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Corvinus posted:Thieves with dual wield and marksman secondary makes a great utility/stealbot and can output decent damage in a pinch too. Two Swords Thief with Battle Skill is really goofy against generics without Maintenance. Double daggers makes you lightning fast on top of double break chance + Concentrate.
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Dec 11, 2012 00:05
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J. Alfred Prufrock posted:(Of course, this doesn't mean that enemy units can't use it.) Power Source was renamed to this to add a mechanical connotation, because of the fact that only Worker 8 and other Steel Giants can use it. It still functions exactly the same as Elixir, and in the context of 1.3, insta full HP / MP heals are very powerful. Worker 8 also gets access to every other Item in the game on top of Power Source in the form of his Secondary Skillset (yes, he's got two now). You can Poach and/or find Power Sources and farm them as rewards from some Random Battles. They are not available in shops. Special boss units and mini boss generics can use Power Sources later in the game, however not until Chapter 3 and onwards. Oh yeah, and I am very proud of Worker 8's new skill, but I won't spoil that one for reals. I agree that Oracles are a little bland right now, though they are still much stronger than before due to how fast their magic resolves now. You can dominate enemy generics with Sleep / Paralyze / Don't Act alone, and status spells become useful again in the Deep Dungeon (surprising, I know), where many enemies have tons of HP but are vulnerable to statuses like Poison, Berserk, Sleep, Don't Act, and others. All Oracle sticks have built-in +1 Move, 2 range, and they hit very hard. Try putting Two Hands on an Oracle with some MA gear and go to town. Battlemage. Archael fucked around with this message at 04:32 on Dec 11, 2012 |
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Dec 11, 2012 04:26
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Hey Prufrock, I have a request: Is there a map coming up that you can use to show off what a fight going wrong, but not all-the-way game-over wrong, looks like? In OFS's LP of the vanilla game, he occasionally dug himself a hole - intentionally triggered what's-his-name's Hamedo, stuff like that - and then dug himself back out. We've only ever seen the AI get put on the defensive, and then you kill them. If it wouldn't be too much of a pain, I'm sort of wondering how a comeback in 1.3 goes.
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Dec 11, 2012 04:30
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J. Alfred Prufrock posted:Spell Absorb is much more reliable. Life Drain, on the other hand, is gone, presumably due to its power against Lucavi and other ???? units, though I'm not sure what makes Beatdown okay that couldn't be applied to Life Drain as well. I think the difference between Life Drain and Beatdown is due to elemental properties of attacks. I'm pretty sure "life drain" is considered an element by the game, which I don't think you can be "immune" to without being undead (which has its own associated weaknesses). So if I've got that right, you can't just make Life Drain, say, Dark elemental, slap a Dark-elemental immunity on a boss to protect it from life drain and call it a day (as was done with Beatdown). I think Archael went out of his way to protect bosses from %-based damage, so he just scrapped Life Drain altogether. Now, I don't know why the damage formula for Life Drain couldn't be changed so it does damage depending on the caster's stats, like Dark Sword or the bloodsword, instead of based on the target's total HP. That would make an Oracle a pretty tanky battlemage, since they could heal themselves. It wouldn't break bosses if it just did damage equal to an Explosion spell or something.
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Dec 11, 2012 05:02
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Sorites posted:We've only ever seen the AI get put on the defensive, and then you kill them. If it wouldn't be too much of a pain, I'm sort of wondering how a comeback in 1.3 goes. Not sure if there are any battles like that early, but going defensive to survive an initial rush does happen often later. Schwartzcough posted:I think the difference between Life Drain and Beatdown is due to elemental properties of attacks. I'm pretty sure "life drain" is considered an element by the game, which I don't think you can be "immune" to without being undead (which has its own associated weaknesses). So if I've got that right, you can't just make Life Drain, say, Dark elemental, slap a Dark-elemental immunity on a boss to protect it from life drain and call it a day (as was done with Beatdown). I think Archael went out of his way to protect bosses from %-based damage, so he just scrapped Life Drain altogether. The Demi/Demi 2/Gravi 2/Lich spells are %damage dark-elemental spells (of which bosses are immune to) so Drain Life could have been that, but Beowulf's Drain is a PA*WP formula too. Corvinus fucked around with this message at 05:21 on Dec 11, 2012 |
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Dec 11, 2012 05:17
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Derp.
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Dec 11, 2012 05:20
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Corvinus posted:The Demi/Demi 2/Gravi 2/Lich spells are %damage dark-elemental spells (of which bosses are immune to) so Drain Life could have been that, but Beowulf's Drain is a PA*WP formula too. Well yeah, if you didn't want Life Drain to heal the caster, you could just make it a straight-up %-based dark damage spell. I'm saying it can't be a life-draining %-based dark-elemental spell, because the "element" tag is filled with "life-drain" instead of "dark". vv Edit: You might be right, but I also remember hearing that Lich worked on bosses, even though the bosses were supposed to be immune to Dark. I thought it had gotten changed or removed in later version because of that, but I haven't kept up on changes. Schwartzcough fucked around with this message at 05:56 on Dec 11, 2012 |
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Dec 11, 2012 05:22
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Schwartzcough posted:Well yeah, if you didn't want Life Drain to heal the caster, you could just make it a straight-up %-based dark damage spell. I'm saying it can't be a life-draining %-based dark-elemental spell, because the "element" tag is filled with "life-drain" instead of "dark". Seems Lich is essentially that in FFTPatcher. I'm pretty sure life-drain is part of the damage/ability formula, which is a separate field from elemental type. Edit: Wait, 1.306 Lich is different from previous versions. I don't know what the gently caress. Corvinus fucked around with this message at 05:57 on Dec 11, 2012 |
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Dec 11, 2012 05:43
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Sorites posted:Hey Prufrock, I have a request: We've got a pretty close fight coming up. 
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Dec 11, 2012 07:56
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J. Alfred Prufrock posted:We've got a pretty close fight coming up. Oh god. One bad roll of the dice, and you're scrambling to get back on your feet.
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Dec 11, 2012 07:58
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Oh, I didn't realize this thread was up!  Hope you manage to finish this LP while keeping your sanity intact! 
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Dec 11, 2012 08:23
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Episode 7: Lenalia Plateau The Death Corps attack on Casa de Beoulve weighs heavily on our return to Igros.   But at least we know that Zalbag is on the job! I'm sure he'll take care of everything, and it'll all be okay.  Delita certainly isn't content to wait around for the Knights to fix things.   If Algus showed his true colors back at the Thieves' Fort, he's just rubbing them in our faces by this point.  Good on you, Delita.   And good on Prufrock, too.   Algus at least has the courtesy to give us our next destination before loving off.  While the direct route would be a lot shorter, as Algus so helpfully pointed out, we'll need to circle around to flank the Death Corps' main forces if we want to avoid the brunt of the fighting.   Delita shares a quiet moment with Prufrock on the plains. You really get to feeling sorry for the guy.   His only family has been taken, and Algus's words probably cut deeper than he'd like to admit. Anyway, enough moping, let's go rescue the girl! Team Shakespeare is finally fighting at full strength.      Orlando joins Kate as a Monk. Nothing to cheer you up like punching people in the face. Prufrock switches into Time Mage and Viola prepares to talk the enemy to death.   Of course you knew better than to imagine that we'd seen the last of Miluda.  Just as before, it's an assassination mission.  And just as before, Miluda is tough as hell.   This time she's joined by a pair of Marksmen, two Time Mages, and a Knight. Check Neilson's support there: Marksmen with Concentrate are kind of a thing in this mod. Short Charge makes the Time Mage pretty hazardous as well.    Seems Teta's abduction was a case of mistaken identity. If anything, I imagine that makes Delita feel even worse...his family isn't even important enough to kidnap, plus if the Death Corps find out, they'll have no reason to keep Teta alive.   Delita opens with a Speed Ruin, but all that accomplishes is wasting one of Miluda's turns. Of course, that's all I'm counting on him to do, so it's perfectly fine by me.  Unblockable arrows are nasty, and the two Marksmen combined can take out a mage in the opening round. Auto Potion was the only thing that saved Prufrock's rear end here.    The Marksmen are probably more directly dangerous, by today my first target is that Time Mage way off by her lonesome. She can wreck your day if left unchecked, but is a delightfully easy target so long as you remember to bring a couple of units with good reach. Move +2, Battle Boots, and Wave Fist give me all the reach I need. It's also vital to start controlling the field ASAP. You're literally fighting an uphill battle (get used to it) so playing defensively isn't much of an option. Pay extra attention to where Katherine is standing, it's important.    Talk Skill is instant and can apply some nasty status afflictions, including Don't Act, Berserk, and (as shown here) Sleep. I really only care about catching Nielson (Mr. Concentrate). The Time Mage is just going to get Stigma Magic'd up again (and wasn't going anywhere anyway) but because of its poor vertical tolerance that wouldn't be an option for Nielson even if Kate wasn't blocking the way, and since she is he's going to be napping for a good while.  Getting more turns that the other team is very potent.   Frog takes a unit out of the fight until it's cured, so it can move a unit from full health to as good as dead in one go if the other team doesn't have a way to remove it. In retrospect, this was a fairly bad call. Sure, making Miluda remove it would have diverted her from the sleeping Time Mage, but it would have also spread the enemy formation out a lot more. You want to keep them clustered up, for reasons we'll see soon enough.   Miluda got the Stigma Magic off as expected, but her timing ended up being incredibly poor (which is odd, since they AI is usually great about that sort of thing) and the poor Time Mage goes down without getting an action. I was honestly expecting her to wake up and immediately start charging a Stop or Raise before moving out of melee range, forcing me to go chasing her up that little hill in the top corner.   Turns out Miluda is full of surprises today. Catching me off guard, she gets another turn almost immediately. Miluda has Steal equipped and will go for the Steal Heart if she gets the chance. This could have been pretty nasty, had it connected, and there's not much you can do against it besides try to keep her occupied playing medic to the rest of her team.   I may have them on the defensive, but the fight isn't quite over yet.  Wave Fist's incantation.  Sleep will wear off naturally after a few turns, so it's not a permanent solution; you'll have to deal with that unit sooner or later.  I'm concerned about that Concentrate sniping coming back into the picture: one more shot would have dropped Prufrock, and a Timed Strike might have taken out Falstaff (I didn't think to check compats). I probably could have waited another round, but better safe than sorry.  Falstaff finally delivers the payload...  Okay, now the fight is over. Take a look at the map for a moment. The natural channel in the middle is a major death trap, and if you try to run up it, you'll get mired down and then shredded by magic while the Marksmen pick off any stragglers. You're up against higher-level units, usually with better equipment, and definitely with a better starting position. (Welcome to every fight in 1.3!) However, you can also use the terrain to your advantage. If you run a couple of high-mobility units around the outside, you can pen the enemy in. Breaking left (your left while facing up at Miluda, that is) is generally the better play because if you can plug up that single-tile opening in the ridge you can keep the four that start on the inside from getting out, allowing you to destroy them with your own AoEs while also giving you some space to sneak any squishies into range. Pulling right is much harder because there's no terrain to really exploit and the overhang makes it difficult to sneak past without clumping up for the Slows, Stops, and Cyclones that you're trying to avoid in the first place.   Back to the battle, I'm just cleaning up at this point.  This time Steal Heart is successful (not surprising, given that Falstaff is a famous dupe), but it's too late to turn the battle around.   Regenerator adds to the list of things that make dogpile rushing Miluda difficult.  Terrible compatibility + boss resists = pitiful damage.   Just as before, Miluda won't go down without a lot of sandbagging and some additional dialogue.  Prufrock, ever the optimist, still holds out hope for a peaceful solution.   I've always thought that Tactics puts up its best writing early on.  The Death Corps come across as sad and desperate, more than anything else.  We've already gotten reason to distrust the nobility (even if Algus's turn to heel was a bit blunt) so it's not hard to sympathize with the rebels, either.  Miluda doesn't leave us any choice but to kill her.  I can't say I feel very good about it.  Neither does Delita.  The loot helps a little, I suppose. Next Time: The Doom of a Planet! J. Alfred Prufrock fucked around with this message at 15:33 on Dec 11, 2012 |
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Dec 11, 2012 15:25
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Dr Pepper posted:There's a stupid change right there. FFT Vanilla made some inroads to this, but in my opnion FFTA does the best job of giving the player useful status effects. The only immunities are through gear (which you can see) and boss status, so most monsters are always vulnerable. There is no one "status job", status effect attacks are spread among jobs pretty well. Plus there are a bunch of damage+status attacks, so even if the status misses it's not a big deal (Dagger, Charmshot, Beso Toxico, etc.) Plus FFTA has one of the best status classes in the series, the Juggler!
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Dec 11, 2012 16:22
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sudonim posted:From the last page, this is a problem with status in Final Fantasy in general. It would be awesome to slow/frog/poison everything in the world, but they have low success rates, and even if they would hit, you're never sure whether or not immunity is going to get in the way. So you become trained never to use status, and just throw more attacks and attack spells instead. FFTA really is a fantastic game, but it suffers heavily from the AI being so hideously stupid. It doesn't have the couple of really hard fights that FFT has, because Marche is just so stupidly overpowered, as are several of the classes. White Monk dominates the early game once you get a set of Kaiser Knuckles for Air Render, and then Assassins rule the day after that. I found and was going to LP an FFTA 'hard mode' hack I found on ID, but it was really just boring. It didn't even have the sandbagging that 1.3 has; outside of the first couple of missions being really interesting and difficult with the enemy stat rebalancing, it was just underwhelmingly easy there on out, for the same reasons as ever: enemy units being so dumb as to fail to take into account immunities, and choosing to use 'high accuracy, low damage' skills all of the time. Even when they have 0% chance to hit. 
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Dec 11, 2012 18:24
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The big issue with status effects is that it's hard to balance them without making them either grossly overpowered or completely useless. Finding the right balance with success rates, effects, removal opportunities and immunity is tough work. I prefer making most status-inflicting moves weak-ish damage spells with a certain chance of inflicting an ailment, but I think the FFT engine only allows for 25% or 100% chance to inflict an ailment on damaging moves, which doesn't give you a lot of leeway.
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Dec 11, 2012 23:45
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Heavy neutrino posted:The big issue with status effects is that it's hard to balance them without making them either grossly overpowered or completely useless. Finding the right balance with success rates, effects, removal opportunities and immunity is tough work. It's interesting to me that Pokemon does a better job of managing status than many more-complicated RPGs. The game has status effects that can severely weaken a unit, but they never dominate - even though "boss" encounters have no special immunities. I think what makes the whole thing go is that no one status ailment will cripple a unit all by itself (except KO, obviously), and (with minor exceptions) having one status ailment prevents getting a second. That rider by itself could make a big difference in FFT.
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Dec 12, 2012 02:06
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Sorites posted:having one status ailment prevents getting a second. That rider by itself could make a big difference in FFT. Yes, minor exceptiosn that make it rather nice to go with FFT. I figure if you could somehow classify the effects as physical and mental or something? Poison is physical, charm is mental, and allow only one of each type on a character, that could work. But it's probably not feasible with the system...unless you make Poison also make you immune to other physical ailments.
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Dec 12, 2012 04:07
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And the Oil proc from Explosion occurs on the killing blow. Of course. 
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Dec 12, 2012 04:26
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Class Acts: Time Mage Time Magic is as potent as ever, and the Time Mage job gets a nice little Speed boost. Some of their spells are also faster casts, but other than that they're the same good old temporal manipulators you know and love from vanilla.  Haste and Slow haven't changed, though 1.3's gameplay does tend to stress the importantance of out-pacing the enemy, so if anything, they're more useful due to the metagame. Haste 2 and Slow 2 are faster, making them slightlyl less ponderous, though you'll still likely want Short Charge to get much use out of them. Stop resolves sooner and recieved a significant boost in accuracy, turning it into a pretty reliable slugger. I'd consider it even stronger if it didn't have to compete with a couple of other big guns like Toad 2, but it's nice to see Time Magic get a solid powerhouse. Don't Move is unchanged, but because more units in 1.3 have decent ranged options, it's comparably weaker than it was in vanilla. Reflect had its CT dropped to 1, leaving it very close to an instant-cast and making it better for interrupting enemy spells. Quick actually recieved a bit of a nerf in 1.3; with an increased CT and a lower hit rate, it's less reliable than before, especially at lower levels. Later on it's use rises again one you have lots of unique units to whom you'd want to donate turns. Demi is significantly faster and cheaper, at a slightly accuracy cost. It's now a solid damage spell against anything not immune to Dark. Demi 2, like it's younger brother, recieved a big buff to speed and a big reduction in cost. Unlike the former spell, however, Demi 2 is also a great deal more accurate. Definitely a new heavy-hitter. Meteor will still pretty much never get cast. But who cares? Have you seen Demi 2? Float has myseriously dissapeared. Where has it gone, and why? Your guess is as good as mine. --- Critical Quick and Short Charge and Teleport and Float do what they've always done, and Short Charge has found yet another skillset with which it is amazing. MP Switch now belongs to the Dancer, again to prevent combo'ing with Move MP Up. --- Despite the relative subtlety of many of the changes made to the class, Time Mages are unmistakeably more powerful. Being the fastest spellcaster gives the base job a niche, and the improvements to Demi and Demi 2 lend an already-flexible skillset even more versatility. Haste and Slow won't overtly end battles, but they do make a big difference. Just as in vanilla, the relative MA independence of Time Magic make it a great secondary for robe-wearing heavies, too. Overall a very good job. J. Alfred Prufrock fucked around with this message at 07:57 on Dec 19, 2012 |
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Dec 12, 2012 05:09
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If memory serves, early bosses aren't immune to slow, so Time Mages get a bit of extra utility early on. They're also useful against enemy Time Mages, as Haste and Slow overwrite each other (so do poison and regen, but they suck).
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Dec 12, 2012 05:17
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Time Mage best mage. Meteor can be used effectively with some prep: target one of your own units (preferably with reraise) and run 'em in, or reflect a unit and bounce Meteor off it for twice the range. The WotL 1.3 Time Mage lost Haste 2, Slow 2, Don't Move and Demi 2, in return for real vertical tolerance on Haste/Slow and Demi upped to 50%. Hard to say if the Haste/Slow tradeoffs are a wash, but it is sort of an insanely good job in the PSX 1.3 version. Corvinus fucked around with this message at 05:30 on Dec 12, 2012 |
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Dec 12, 2012 05:22
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I'd just about call time mage the best overall class to sit a mage in for 1.3. The mix of speed and power is great and there's always something useful in their skillset.
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Dec 12, 2012 05:28
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sudonim posted:From the last page, this is a problem with status in Final Fantasy in general. It would be awesome to slow/frog/poison everything in the world, but they have low success rates, and even if they would hit, you're never sure whether or not immunity is going to get in the way. So you become trained never to use status, and just throw more attacks and attack spells instead. Actually, in many of the main FF games, a boss is very rarely immune to Slow, making it one of the best spells.
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Dec 12, 2012 11:33
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Class Acts: Monk Monks have changed very little in 1.3, recieving slightly better stat growth and a few tweaked skills. A couple of Punch Arts have been upgraded and a couple have been dialed back, but overall the Monk is just as potent and versatile as before.  Spin Fist hits a bigger area now, making it better against clumped up formations but riskier because it still hits your own team. It's more competitive with Draw Outs because those now also hit your own team. Repeating Fist is the only skill to get a total makeover, probably on account of the fact that nobody ever used it since random damage generally sucks. Now it's a solid melee punch that sneaks around evasion, good for units with Abandon or shields and mantles. Wave Fist still does what it does. It's nice to have the reach when trying to get at vulnerable backliners. Earth Slash got toned down with a smaller area. It's still quite strong, and the ability to be boosted (through 108 Gems, etc.) potentially ups its destructive power considerably. Secret Fist hits more often, but Doom hasn't gotten any better, so neither have skills that apply it. Typically you'll want to deal with problem units now rather than wait three turns and hope they don't destroy your team in the meanwhile. Stigma Magic and Chakra and Revive still comprise the Monk's formidable support package, offering instant, free healing, status removal, and revival at the cost of extremely finnicky targetting. They're much harder to rate than other support skills because their usefulness varies wildly depending on the map. --- HP Restore is joined by Meatbone Slash off the Samurai list, which I suppose is fitting given that they're each other's opposites. HP Restore is considerably more useful because it doesn't require the triggering enemy to be within attack range in order to function, and also it isn't totally outclassed by Hamedo. Since the Tactics AI doesn't take reaction skills into account, you can have a lot of fun with reactions that require your enemy to walk into them. Martial Arts is substantially more expensive but functionally unchanged. The list of things to which its bonus applies is a bit different, so it's worth giving it a check. Move-HP UP hasn't gotten any better. It's stuck in a weird place where the units that would get the most out of it (high HP fighters that constantly move around) need their move skill to increase their mobility, while lighter, more mobile units like Thieves and Ninjas can afford the skill slot but get less HP from it, and long-range units are usually better off just banking the 20 CT to get quicker turns. --- There's really nothing I can say about the Monk that hasn't already been said, since outside of a few tweaks it's still the same job as in vanilla. The Draw Out nerfs and importance of having a revive on hand for sandbagging situations make Punch Art even more competitive as the do-anything physical skill.
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Dec 12, 2012 11:41
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Yep, punch art remains the best physical skillset by miles and 1.3's monks gained some extra speed (tied with time mage) to let them continue being just about the best class until very late in the game.
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Dec 12, 2012 18:43
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So a Monk with Two Swords is almost as broken as Ninja with Martial Arts? Or did the 1.3 Ninja become even speedier?
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Dec 12, 2012 18:52
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Episode 8: Fovoham Plains We're still working our way around the back of the Death Corps stronghold at Fort Zeakden. Last time an unfortunate run-in with Miluda's new crew slowed us down, but we've still got a chance to catch up to Teta's kidnappers.  Speaking of whom...   We can see Teta in the background there. Apparently the Death Corps still haven't caught on that she's not nobility.   Wiegraf really does believe wholeheartedly in the cause.  So much so that he's willing to die just to get a shot at change.  Golgaros, on the other hand...   Before the battle begins, Prufrock takes up the Summoner's horn, while Orlando gets in touch with Mother Earth as a Geomancer. I know the upcoming battlefield is pretty cramped, so I'm hoping that some powerful AoEs will help me soften up the enemy.  Anyway, turns out we just killed Wiegraf's sister. Awkward.  Our third assassination mission. Unlike in the previous pair, our target is pretty exposed right from the start, so it's not a bad idea to go right for the throat.  He's still quite tough, though. Make a note of Counter Magic, because I sure as hell forgot to.  Joining him is another unique unit, a White Chocobo. Unfortunately we can't get a closer look at its action abilities, but I'm sure they're no fun at all.   Instead we'll just have to watch them in play. Choco Ball is your basic ranged attack. Its starts out fairly weak, but rapidly rises in power with level due to its damage formula.   I'm a fan of in-battle dialogue in RPGs.   It gives the characters lots of space to develop without leaving you feeling like you're reading a novel.  Keeping a crossbow on Delita is a good idea throughout the chapter. The AI isn't the best at set-up and positioning, but it knows when to exploit obvious opportunites. With time, you get better at guessing what your Guests will do so that you can plan accordingly.   As I mentioned before, this map is rather small, so everyone can get into fighting range right away, and there's not a lot of room to maneuver.   Because enemy units in 1.3 have much better JP budgets, you can expect to see advanced abilities as early as the skillsets containing them appear.   This would have been lovely, had it hit, but I'll have no such luck today.  Even in hindsight I'm not sure whether moving Viola so far ahead was a good call. Threaten, seen here, is another Talk Skill. Unlike Mimic Daravon, it only affects a single target, but it has a higher rate of success.  Summons aren't really different in 1.3: they still hit a good area and smart target, making them strong in small maps like this. On the other hand...   ...I completely forgot that Counter Magic could proc on summons.  This frog had something like a 69% hit chance, too.   As a White Knight, Wiegraf is our first sword skilled opponent. In general, sword skillers are heavy units with good HP and PA, mediocre magic, and low Speed and move (though at very low levels like this, it's not as noticeable). Well poo poo. Crush Punch has a 25% chance to proc an instant death effect. Obviously, it happens to me straight away, and suddenly this fight just got much more tense.  Sandbagging Mode: Engage! The battle may look pretty even, with each side having scored one K.O.  Sandbagging Statues: Mirrored. However, the other team is better equipped for a war of attrition. If I let them, they'll eventually grind me down.  Geomancy didn't get a lot of love in vanilla, but I'm a big fan of it in 1.3 as an excellent counter to sandbagging, especially the Item-based variety. The damage still isn't huge but it's instant, ranged, and free, and the AoE means that you'll frequently catch the reviver as well as the revivee.   I'm trimming the dialogue down qutie a bit, but if it's still annoying let me know.   Direct Speed manipulation is pretty much entirely gone from 1.3, with Speed Save being the notable exception. On soft units like Marksmen and mages it's not much to worry about, but it'll appear on tougher units later and will be a bigger hazard then.   I'm stuck repairing the damage from that countered summon in order to keep Prufrock out of danger range.   I'm trying very hard to keep the White Chocobo from getting a turn off. Just one Choco Cure would probably bring it and at least one other enemy unit up to near-full health.  I saw that one coming, but decided to chance it anyway. Who knows, the Stop proc might have gone off.  Prufrock is rapidly running out of MP. At this rate I'm going to get out-sandbagged.  Delita is not helping.   Meanwhile, the other team has cost-free revival on three units and cost-free healing on four. I realize at this point that I can't win the attrition war.  Falstaff's reserves are getting low as well, but I absolutely cannot let a Choco Cure go through or I won't have the gas to finish. I might not anyway.   Finally I get a break. This ought to buy me some breathing room.  It helps when the AI faffs about.   By targetting Wiegraf with Spirit Surge, I'm placing faith in the AI that it will take care of the chocobo for me. This is the last of Prufrock's MP, so I'm not even worried about Counter Magic. It's going to be very close.  The AI comes through. Poor Boco there hasn't gotten a second turn yet.   This is less than ideal. Not only does it break Charm, it also fails to help me wear Wiegraf down.  And the now uncharmed Monk continues to sandbag.   I don't even care about the Chocobo any more. Falstaff's tank is empty too.  And at the last minute, I manage to get just enough damage through to drop Wiegraf to critical, ending the fight.     Wiegraf drops a truth bomb on Prufrock. Of course, we already knew better.  And the White Knight teleports away. It'll be awhile before we see him again.   Poor Delita.  Next Time: the love song will be sung!
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Dec 12, 2012 23:45
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Final Fantasy Tactics' RNG is such an odd beast. I feel like the displayed chances are actually lower - missing 14 times in a row on a 25% chance is just stupid. By the way, how long in actual time did that last battle take? Sandbagging seems to become more of a chore than a strategy whenever I play this patch.
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Dec 13, 2012 00:27
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quote:Sandbagging seems to become more of a chore than a strategy I am a big supporter of keeping the coined term "sandbagging" when referring to the AI or the player intentionally "stalling" the offensive team in order to turn things around or get a break in. Sandbagging is a funny term and fits the "strategy" very well. You basically pile on a bunch of sandbags to stop an offense. However, be careful not to use the term "sandbagging" in a dismissive manner for any and all situations where defensive skills become used wisely. That is why defensive abilities exist, to counter excessive offense. If they weren't in place, there would be nothing stopping people from going full DPS (boring) and turn this into no-brain vanilla land again where you 999 your way without thought to the end. If you bring a team full of big damage dealers with zero support and zero way to mitigate damage output with zero revival, a more balanced team will wipe the floor with you, because your massive DPS is remedied by a simple Revive, thus wasting your turns. What good is your 100 CT turns being blown on big damage if I'm cutting your damage down and make your turns meaningless? "Sandbagging", therefore, is the necessary evil in place to stop "lol999ing". Keep in mind that there's a place for 100% offense in this mod, too, but the spectrum of strategies you must learn and employ is much broader. For example, let's say that in that latest update, Prufrock would have ended up losing the battle. Would he have lost because the AI "sandbagged" him? Or would he have lost because they healed and revived efficiently and then managed to turn things around? Neither of those descriptions would make the AI's victory any less "valid". I think the best way to look at the FFT (and 1.3) meta game is to think of KO (Zero HP) as just another status, and revival as the way to cure that status. I also see many people ignoring important defensive principles, such as the fact that Protect / Shell / Move HP UP / Regen / Damage Split (aka Damage Mitigation) can waste so much of the attacking team's turns that it becomes just as, if not more appealing than pure offense. What good is your turn, wasted on damage, if I can mitigate it almost completely without even wasting a turn? Just something to think about. /caffeinated rant over Archael fucked around with this message at 01:44 on Dec 13, 2012 |
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Dec 13, 2012 01:37
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No sandbagging is pretty bad. I'm impressed you take what is clearly supposed to be a derogatory description of the terrible hack you've made as a good thing. It's much more interesting to win by offense rather then slowly claw yourself to victory because you were slightly better at "not dying" then the enemy.
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Dec 13, 2012 02:00
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Well, and sandbagging is weighted towards the AI. For a player, "losing" a battle typically means having any of your units die, whereas the AI can stall and waste your resources and it doesn't matter if half their team have turned into crystals; if you lose a single unit- they won. Also, they don't have to worry about wasting resources, since the AI has unlimited items and can phoenix down and potion until the end of time. Plus, sandbagging is naturally more effective when you have units with innate Defense and MDef Up and a bunch of status immunities (including immunity to death), and potentially superior equipment for more HP/MP/Offense. Obviously this is to compensate for the AI making "stupid" decisions, but it also means that sandbagging is a very valid strategy for the AI and makes the battles draw way out, but doesn't work for players as well.
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Dec 13, 2012 02:07
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It leads to situations where you won 20 actions ago, but you need to find a way to break the enemy's chain of revivals or else the computer will win because humans age and die, but you would have to make actively bad choices like wasting several turns waiting for the battle not still be in your favor.
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Dec 13, 2012 02:10
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Dr Pepper posted:No sandbagging is pretty bad. I'm impressed you take what is clearly supposed to be a derogatory description of the terrible hack you've made as a good thing. quote:It's much more interesting to win by offense rather then slowly claw yourself to victory because you were slightly better at "not dying" then the enemy. quote:It leads to situations where you won 20 actions ago quote:it also means that sandbagging is a very valid strategy for the AI and makes the battles draw way out, but doesn't work for players as well. You guys should realize that "sandbagging" from the player can punish the AI and cost them a battle just the same. The AI will never be as good at sand-bagging as a human. Archael fucked around with this message at 02:39 on Dec 13, 2012 |
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Dec 13, 2012 02:23
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Dr Pepper posted:No sandbagging is pretty bad. I'm impressed you take what is clearly supposed to be a derogatory description of the terrible hack you've made as a good thing. I'm no god of FFT, but I've played 1.3 and Content nearly through 3-4 times. Major sandbagging isn't necessary and really only happens when you gently caress up a team setup significantly. Sometimes a chancy proc/hit rate sort of screws you; sandbagging lets you come back from that. Or if you get the AI into a revive loop and it sandbags like a mofo, it means you hosed up target priorities or didn't bring a caster with Zombie.
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Dec 13, 2012 02:37
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EDIT: That fight was dramatic as heck. You wrote the update well, too; I mean, chances are you wouldn't have made a whole post just to show a failed attempt, but the tension stayed high until the last move.  SECONDARY EDIT: Rats. Didn't remove the poo-flinging in time to avert an argument. Oh well. Sorites fucked around with this message at 02:47 on Dec 13, 2012 |
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Dec 13, 2012 02:39
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Sorites posted:Are you even paying attention? You and your pals use it one way, and other people use it a different way. The way it's being used in this thread highlights people's belief that it's boring, wastes time, substitutes tedium for difficulty, and is the #1 reason your mod isn't popular. That's the thing. If you cannot beat an AI team because they played defensively, then you are having difficulty beating a team. If you happen to find it tedious because they heal, protect each-other with spells, or, god forbid, revive each-other, then you never liked FFT much except for one shotting enemy units. Defensive abilities have always been in FFT. Now that you're actually faced against them, maybe you realize it's not as fun as going full offense against everything? It's perfectly OK to not like that, and to not play it. It's not willful ignorance, it's just accepting that not everyone is going to enjoy the same things. That is why an easy mode of 1.3 exists.
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Dec 13, 2012 02:44
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Know what, forget it. I've seen this argument play out enough times; I'll just give it up. From the starting assumption that difficulty, however achieved and measured purely by failure:success ratio, and quality scale at a 1:1 ratio, your stance is a logical conclusion. I should know better than to challenge that premise considering the person I'm talking to is a hardmode romhacker. Chalk it up to taste and let's not poo poo up the thread.
Sorites fucked around with this message at 02:48 on Dec 13, 2012 |
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Dec 13, 2012 02:46
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Also someone brought up the very valid point that the AI doesn't care how many units of it's own go down completely, if they crystallize just one of your units they've scored a big win. And you even admit yourself that the AI is better at sandbagging, because they have infinite phoenix downs and potions. In fact, why has nobody tried to institute an enemy item pool into tactics? Is that too hard to mod in? Making the enemy have a limited amount of items seems like a real easy way to level a lot of the playing field, in terms of battles of attrition. Even if their pool is a billion +1, that's still better than infinite.
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Dec 13, 2012 02:49
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Captain Bravo posted:Also someone brought up the very valid point that the AI doesn't care how many units of it's own go down completely, if they crystallize just one of your units they've scored a big win. And you even admit yourself that the AI is better at sandbagging, because they have infinite phoenix downs and potions. In fact, why has nobody tried to institute an enemy item pool into tactics? Is that too hard to mod in? Making the enemy have a limited amount of items seems like a real easy way to level a lot of the playing field, in terms of battles of attrition. Even if their pool is a billion +1, that's still better than infinite. I think this critique's a bit overblown, honestly, given the overall conditions of the mod. The player also has an effectively bottomless pool of buyable items if they're willing to put in the grinding time, and the genuinely hard-to-stockpile ones don't appear often in enemy movesets now that Elixirs got shunted to the side. The real cost of being thrown on the defensive (assuming you win the fight) is having to spend more time collecting money for items, and it's been made eminently clear over the past few 1.3 threads that forcing the player to waste time is one of the ways the mod is meant to wear you down. Sorites fucked around with this message at 02:54 on Dec 13, 2012 |
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Dec 13, 2012 02:51
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Sorites posted:I think this critique's a bit overblown, honestly, given the overall conditions of the mod. The player also has an effectively bottomless pool of buyable items if they're willing to put in the grinding time, and the genuinely hard-to-stockpile ones don't appear often in enemy movesets now that Elixirs got shunted to the side. Yeah, but the game punishes grinding, so that's not really a fair approach either. If you want to keep up with equipment, you're going to be really tight on money for most of the game (ESPECIALLY since enemy thieves and break skills are more accurate now)- you probably can't restock 20 phoenix downs after every battle.
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Dec 13, 2012 02:54
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