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Final Fantasy 9 => Gameplay => FF9 Gameplay Releases => Topic started by: Vir on 2014-05-11 04:56:55
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Updated 8/18/16: uploaded BaconCatBug's Steam release of FF9.2.2.
Vir did this? Yea... so who helped him?
- Thanks to Tirlititi--who seems to me to be really a worthy Qhimm user in that his tool Hades Workshop was easy to use and he has replied to numerous questions for me promptly, and volunteered useful feedback.
- Thanks also to GameFAQs users aladore384 and Atomos199, for their persistent feedback and error-finding. Their questioning my logic made me explain and understand it better. Also, if they hadn't been responding, there wouldn't have been much response, and I would have gone away thinking I must have scrambled the toast somehow ^^
- Thanks to (GameFAQs users, all of these) BronzeStuff, XtraT, monkeyslinger, Pibugo, and terran3999999 for their repeated inputs.
- Thanks to Pibugo for saying he liked what I was doing.
- Thanks MarquisOndore, ertfert, IllusionGamer90, and others for contributing to a discussion of m.stone balance, which I used. WhPlague sparked and inadvertently contributed to this discussion: thanks. M.O. and Atomos brought up the suggestion of adding detail to support ability tooltips, which I did.
- Thanks to m'lady for sitting listening to a mess of arcane game mechanical algebra to help me figure out... something... well, it was important we knew what it was at that time, anyway. And we solved it! *Also, she told me repeatedly to do iterative testing and I did not do it at all ever so if anything's broken it is not her fault and she told me so. She insisted on and dictated *this addition.
- Thanks to LandonRay, from whose Unleashed mod Tirlititi got his suggestion to just make Six Dragons single target. I eventually took this advice. Fair dues to LandonRay for thinking of it first. (Also if anyone has a really good idea for another use of this ability slot, let me know!)
- Thanks Advent on ID for prompting me to clarify what I mean by "balance" so downloaders don't spend time under a misconception.
- GameFAQs' Zaltera discovered a couple errors in my change log, provided feedback on just about every aspect of the mod, tested to make sure Float didn't increase Wind-damage, and has otherwise been helping by play testing all the way to 99. Many thanks!
- GameFAQs' pjng99 and YouTube's ng family brought to GameFAQs' attention a typo. I did not search exhaustively, but as far as I know it may have never been brought to light before. The Hot & Cold exchange gives you Phoenix Pinions, not Phoenix Down. Tirlititi confirms this is correctly listed in other translations. I fixed it in this one.
- Thanks to awesomeuno for feedback and for his inquiries with monkeyslinger revealing that I'd made an error in calculating Amarant's max stats. Thanks to him, we also have max stat setups for ordered-without-final-equipment and combined stats. Check the GameFAQs thread to see if he's posted them or contact him there; I didn't do any work on them, so I haven't taken the liberty to redistribute them.
- Thanks monkeyslinger for working out those setups mentioned above and for helping proving via computer-checking that the setups I have in this version 2.21 will be final. Human re-re-checking was not good enough.
- Thanks to Kivikaki's interest in a German version, I wrote up a guide (must be post 13 or so) for what text one would have to change to put the mod in other languages. Also, I would not have noticed the Brave Suit thing without his post.
- Thanks to Zara9 and Covarr for tips to improve the download accessibility.
- Kivikaki contributed a German language translation (for the German PAL FF9).
- BaconCatBug recreated the mod for Steam/PC and wrote instructions for how to use such.
What's this mod?
The first version of this mod was my attempt to correct some small inequities (e.g., why ever use Kain's Lance if you have Dragon's Hair?), nuisances (removed forced exp.), and the Thunder Slash bug without changing the over all balance of FF9. This version got taken down at 2.2 because it also contained the error which 2.2 corrected and I didn't see updating them both. Its changes are still color coded light blue in the change log below, because why not.
This, the second version, includes the first version changes, but takes on less conservative goals, too. FF9.2, here, is my attempt to improve the balance of FF9, making all active and support abilities comparatively viable after their function, systematizing their costs to be less arbitrary, and leveling off most of the most exploitable abilities.
This is not a difficulty mod: a difficulty mod changes the balance between the players' resources and the monsters' resources. I have touched monsters very little. Under my changes, the game should be slightly more difficult. It shouldn't be less difficult, or you need to let me know. But difficulty was not a goal and any new difficulty doesn't spring from my making it "hard" to kill monsters in a few hits like in vanilla FF9. The balance in my goals was balance within the PCs' resources. Any new difficulty comes from there being a more reasonable cost in MP and M.Stones to playing that simple, high offense strategy. At the same time, other tactics are more viable because I've priced status effects and other not-big-damage moves reasonably, too (I hope!), so if there remains an incentive to just press Attack all the time, that was Square. But that incentive is smaller. That was me.
It's possible (no way to know) I'll also boost monsters in the future. If I do, it'll probably only be D4 randoms, because I'll still want this mod to be viable for persons like me who want to play the rest of the game in a traditional E2PG or Slow E2PG style. But this part of it wouldn't be done so fast (took me about a week, which I had off) or now if I had been more ambitious :)
What're the details?
I believe I have documented everything I did in a rather extensive--and orange--change log. It is in a google doc along with other working sheets, which are not guaranteed legible like the change log. You can't see the notes in google's preview, but you should be able to open it as a spreadsheet (as intended).
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bQaj0zRxfw6l-nkJRXMssWN9ZosvTZdpm_fVKEnaE0c/edit?pli=1#gid=330958072
In addition to saying what changed, how it is now, what it was before, and a summary of why, I have made extensive notes to various cells explaining reasoning, advantage, and so forth. The wall of text which was here explaining my first version is there, distributed among various first version (blue text) notes.
Is it compatible with the Excalibur 2 Perfect Game?
That was my intention and I do believe it is so, yes.
If you find any little thing that I have not successfully anticipated that interferes seriously with the E2PG, let me know! I will make a new version of the mod as quick as I can and release it to you. Your save will adjust with the changes and work and you should be fine.
In fact, please note that for various reasons I insisted my finished work the remain compatible with the Excalibur II Perfect Game as described by that Odysseus of Perfect Game Writers, Atomos199. (It's been 10 years now, right?) For the sake of compatibility with the E2PG, the abilities Night and Charge! are still relatively broken. But if I have done at all well balancing everything else, their broken edge is duller.
Overview:
Rebalanced all abilities' MP and Magic Stone costs, power and other attributes as appropriate, relating to approximately how many offensively- and defensively-spent turns they are worth.
To maintain compatibility with E2PG support ability combos, magic stones are balanced around higher numbers. You will have 45 instead of 14-18 at lv1, each ability will cost perhaps 8 instead of 4, and you will have 99 at max level instead of 68-72. The combinations that took up all your stones at lv1 before will do just that, but the points will be distributed between those abilities in a way that better reflects their relative power. Also, since the max will be 99, that "max stat" will be rounder and the cost of each ability happens to be the percent of your total you're investing there. Note that exactly as in the original game, characters joining at levels higher than one will wind up with lower stats (including total M. Stones) than had they joined at lv1. That's just how FF9 works. If you like the round numbers but don't want to play a lv1 game through Amarant, look at it that if you get any round numbers, it's more than you got in vanilla.
Removal of forced exp. and addition of stat weapons for four characters who had none rebalanced perfect stats in a more intuitive way. (Though they're nothing different to the extent other things have changed: e.g., Amarant isn't 10% weaker than Zidane, Vivi can get as high Mag as Eiko; nothing radical.) All E2PG setups are still sound: only there are +str/mag weapons to equip with those setups for characters who had no stat weapon before. Since it's only +Str/Mag, which do not cap, on those weapons, it does not change the gear/level setups.
All abilities aim to be more attractive in the right scenario (as far as I can do in Hades Workshop and without yet altering enemies), where in the original many abilities were too inaccurate or underpowered to be worth using. Examples to this end:
- Comet did random damage, you couldn't raise the minimum, and it had a 33% chance to miss entirely. Why use it over a more reliable spell? Well, now perhaps because it has a(n overall) 30% chance to cause Freeze, as well.
- Demi, Aqua Breath, and Demi Shock all did fairly low percent-based damage, if they hit. Now, they each have a niche within that function now: e.g., Aqua Breath is cheap and always hits for 25% damage, Demi Shock has a 60% chance to hit for 50% at a higher price. I knew the fair price by making sure they had the same MP efficiency. Also, pro tip: Demi (30% max HP) works and always worked with Reflectx2 (i.e., 60% max HP, as many times as you reflect it).
- Dragon's Crest has the same MP cost as Shock (48), since they're both pretty much 9999 buttons. Shock's cost comes from a standard price per Atk bonus.
- Soul Blade inflicts a status based on your thief sword. It's well to use it with Ultima Weapon: 100% chance to sleep an enemy. I put it at 12 MP. If it always did sleep throughout the game, I'd have given it a higher cost, but it doesn't and wouldn't be worthwhile at some weapons. I believe it balances well even at end-game, though, because when you're thinking of using Zidane for a status, you must be balancing it against Annoy (useful against groups), which my system rates at 12 MP for a 75% chance. Further, even at high level, you won't inevitably have Ultima Weapon on anymore, because I made The Tower an elemental sidegrade. Finally, any small advantage it does have in MP efficiency due to these complexities is outweighed, to my priorities, because without the no-brainer choice of 9999 Thievery for 8 MP, you're now thinking about tradeoffs instead of having no real incentive except hit 'em again.
- Roulette was very underwhelming because you normally had a larger party than your foe: it was probably going to kill one of you for the cost of your MP. The above is still true, but the spell is now cheap so if Quina is in a 1v1 emergency (the situation appropriate to its function), it will be available and worthwhile.
More nuances if you want to check out the change log for a while.
Fine. Give us the goods.
Download at:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B_iQt93JXScuU2txQjlVUi1BdU0?resourcekey=0-ua21juzJT-kHryg9aRBgbA&usp=sharing .
There are instructions there. BaconCatBug's Steam/PC version and Kivikaki's PSX German version have their own folders there.
Please feel free to offer feedback. Also, there was a lot of data-inputting between calculating, re-calculating, updating change log, updating Hades Workshop, re-calculating... I tried to double- and triple-check everything, but please show me my errors.
Updates:
- 8/18/16-BaconCatBug from Qhimm here took on making the Steam/PC version and its accompanying instructions, which is now released.
- 3/11/15-Writing up what all text should be changed to translate the mod, I noticed Brave Suit still had its vanilla description. Fixed.
- 10/28 to 10/30/14-Turned out that a computer could (and did) use my Avenger change to manipulate spare remainders of fractions to max Spirit faster and then push Strength even higher than Amarant's previous max stat setups suggested. I had not anticipated this possibility. We have adjusted to this. See post #10 if you have a previous version and are concerned about Amarant's Strength.
- 10/2/14-Fixed Hot & Cold's erroneous advertising exchange of Phoenix Downs rather than Phoenix Pinions (which it gives).
- 9/18 to 9/24/14-Ranted continually on GameFAQs about work on a second version until this became so tiresome that magical trolls appeared in the world and produced the work on my computer to shut me up.
- 7/12/14-simply uploaded new patches since Hades Workshop can now do the tooltip text for my changes like the game does, e.g., Elem Atk: Wind. If there were anyone using this mod, they could use this patch on some clean ISOs and keep playing the same saves no problem.
- 7/17/14-on the GameFAQs message board, aladore384 (crediting a French user called spdf) observed that no Physical Attacks have elements and further that Thunder Slash didn't do Thunder damage as a Physical Attack. So I changed it to a Magic Weapon attack: it does Thunder damage now for certain. A Magic Weapon attack is like Cherry Blossom and Climhazzard, opposing MDef instead of Def.
- 7/18/14-added thanks section.
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Good job :D
I've never done the lvl 1 challenge. Think it's a good motivation for me to do so ^^
But why is there only a patch for the disc 1?
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Well, you'd know better than I, so you're probably right, but it seemed to me that the same patch worked on each of the discs. I just named the mod (for lack of any name in particular) FF9.1. The monsters and their exp are the difference between the discs, and it seemed to me that when I loaded a disc in Hades Workshop without all the monsters, it just gave me a message that there were no such monsters, but fixed everything else correctly. So I assumed that it would patch the monsters and everything else where they were and patch everything else otherwise. Do tell me if that's not so.
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That's true when you use the "Save/Load Mod" command, but the PPF patch format is a generic format for Playstation patches that doesn't handle several discs.
You actually have to create 1 patch for each disc : open your 4 discs with the program, load your mod for each of them and export the mod as PPF patch for each of them also.
To be more specific, the format ".hws" saves logical modifications while the format ".ppf" saves the hexadecimal changes of the file. For example, since you won't find the Mage Staff's attack power at the exact same position in disc 1 and disc 2, you need to have different PPF files for the two discs.
Here, your PPF is made for the disc 3 only.
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Thanks for that information! Will be resolved soon.
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Ok, thanks again Tirlititi. To be quite sure, I deleted everything, made new ISOs, made the basic patch anew on D1, exported to ppf. Then I loaded D4 and the patch, exported again. D2, patch, added Tantarian, exported again. D3, patch, checked Tantarian, added the other 0 exp battles, exported again.
So I think there's no possibility that it's not right now. I even uploaded the right file to gdocs, this time ;)
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I've made this mod much more extensive: it now includes a rebalance of all pc abilities and magic stones. Abilities you wouldn't have wanted to use before should be worth a go when appropriate, while the best abused abilities have appropriate costs attached, and abilities with duplicate functions now each have their own niche. By way of which, I got rid of the almost useless Six Dragons and replaced it with a new ability, "Dragon Soul," which causes a single target to Trance for 40 mp.
EDIT: This Dragon Soul is no longer a feature of the mod and I forgot this post was here. Six Dragons does its original function to a single target.
I'll be updating the thread with the new version info. soon. If there's anybody here interested either in FF9 modding or just in game balance stuff, I'd appreciate a second eye looking over the changes at least. Anyone willing to discuss and critique over IM or something with me would be really helpful to a new modder?
I've got some threads going on GameFAQs, but I think interest is pretty cursory over there. I've got a spreadsheet going with an extensive change log, and the other sheets are sort of my scratchpad. The latest thing, the magic stones rebalance, isn't in the change log yet, but it's pretty straightforward on its sheet in the spreadsheet. The stones cost doesn't relate directly to turns, but the abilities are all tiered compared to how many offensive/defensive turns they save you. (I rebalanced status effects in the same way.)
Here's the spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bQaj0zRxfw6l-nkJRXMssWN9ZosvTZdpm_fVKEnaE0c/edit?pli=1#gid=1746852555
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I hope it's okay if I bump to say the extensive update is done, the first post is completely different, and everything is a go.
Oh, and if a mod happens in here and it isn't too inconvenient, a title like "FF9.2" would be more appropriate to the topic? Whatever is right for this forum? Also, this is definitely now a release, as far as I know what a release is, if that matters.
Thanks for moving/renaming, Covarr!
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I'll definitely give this a shot sometime here!
Always appreciate full-out efforts on projects like these 8)
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Bump for error-fixing update which may be significant to persons who have already started.
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Ok, GameFAQs' monkeyslinger has used software written some years ago by another user letao to check that the setups listed in the E2PG guide are still optimal for this mod. With one exception, they are. This mod reckoned its max stats on the basis of the "ordered, with final equipment" strategy, and among its goals was to have gigantic monk Amarant's max potential Strength higher than not-gigantic thief Zidane's (78), but not a new game record, per se. Ergo, equal to burly knight Steiner's 79. monkeyslinger's compuer-based check now confirms the below to be the best way to accomplish this, removing the possibility of future second-guessing.
Character: Amarant
Stat priority: Ordered
Base stats at Lv 1:15 Spirit, 22 Strength, 13 Magic, 22 Speed
Optimal stats:50 Spirit, 79 Strength, 53 Magic, 32 Speed
Optimal equipment setup:
Weapon: 98 Avenger
Head: 40 Green Beret, 58 Mantra Band
Arms: 13 N-Kai Armlet, 85 Power Wrist
Body: 98 Dark Gear
Addon: 98 Black Belt
For anyone interested in the detailed explanation or confused (as I would have been) how just adding Strength, something we do not cap anyway, and not altering Spirit gear at all, could force us to re-optimize his gear setups, here it is. The gear Amarant wore to get his Spirit to 50 accomplished this with some minor slack in the remainder of the Strength's bonus fraction. There was nothing to be done with this slack in the vanilla game. However, when I increased the Strength on his Avenger, this slack became (in theory) usable, such that he could wear a little less Spirit gear, get 50 Spirit, and replace those gear-levels with Strength gear. I was unaware of this slack and indeed didn't consider it as a possibility until monkeyslinger suggested higher Strength setups were possible.
If you have a previous version:
If you downloaded before 10/28/14, your Avenger has +3 Str on it and Amarant has 22 base Str. Use the above setup, except instead of 98 levels up with Avenger, wear Avenger for anywhere between 77-87 (it doesn't matter) levels up. Since his base Str has returned to 22 (as vanilla), your saves are compatible with everything but v2.2 from the past couple days. If you're anxious about all this, simply check his Str at level 77 before leveling to 78.
If you downloaded 2.2 which was only out on the 28th, 29th, or 30th October 2014, your Amarant has +2 Avenger and 23 base Str. Simply use the ordered setup in the main E2PG guide: http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps/197338-final-fantasy-ix/faqs/41181 . That's what this release was for. I don't want to repost it here and confuse anyone, but Ctrl+F (without quotes) "72 | m" and you will be right there. This is the only version where his base stats are different, so it's the only version with any compatibility problems.
If you downloaded 2.21 or later, use the setup in this post. Your Amarant has +2 Avenger and 22 base Str, like all Amarants other than in the very-short-lived 2.2.
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Is this mod compatible with the german PAL version? If not could you make it compatible? ;D
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Good question. I am happy to try to work that out, as I am happy for any interest in the mod. Hades Workshop works with various versions of FF9, so I think my mod must for that same reason. I think I know how to do it, though I don't have any other version than my American release. Unless my idea how to do it is radically wrong, then effecting the gameplay changes on the German release should be quite simple.
The trick will be somebody's using Hades Workshop (quite straightforward) to fix the German text to match those gameplay changes, as I've done in English. Or else you might end up with mostly German text and occasional English insertions, which is fine for your personal purposes, but I'm thinking we work out that it's possible and if you want to update the text in German to reflect the changes, we'll post the German version here with your name on it.
Download Hades Workshop from the Tools forum here and let me know if you'd like to make a translated version! If not, let me know and we'll just find out what happens with the English version on a German disc.
Either way, I'm going to make a list of all the text that ought to be changed, that way if people with other versions see it and decide it's not too much work, they can let me know and I'll give them the files and help to do it. Anyone who has worked out how to use an emulator or anything at Qhimm is savvy enough to operate Hades Workshop's interface to do the job.
Overview of what you'd have to do
- Shorten up other descriptions in a group (e.g., spears) if you need to make room when doing the below ~12 changes. Each type of thing has a limit on how many characters its descriptions can hold. If you make the description of a spear longer, you might have to rephrase other spear descriptions to save characters. I have no way to know how much of this might be necessary in your language. In English, the game starts pretty close to the limit, but has ample places where you can shorten the sentence and no one ever have reason to notice.
- Change 5 descriptions in the Inventory: Items section.
- Change 2 descriptions in the Party: Spells section.
- Add the color (easy, but my directions will be long to hope to avoid any possible confusion) changes as noted by µ symbols below for certain items and spells.
- Decide whether a few other items are clear or unclear in your language. They were wrong or unclear in English.
- Naturally we're doing all this so the mod blends cleanly into the rest of the game... So I'm going to imagine you'll spell everything right in the language you're working on :-D
In the Inventory: Items section:
- Add the German version of "Elem-Atk: µWindµ" to The Tower Menu Help field.
- Add "Elem-Atk: µThunderµ" for Dragon's Hair.
- Ah! I hadn't updated Brave Suit's text, myself! It should have "Elem-Def: µFireµ damage reduced by 100%" , not "Raises µFireµ Elem-Atk."
- In English, ultimate weapons all have "Legendary" in their description. Remove this from Dragon's Hair in both Menu and Battle Help, add it for Kain's Lance. Make sure the Dragon's Hair sentence still works, obviously :)
Now, I need to pause to tell you how to do the color, since those items have color in their descriptions. You see those little symbols, Greek mus, in what I typed above? Those tell Hades Workshop to do something like color the text that comes after that symbol, but then of course they don't appear in the game. In the English version, element names like "Fire" appear in red in such descriptions. You have to put those symbols/colors in through the HW program. Of course, just copy/pasting the symbol isn't enough.
In Hades Workshop, when you're looking at an item, you can see Menu Help, and next to it a "..." button. Click the "...." Now, perhaps if you're in a description which has these colors, you see the [.RED] (I'm adding .s or else Qhimm uses those tags, too) and [.BLACK] on the right side. If you're about to put in new ones, go ahead and click on those and use the "Remove" button to get rid of them. HW is a little tricky about putting them in the right place: it always puts them at the first character in the text. So what you do is start at the last place in the text where you're going to change color. Probably you're going to change everything back to being black right after the one red word. So you highlight and cut (Ctrl-X on my English Windows keyboard) all the text up to the end of the word which you want to make red. When the first word that is going to be black again is the first word in the textbox, click the "Add" button, select "[.BLACK]" in the box that pops up, and click "Ok." Paste (Ctrl-V?) the text you cut back in before the symbol you just inserted. Then if you're only going to have one more color change (to red right before the word Fire, say), you do that again. Highlight and cut everything up to Fire (or whatever), Add, [.RED], "Ok," paste the text back in before your little mu symbol. If you click "Apply" in the middle of this window, the text box you want should look right.
In the Party: Spells section
- Add something like "Causes µNon-elementalµ damage andµ Heatµ to all enemies." to Meteor, making sure to do the steps to make both the element and the status red (assuming it's supposed to be red in your version, I suppose!).
- Add something like "Causes µNon-elementalµ damage and µFrostµ to all enemies." to Meteor, making sure to do the steps to make both the element and the status red (assuming it's supposed to be red in your version, I suppose!).
- I changed "Limit Glove" to "Limit Globe" since the spell shows a globe, and no gloves at all. You'd know best about that sort of thing.
In the Party: Supporting Abilities section
- The mod doesn't change anything functionally in here, just the stones required. But Atomos199 suggested and I agreed that many of the English tool tips were unhelpfully vague. I edited some (didn't write down which ones) to make them more clearly reflect what they do in the game. This required I edit other ones to make space sometimes. I have no idea if the tips are sufficiently helpful in other languages already; your call.
In the Environment: Texts: Chocobo Places
- Scrolling just under half way down the list, after the High Scores, I see where Mene says What do you want and I see Protect Ring 8500. I click on that line. I changed "Phoenix Down" to "Phoenix Pinion" in Mene's Hot & Cold rewards page, because he gives you a Pinion, not a Down. You don't have to mark the colors manually if you only change the word there.
Again, if you, Kivikaki, or anyone wants to translate the mod, just let me know. I'll send you the mod file which Hades Workshop can open, you'll use HW to open the right disc and then the mod. You'll update the listed bits of text, save the mod and tell HW to export a PPF, and we'll upload it as the German version or whatever. If you just want to use the mod and the existing ppf patch does not work, then we'll do those same steps to put the mod's changes onto the German text version, skip the translating part, and I imagine that you'll be able to play with inaccurate text.
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hey
your download link on here is not complete
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You'll have to tell me more of what problem you're seeing. I pasted drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B_iQt93JXScuU2txQjlVUi1BdU0&usp=sharing into my browser without being logged into gmail, and I was able to download the files. Perhaps you mean it isn't a hyperlink? I can fix that.
Anyway, I'm about to upload a new version right now. Answering the previous question, I noticed Brave Suit's description isn't changed. The gear works, just the description still says it boosts fire instead of making you immune. That'll be the only change; all saves will still work and all.
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He means there's no http so it's not clickable. Was this on purpose? Tryin' to avoid Google seeing where the traffic is coming from? :P
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I thought that's what he might mean. Just yesterday someone brought this issue up to me on GameFAQs that I'd posted a link and should have left the http on it. I never thought about it; don't know about traffic. I do it on purpose when I happen to think about it just because I thought it was clutter which makes no difference. If someone hadn't mentioned it to me yesterday, I wouldn't have had even that idea that Zara wanted a hyperlink. I'll put the http in there in a few minutes.
Updated and credits all around. Thanks.
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Well, the problem is that the patch doe not really work with the PAL version.
Although it needs to be said that i play on Epsxe and with the Protection Fix for FFIX. Sadly i do not own a working PSX anymore and therefore cannot test it on the console.
On the imgur link you can see all the errors i get.
http://imgur.com/a/FJIot (http://imgur.com/a/FJIot)
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Nice work, Vir!
I'm also currently working on rebalancing FF9, but mine is also aiming at increasing the game's overall difficulty a bit (since vanilla FF9 was way too easy). Some of my goals are similar to yours, I'm also looking to make other lesser used skills and magic more useful, to give the player a real reason to use some skills. I did so by increasing the accuracy for most status spells, Matra magic or Demi, for example, while at the same time lowering the power of some clearly overpowered skills like Shock or Zidane's Dyne Skills, and also increasing the defense and magic defense of most bosses so that you don't reach 9999 damage that easily.
I also agree that a low level game should still be possible, for those that want to try the challenge. This was one of the things that always bugged me about FF7, that you can't do a true low level game because bosses give EXP.
I never really bothered with Excalibur II, and I know I never will, mainly because I don't like rushing through RPGs. To me, a "perfect game" includes talking to every NPC in every town (usually multiple times, until they've got nothing new to say), but having to skip this and rush all the time ruins the entire atmosphere for me, and no piece of equipment can justify that, no matter how powerful it is. Which is too bad, because I'd like to possess Excalibur II at least once, for the sake of completion. So my idea would be to simply remove the 12:00 hour requirement and make it so that Excalibur II is always there, no matter your playtime. I don't know how to implement that yet, but if it's possible that would be great. It would enable a perfect low level game while taking away the time pressure from the player. What do you think about that?
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On the imgur link you can see all the errors i get.
http://imgur.com/a/FJIot (http://imgur.com/a/FJIot)
Oh yes, I see. I will need to remember when I get home to send you the mod files that Hades Workshop makes. Esp. with that binblock error, I'm thinking what you need to try is opening your own PAL disc in HW, then opening the mod and making your own patch. That binblock business happens when you try to put a D1 patch on D3 and such, too. The solution is to open D3, open the mod, and save a D3 version. This way HW will find the data it is supposed to go with on your German disc and then you'll make a file with it like that.
I have my computer and some time, actually, but I can only get internet on another computer than mine at the location where I'm working today, and I have no flash drive. So that we don't wait in vain, I'm going to ask Tirlititi to look over my little scheme here. Also, I haven't seen graphical errors like that, myself.
Kefka, I'm keen to see more FF9 mods. I think Hades Workshop is a great tool and I had fun making mine. Firstly, if I can answer any questions or sound any ideas for you, please feel free to try me. If my spreadsheet equations for modeling and balancing might help or save time, let's get you a copy. If you want to use any of my modifications in your mod, go ahead (one imagines a credit if it's anything he took time to figure out ;) ).
I asked Tirlititi about editing the E2 clock rollover time. He told me that in a future release (future from that time; judging from some posts in the editor thread, maybe it's up now?), it would be easier to add custom conditions to E2 (like your own timer) rather than edit the unintended rollover. That's what I've got for you on that subject. It looks like you've been to the HW thread, so you may know more about editing scripts than I do. Or if you read this paragraph, we know the same amount :)
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@ Kivikaki : Some protection fixes are indeed incompatible with HW. The only one I know is Paradox's patch for the french version. Do you have a screen displaying "Well done, Paradudes" with your protection fix?
@ Kefka : Yes, modifying Excalibur II's obtention is now possible. What you have to do is to go on the Fields' panel and edit the script of Memoria/Gate to Space.
The initializer of the weapon's spot is in the main function :
if ( GetTime <= 43200L ) {
INIT_IMAGE( 3, 0 )
}You can simply remove the "if" block if you want to remove the condition.
You'll have to remove it in the spot's function also, as there is a check in it as well (if you enter the field before 12:00 and stay too much time there, the spot will be disabled. So go in the function func_3_1 ; the first line is :
if ( ( ( ( IsMovementEnabled == 1 ) && ( VAR_C5_7730 == 0 ) ) && ( VAR_A6_145 == 0 ) ) && ( GetTime <= 43200L ) ) {Remove "&& ( GetTime <= 43200L )" and it'll be fine.
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@ Kivikaki : Some protection fixes are indeed incompatible with HW. The only one I know is Paradox's patch for the french version. Do you have a screen displaying "Well done, Paradudes" with your protection fix?
I use the Paradox Patch. So this one is incompatible with the mod? Is there another protection fix that i can use instead?
Another question i got is, if and how i can import the Mod in your Hades thread that allows Steiner to use the Save the Queen weapon? :D
Thank you all for your quick and helpful replies btw. :-)
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Ok, Kivikaki, I have private messaged you a link and instructions to be sure you can save a German-disc-version if that's what you need to do.
You can easily make Save the Queen work for everybody. I haven't tried it to know if the animations will look right. But here is all you need to do:
With a disc (and any mod you want this to be part of: don't use the same copy of mine if you decide to make a German translation for us ;) ) open in Hades Workshop, click the tab "Inventory. " Click in the list of items. Press 'S' a couple times to get you to Save the Queen. See the names and check boxes? Probably only Beatrix is checked? Check Steiner and whomever else you want. Export a PPF to apply to your disc, and/or save this as a mod of your own if you want to reopen it later or anything, too. You should do this for whatever discs you might use the sword on. That's it for that.
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@Vir: I agree that Hades Workshop is amazing, I'm using it too for my FF9 rebalancing (and increased difficulty) mod, but I'm also playing the German version, so I don't know how compatible this will be with other versions since I've also changed the names of a couple enemies and abilities. Maybe I will release a ppf patch someday, without any name changes. Right now my focus is on enemy AI scripts, but I still have a lot to learn about that (so many variables that can be really confusing).
@Tirlititi: this is great news about E2, I'll try it out right away! Thanks a lot!
Edit: It worked! I just got Excalibur 2 with a playtime of 75 hours! Nice!
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Alright so the Patch actually works now with the instructions Vir gave me. :)
I'll try to make a german Translation but in Order to do that i'd need to know which Spells respectively their descriptions you changed because if i import the text files too, all Spells are in english.
I'd also like to add some features i like for example the excalibur II no condition and the save the queen mod. I can upload them here too if anybody wants it.
At last i got another question but i think there is no solution to this.. Can i play the PAL version in 60hz and without borders on an emulator? I know there is a tool called Import Player for the original playstation that lets you play PAL games in some sort of NTSC mode but that doen'st work with epsxe. I also tried to convert the iso in ntsc with a tool named pal4u but then my sound would play faster too.
Edit: I assume the Ability points change only takes effect if i start a new game?
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Kefka, Kivikaki has determined that the mod works on the German version by loading the German disc in HW, loading the mod file I sent him, and then exporting a patch that way. That said, obviously you can do your own thing; just being hospitable ;) Let me know if I might help.
Kivikaki, if you'd like to translate the mod and also release an expanded mod, why don't you go ahead and make two versions? Do the translation and save that, then do what other modding to a copy of the translated base. You/We can upload your version as your own version of my mod.
I made a list of the things you would translate in post #12 above. There are two or three spells and a number of other things.
I don't know about the 60hz question. Probably ask in another topic and someone might know.
Ability point changes? Do you mean the magic stones? Well, you can try it with a game you've already got going, but unequip all your activated abilities first so the game isn't using the magic stones number when you change it. If it doesn't work, then you can restart.
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So the german Translation of CD1 is almost finished. Just need to find out how exactly the color edit works. And yeah i already read your explanation of that one. ;D
I did not only change the descriptions of the spells you changed but nearly every single spell to make it more clear of what exactly it does. I also renamed some spells like Zidanes Ah Puch!(I mean....what the fuck were they thinking about this name) back to Grand Lethal.
Do i need to make some changes if i want to apply this patch to the other CD's? Apart from open the second/third/... cd in hades i mean.
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No, I think the items and abilities are the same on each disc. If you change monsters, you may have to do it separately for each disc. But, for example, since D1 and D4 have the same monsters for the purposes of my mod (none of the forced exp battles), I might load D1, load my mod, make changes, save for D1. Load D4, load my D1 mod, save it as a D4 mod. You can translate once for any ability and item changes, load the mod with the other discs, and save that disc's mod without making all the changes over.
Not to say it hurts to check that a few random examples are okay in the editor when you've loaded the mod onto another disc.
Now that I think on it, you might want to check to be quite sure that the Phoenix Down/Pinion change in Mene's exchange is the same on each disc. It occurs to me that since German might not take the same number of lines to say things, I do not know if Mene's exchange is mapped to the same text space on each disc...?
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The dialogs are shared across discs (at least Chocobo places' ones), so you just need to fix it in 1 disc.
However, I doubt the Phoenix down/pinion mistake is present in the german version anyway. That's the english version which have this typo. At least, it is not in the french version.
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That's interesting, Tirlititi. Did they translate the French/German directly from Japanese? For some reason I had the impression that they translated from the English translation. Then again, perhaps in the interface they were using, it showed what item Mene meant.
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FF7 french is translated from english, but not the 9.
I think the 8 is also translated directly from japanese, but I'm not sure about this one.
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Off the top of my head, I can't remember if there was a mix-up of Phoenix Down/Phoenix Pinion in the German version, where does it happen? Is it in one specific Chocobo place or in all of them?
But the German version does have its own share of problems, not in terms of typos or grammar (that was done a lot better than in FF7 and FF8), but because a lot of the allusions to earlier FF games was lost. However, I don't know if that can really be blamed on the translators, because the first 6 FF games were never released in German, and so the German translators most likely didn't even know anything about the first 6 FF games, so they had to make up something. Which is also the reason why I didn't even recognize the story that Ramuh told the first time, even though I knew FF2 already (played the NES rom). The translators really took a LOT of liberties with that.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9M9wxLMZUs
This gentleman realized that the Phoenix Down Mene advertises is actually a Phoenix Pinion. He told us about it on GameFAQs. He seems to be the first person to have figured this out.
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How hard would it be to raise the chance of finding a choco card in the minigame?
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You mean change the odds that another card player plays a Chocobo card?
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No i mean the chance to find one of the treasure cards in the search chocobo minigmae. ;D
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Sorry, I don't know where you can do that. Tirlititi might be reading here, or ask in the Hades Workshop thread.
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So the Translation is almost finished.
Though while testing i noticed that the ability dragon soul doesnt work as intended. It still has is old effect of Healing instead of set an Ally in Trance.
EDIT: Found the error. Changed it by myself. ^^
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Wait, it's supposed to do its original function to a single target. Clearly I have overlooked someplace where I still have the old idea posted. Also, haven't I changed "Dragon Soul" back to "Six Dragons" in the mod??
I liked setting an ally to Trance, but it garnered all negative feedback and wasn't such a big deal.
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Well, mine does the Trance effect now.^^
Do you want me to send you the translated version without the trance effect?
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Ok, I see I made a post in this topic when I made that change originally, before I had had feedback from GameFAQs. I forgot about that. I'm sure relieved to check and see that the mod and the changelog haven't been wrong on this point all this time!
Yes, just the translation, please :) Feel free to make whatever changes you want for your own personal version, or even for a separate release. Let's get the translation up, if you like, and if you feel like releasing a mod-mod we can work out the best way for it.
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OK, Kivikaki's translation is up.
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Any plans on remaking this for the PC version?
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Last I knew, Hades Workshop, which prescribes my FF9 modding abilities, didn't edit the PC version. Or am I out of the loop?
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I've started working on it again a couple of days ago. For now, you can do a few things on the Steam game with an unstable version of HW.
Once the stable version is out, it'll hopefully be simple to import this mod on the PC version, so it's better to wait until then.
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Don't do spend money to do more work? You've won me over. How'd you get so persuasive, Tirlititi?
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I've started working on it again a couple of days ago. For now, you can do a few things on the Steam game with an unstable version of HW.
Once the stable version is out, it'll hopefully be simple to import this mod on the PC version, so it's better to wait until then.
That's damn fantastic. Thank you <3
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As Tirlititi has damn fantastically come out with the PC version version of Hades Workshop, I am thinking back to BaconCatBug's question!
I don't have the PC version. I was thinking if anybody who does have the PC version is interested in this mod for it, then I will give them files and help to make a PC version the same as I did for Kivikaki to make a German version. It seems like the procedure will be similar, too, since, if I understand Tirlititi's post, the main bit of the conversion that might be some work is going through and reformatting some of the modded text. Naturally, whoever wants to do this gets the credit, gets everyone else the mod for PC, and saves me buying the PC version (quite unlikely to do in current budget).
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Gib plx. I would happily love something to do :D
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Great. I responded, hopefully explaining what's to be done. Let us know how it goes :)
Also, mind what Tirlititi wrote about making your own back ups! I'm just going to paste in here because I can't remember if I pasted the Text part into my PM.
Saving Instructions
You have to backup your files yourself. The program asks for the "FF9_Launcher.exe" file when opening the game, and then for a folder where you want to save your modded files. In any case, never choose the folder in which the selected "FF9_Launcher.exe" lies, either create a new folder either save it in a folder containing another "FF9_Launcher.exe".
The files created this way are intended to replace the files in the sub-folders of your "FINAL FANTASY IX" folder.
Here are the 2 safest possible choices :
1) Start by creating a backup of your "FINAL FANTASY IX" folder. When you use HW, only open the backup files and choose the non-backup "FINAL FANTASY IX" folder when you save (it's important that you keep that default name). As that's the game launched by Steam, you'll have your game directly modded.
2) Start by creating a backup of your "FINAL FANTASY IX" folder and use that backup for HW, but create a new folder somewhere else for the saving. To apply the mod, you need to replace manually the files in the "FINAL FANTASY IX" folder by the modded ones.
In any case, a 3rd backup is not a bad idea, unless you don't mind downloading the game again in case of problems.
About texts
The support for texts (in the Steam version) is quiet minimal, as the formatting is displayed as it is in the game's files. In particular, you have to write the size of the text box yourself in the 【STRT】 tag when needed, as well as the hexadecimal code to add color, etc...
As said, you shouldn't import the texts from PSX-saved .hws (just unckeck the related boxes), as only the text will be imported and the opcodes will be lost. This is particulary important for text blocks as the game bugs if the texts there don't start by the 【STRT】 tag.
The text preview window doesn't display the opcodes' effect either for now.
Also, there's a special UI text block, called "Localization", which contains generic texts of all the languages available. I let you guess how to properly modify them, but know only that the texts here must be single-line (use the escape character '\n' if you want to add a new line). Also, the format is so easy that the devs themselves messed up with it and there are a few help texts that don't work the intended way :p (I'm thinking of the "OrderTargetHelp" field, which doesn't work in languages other than english and japanese).
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BaconCatBug has recreated the mod for Steam! It's up in the same gdrive. Well done, BaconCatBug.
If you'd be interested in BaconCatBug making a UK Steam release as well, post here about it.
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I'm seeing some issues with the Steam version of the mod. Discrepancies between the mod and the doc.
Found so far:
* Price not updated for Dragon's Whisker
* Brave suit still boosts Fire
* MP Cost and Accuracy of Stona, Silence, Mini, Confuse, Might
* Comet
Also... in your doc you have listed an MP cost of 26 for Ifrit in the Changes sheet and 24 in the Spells sheet
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Well, here's a blast from the past. I'll look into it. Thanks for letting me know aught else to check.
I don't have the foggiest idea why the Steam version would change such very particular things. So, I assume the errors are mine and, therefore, readily corrected.
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The original game has Ifrit's MP cost at 26, whereas I set him, Shiva and Ramuh all to be 24. The mod was right; the changelog was wrong, with the Now and Prev values reversed. Good attention to detail!
When I load the PSX mod in Hades Workshop, everything else is which you mention is as listed in the Changelog. I am happy to check my PSX version for any further errors, although I'm not sure that I can check the Steam version without purchasing that version of the game.
Are you or is anyone else keen to help fix these errors?
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This is usually the kind of mod i make/look for, that's why i was able to spot it. You know... mods that don't change much, but make the game strictly better without losing anything and thus without upsetting anyone. I could try fixing them but i can't guarantee anything for timing and whatnot.
BTW if you're still interested in working on it, i'd try to balance all weapons' attack power over the course of the game. Like, Zidane stays behind Amarant until he makes a huge leap with the Ultima Weapon, ditto steiner with E2, Amarant himself has 4 weapons in a span of 10 attack power or so...
Very nice work anyway, and thanks for the perfect documentation.
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Very good, yes. Perhaps you can check if you can open the SteamyBacon file in HW? If not, I can look more into what you should do.
Reviewing my private messages, I think that we can probably fix it. When HW for Steam first came out, I had mistakenly told BaconCatBug that probably he just needed to make the text changes over and the data changes would take care of themselves. That's how it had been for making the German PSX version. Actually, it turned out he had to re-input every single change! So, that means that probably these things can be fixed.
I am well pleased that someone enjoys the mod and likes its design concept and documentation!
The weapons balance would be worthwhile. It makes me wonder. What is your view on what level stats to balance them around, since knight swords and spears, for instance, use different stats? Since I imagine the mod is already most useful to perfect game players, I'd probably balance them around lvl1 and/or around max stats. I would need to review the E2PG guide to see which weapons to hold fixed so that the mod remains compatible with E2PG.
It looks like whole new fields of possible modding have opened up in the past few years. That gives some chance that I might get interested again some time!
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I already threw some numbers with pen an paper. Changes are mostly mid to endgame, and made to follow the original power ranking. Steiner has the best weapons, then Zidane blades/amarant, then Freija/Zidane daggers.
Notable:
* E2 to 94, UW to 90 (why the huge jump for these 2 alone)?
* Bistrofork 71, Gastrofork 88 (quina's weapons are always much stronger than everyone else's, why do they tank so hard in the lategame?)
* Orichalcon 63, Masamune 77 (masamune requires orichalcon but is weaker?)
* KL, DH 80 and 71 (same as you)
* Dragon's Claw 48, Tiger fang 55, Avenger 64, Kaiser Knucle 70 (DC and Scissor fang should be much closer since they're acquired around the same time, the others followed suit)
Idea: minor power boost to staves and rods (like current power / 10) and make them use the magical formula.
Balance is around "when is acquired" following the power ranking dictated by lower level weapons (no changes until oeilvert mogshop included). Didn't care about different formulas.
Spirit formula and speed formula are not boosts. Instead of using 100% str they average Str and the other stat, be it magic, spirit or speed. The true boost is only for the lv formula of the StQ
PS: i opened his file in HW, that's how i was able to report those issues
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Oh, ok, I thought you might have got to the end of the game and been like, "Hey! This Whisker's not trimmed to spec!" ^^
If you can open the file, then whenever you should get around to making the changes, I am happy to post the corrected version.
Very interesting! Agreed re: huge jump for the Ultima Weapon, Quina's drop off, Masamune shouldn't be weaker (never noticed! Does it hit harder for using Spr instead of Spd??), and it'd make sense to acquire at least sidegrades.
I have been balancing weapons based on ranking of who was hitting the hardest with their ultimates in the vanilla balancing, which is a post-formula balancing. I'd like to keep the ultimate weapons balanced on such a criterion. Your method does get around the stats problem for helping the weapons in the rest of the game.
I can say off the top of my head that changing Kaiser Knuckle has potential effects on the E2PG, so myself I would look into that sort of thing before I made a FF9.2.3 with it. If I look into which weapons I should like to keep the same, would you be interested in adjusting the numbers you already have around those fixed points?
I'm sure this prediction is vulnerable to oversights, but off the top of my head it would be fine to balance anything not used in the E2PG however we wanted to. People who want to follow that guide will still have the option to do so and have that experience. People who want to use your changes to have a different experience, that'd be their business, so (I don't know off the top of my head) why not? If you are keen to add balancing like this onto what I have done, the worst that can happen is if we don't wind up agreeing on 9.2.3, then you/we can post two different versions.
What's your view of armor-to-armor balance?
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Saw this edit:
Spirit formula and speed formula are not boosts. Instead of using 100% str they average Str and the other stat, be it magic, spirit or speed. The true boost is only for the lv formula of the StQ
Oh yes, don't I know it, ha ha. That's why if the goal is to do comparable damage (given Spd and Spr will tend to be lower than Str the way gear bonuses are), then weapons using those formulas need higher Atk than pure Str weapons.
Oh, and I definitely do not want to change the stat bonuses on gear for this mod.
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Don't worry too much about my numbers. I think i'll just make a mod for myself using (a lot of) stuff from yours.
So use anything I write as you see fit, i'm not going to argue with what you decide to do.
As for armors, i do agree with your 2 changes. Then Defense like attack, balanced around "when is acquired" with heavy armor > zidane/amarant only > light > robe. Opposite for magic defense, for a bit of flavor. I do think the game is already more or less built around this concept.
About other stat weapons... i haven't tested how big the gap is between str spirit spd and mag. So i really can't say anything about the "spr weapons need higher attack" thing. I decided on these numbers in just about 1 hour from zero so they're anything but final. Maybe i'll add more atk, maybe more spd/spr here and there (on the char. themselves?), maybe i'll remove the spirit formula from some weapons (like knight's swords). Dunno yet.
Probably i'll make daggers use the spd formula and staves/rods use the magic formula. It's currently unused and works just like the spd/str one. Again, just for flavor.
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Ah! For testing the different formulas' damage gaps, feel free to copy the damage calculation tables already made on the sheet "Stats, gear (just a scratchpad)." I'll make what the columns are doing clearer. If you or anybody would like to test such things, no reason to have to remake another calculator based on the same game mechanics.
Please feel free to let me know any questions and findings about this sort of thing!
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BTW do let me know if you disagree with something, i'm interested in hearing your thoughts
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That armor scheme makes sense to me. I haven't looked at the armors balances at all (or don't remember that I did, whereas I remember the weapons).
I figured out what those damage formulas were again. They weren't what I assumed they were from the abbreviations I had had.
Disagree: sure. As mentioned above, for instance I would not agree to make the mod incompatible with the E2PG or to balance the ultimate weapon attack values pre-formula. I am glad that would test the formulas if you were balancing to contribute to this mod, since I would have imagined your showing me how you got the numbers for "balance," after all lol.
It's fun to talk about the mod after all this time.
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Other stuff i'm noticing as I play.
There's some imbalance in early game weapons. I think Steiners are too weak and Zidane's too good. Notable Vivi gaining access to the Oak Staff before Burmecia (atk 23) while steiner doesn't even have the mythril sword (20). Armors... minor stuff like Headgear being worse than Steepled Hat despite costing more (perfectly fixed with -1 mdef to SH and +1 mdef to Headger).
Robes have too much def, even more than heavy armor options acquired around the same time. Check Cotton robe vs linen cuirass... that's not acceptable. Also the cotton robe trick (infinite money) is worth considering.
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Hmm, interesting. It does look like the Headgear is weird among hats for having even as much as +2 Def. Most hats just continue the +MDef progression and drop Def altogether. Headgear would completely outclass Feathered Hat if you gave it +1 MDef. You could take SH from 9 to 8, which would leave it with more than Feathered, less than Magus, and equal total +defs to Headgear.
If cost is the concern, though, you'd need to balance +1 Str (SH) against Halves Water (HG), too, ya? Because other stats go up point by point but elements are the same, you'd probably want to use a multiplier for the elements, like costs 20% more (just a random figure), rather than an additive cost bonus.
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I want it to outclass Feathered hat: it's acquired later (dali vs lindblum) and costs more. True progression for those follows vanilla prices, with +1 total defs for each one from leather hat to Magus Hat.
Robes are a much more pressing issue BTW. If you're interested when i'm done with it i can upload the CSV from hades workshop, they make comparisons easy.
EDIT: another easy to spot issue: dumb jump in def for the last 3 heavy armors and last 2 hats
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Makes sense. Glad to take a look when you finish. I wonder how they do these balances.
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https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ev0qwBlKBa5zjexQM3aSwjOxeC5023pz/view?usp=sharing
You'll find both csv exported from my mod and those from the vanilla game, all you have to do is a diff of the folders, or open files up in excel
In 99% of cases, only numbers i've touched are atk, price, def, mdef, eva and m.eva. No stat bonuses other the ones you changed (ditto for elemental resistances/boots) and the steepled's hat (changed from +str to +mag), no changes to addons (and i don't plan to). I also made Circlet mage-only, golden skullcap male only and made Silk Robe and Mage's robe craftable earlier, from Treno and BM village respectively (no need to delay them so much since they are easily acquired through other means anyway). Vanilla prices are more often than not the guiding hand in balancing those stat totals since they faithfully tell when a certain item is first acquired.
PS: Still ongoing as i haven't done armlet and gauntlets yet but it's gonna be very straightforward. a bit more skewed towards m.eva the former, and a bit more towards physical eva. the latter. Also current numbers are likely to change after hearing your opinion but this is more than enough to show you my design idea.
EDIT: RAR Updated with arm protections changes
Another thing worth considering: items required for crafting that become permanently missable as you progress through the game. Chain Mail is an example, required for Power Belt
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Hey, wanted to respond to say I'm glad to look it over on Friday.
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Oh, good to know, I took the chance to update the rar again. I'm still making minor tweaks to numbers as I go, but the big change from yesterday is how i decided to address the flute/rod vs racket issue.
Instead of your mag+2 approach i decided to boost staves, rods and flutes to have higher atk than rackets (55-50 range) and use the magic formula (just like spd and spirit weapons but uses magic instead). Given that another issue of the imbalance is the fact that rackets can be wind-boosted, i gave whale's whisker water and angelic flute holy. Since magic is usually MUCH higher than spd for those characters, it should compensate somewhat the fact that they require the front row.
As for shops, i just readded some permanently missable weapons to late game shops, like the Chain Mail i mentioned.
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Hey Caledor, thanks for waiting. Though I've had a full week, I am still interested to talk about your mod, and since I did say "Friday" I wanted to check in.
I may be missing something. What is the best way to use the CSV files to make the comparisons easy? Like, I myself google sheets (though not Excel). I could download the two versions and paste them into side-by-side columns then use conditional formatting to highlight the differences? But that's a few more steps than what you must have meant, so figured I'd ask what I'm missing.
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A csv is basically a spreadsheet saved in txt format. Any decent excel-like editor is supposed to open a csv file with data properly formatted into columns (separated by ";" in this specific case)
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Made this in about 10 mins for example
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dJgRgMqh1qUJSMFnC4rMNXqAnXsZBYmAWB8jq-6LXuE/edit?usp=sharing
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I was typing this before your last reply, which I now see:
Ok, so you did just mean for them to be in columns. Google Sheets apparently doesn't put the csv data into columns for semicolons. I opened in Notepad++, replaced the ; with , in the data, and reuploaded it to fix. However, DiffChecker.com (or some such) seems like an easier way for me to compare the vanilla and Caledor csv changes, so that's what I'll try next.
The Stats CSV is a bit confusing. There's only one difference:
Van: Stat Set 80,80,0,0,0,1,1,0,0,0,0
Cal.: Stat Set 80,80,0,0,0,1,0,1,0,0,0
So that would appear to be Stat Set 80. In HW, Steepled Hat is Stat Set 29. Stat Set 80 in HW is Rubber Suit. Go figure. Is this the Steepled Hat? Wouldn't that stat set have only a single 1 involved?
In any case, changing the Steepled Hat to +1 Mag shouldn't harm any stat setups, so all good.
Ok, what's your thinking on the Circlet/Golden Skullcap?
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Dunno why stat set 80 is different, i made a point of not changing anything there. At most i'd swap stat set itself on the equipment like the steepled hat (which is a mage's hat so got changed to +1 mag for flavor).
Golden Skullcap vs Circlet male/female only is again mostly for flavor since they're both endgame and their abilities aren't unique at all.
BTW if you have time to talk about it send me your discord (if you have it) in PM, it'd be much easier to talk about it that way
EDIT: looks like the stats.csv is a leftover that has already been reverted in the actual game files cause i don't see any difference in stat set 80 in both my mod and vanilla from hex workshop.
EDIT2: I figured it out... Stat sets are off by one. So 80 is actually 81 (Brave Suit) and that change is yours: From boosts fire to immune to fire.
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Stats, gotcha.
Skullcap and Circlet sound like a fine place for flavor. The only trade-off apparent to me is Garnet would boost Leviathan in slightly less defensible gear: a very minor concern.
Re-adding missable synth materials sounds good.
I ran some numbers on the scratchpad on the mod's main spreadsheet to see what sort of damage the (Str+Mag)/2 formula weapons might do at max stats. These are averages of min and max damage.
Tiger Racket: 1837
Angel Flute: 3220
Whale Whisker: 3667
Whale Whisker (old): 1976
Mace of Zeus: 3504
Sargantas: 3300 (selected because as comparable w the above)
Obelisk: 3827 (selected because as comparable w the above)
Masamune: 5025
Ultima Weapon: 6000
Ultima Weapon (old): 6750
E2: 6300
E2 (old): 7350
Basically, if considering max stats, you can pretend that Garnet and Vivi wielding a Str+Mag weapon are wielding a Str weapon w the same power and a Str of 72. Eiko, 71. Whereas if they are wielding a racket/Str+Spd weapon, they do so like they are wielding Str weapons of the same power with Str of G: 43, E: 42.
Since row doesn't matter for striking your own party members, Healer on mages is much improved.
Edit: Would you say the main value of the rebalanced attack values is so that the attack values themselves make more sense internally?
Did you go ahead and change daggers to the (Str+Spd)/2 formula like you mentioned?
I can be available to discord chat some time soon. I don't use Discord much, so I'll figure it out after work today and plan to reply more about it to your next replies.
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Would you say the main value of the rebalanced attack values is so that the attack values themselves make more sense internally?
Weapons, yeah. No other option exists when you rebalance them so it's all about having consistent and comparable progression with other character. Maintaining some sort of power ranking. For example the huge jump between Esto Gaza (after) and Daguerreo doesn't make much sense since they're basically accessible at the same time. That's why Flame Saber and co were boosted that much.
Armors are another thing. Robes were outright invalidating a huge chunk of the light armor options.
BTW i haven't considered max stats number when balancing. I do know how high mag+str gets on mages but i have ignored it. Balacing with such an extreme case in mind would yeld bad results of all the "average" playthroughs. Also strange that Zeus can deal damage as high as Rods and Flutes, since the latter are elemental now.
I will probably have a better idea for these numbers when i reach the endgame with my "average" playthrough so i can see the actual stats.
Daggers are still str only.
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The Dagguereo jump at least feels exciting in the first several playsthrough when you feel like you unlocked something secret. If by now you go there as a matter of course, same as you'd go to Esto Gaza, then yea, might be more satisfying to balance it for you.
I didn't multiply in an elemental bonus for any of those above.
Whale Whisker (1.5x): 5501
Tiger Racket (1.5x): 2738
Yea, one of the advantages of making a mod for a perfect game run is you only have to consider the base stats and the max stats in balancing :) That average playthrough, actual stats thing is a lot harder ;)
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Daguerreo is still a big boost in equipment. I just made Esto Gaza a bit closer to it and distanced more those earlier.
For example, using steiner's weapons, vanilla is Disc2 35, Blue Narciss 38, Oeilvert 42, Esto Gaza (after Desert Palace) 46, Daguerreo 57. Now it's 35-40-44-51-57. Smoother.
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Vir#2468 seems to be my Discord handle.
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Say, you could check Let's Plays and perhaps some guides to get character data for regular plays through.
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added