Author Topic: [PSX/PC] FF9.2.2 - Balance fixes (+German version) (Read 78202 times)

Vir · « **Reply #50 on:** 2016-08-19 04:39:16 »

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.

Caledor · « **Reply #51 on:** 2020-02-27 01:11:08 »

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

Vir · « **Reply #52 on:** 2020-02-27 03:08:16 »

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.

Vir · « **Reply #53 on:** 2020-02-27 05:18:57 »

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?

Caledor · « **Reply #54 on:** 2020-02-27 11:05:31 »

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.

Vir · « **Reply #55 on:** 2020-02-27 15:30:40 »

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!

Caledor · « **Reply #56 on:** 2020-02-27 15:52:59 »

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

Vir · « **Reply #57 on:** 2020-02-27 16:38:26 »

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?

Vir · « **Reply #58 on:** 2020-02-27 16:42:12 »

Saw this edit:

Quote from: Caledor on 2020-02-27 15:52:59

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.

Caledor · « **Reply #59 on:** 2020-02-27 17:05:15 »

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.

Vir · « **Reply #60 on:** 2020-02-28 02:09:04 »

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!

Caledor · « **Reply #61 on:** 2020-02-28 03:04:07 »

BTW do let me know if you disagree with something, i'm interested in hearing your thoughts

Vir · « **Reply #62 on:** 2020-02-28 03:17:32 »

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.

Caledor · « **Reply #63 on:** 2020-03-02 16:10:09 »

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.

Vir · « **Reply #64 on:** 2020-03-02 17:01:52 »

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.

Caledor · « **Reply #65 on:** 2020-03-02 19:55:27 »

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

Vir · « **Reply #66 on:** 2020-03-03 03:49:54 »

Makes sense. Glad to take a look when you finish. I wonder how they do these balances.

Caledor · « **Reply #67 on:** 2020-03-03 15:32:25 »

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

Vir · « **Reply #68 on:** 2020-03-05 04:37:58 »

Hey, wanted to respond to say I'm glad to look it over on Friday.

Caledor · « **Reply #69 on:** 2020-03-05 13:28:43 »

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.

Vir · « **Reply #70 on:** 2020-03-07 07:16:09 »

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.

Caledor · « **Reply #71 on:** 2020-03-07 11:21:32 »

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)

Caledor · « **Reply #72 on:** 2020-03-07 13:03:34 »

Made this in about 10 mins for example

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dJgRgMqh1qUJSMFnC4rMNXqAnXsZBYmAWB8jq-6LXuE/edit?usp=sharing

Vir · « **Reply #73 on:** 2020-03-07 13:22:41 »

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?

Caledor · « **Reply #74 on:** 2020-03-07 13:36:10 »

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.