said:

Stickied. I shoulda done this sooner. 

I consider this an official endorsement 
V5 output, while re-reading @thzfunnymzn playthrough I saw he had reported ELs claiming they gave more HP than they do.

It's less that "Dark is only there for X-Magic" and more "His spell list assumes X-Magic". This is helped a bit by his Lores serving as his more powerful 'single cast' spells. If it was possible to have some spells that don't work with X-Magic (in a way that the player easily understands instead of just having spells grayed out or missing at random) then something like that would be feasible.

Unfortunately we don't have a single unified area. There's an "add-ons" section that BNW has but BTB hasn't put any patches there yet.

The encounter patch was only put up for testing and there are many reports that it's likely not working as intended, so use at your own caution.

Outside of that stuff the most significant 'optional patches' are things like Nowea Hard Type or various sprite alterations/minor things that are not recommended for a new player.

Regarding Genji Armor, I don't have any strong opinion one way or the other.

A single Raze is better than a single Dark, yes. However, Strago's magic menu is balanced around the use of Sage Stone for X-Magic. As is, X-Dark is Strago's best single target damage spell (before weaknesses and such).

As far as "intended vs oversight" goes, every single time I've asked about it, it was something intended. Obviously I can't speak for the devs in that regard with this.

As far as warp goes, I don't see why that can't be done (assuming it's not too difficult to implement) in the next minor version.