Damage Formulas

[Rolina]

(I'm not back.  I'm here only to bounce ideas off of Leaf, as this is going to affect Kraden's Conquest as well.  When I'm actually back, you'll see my avi change.)

Yeah, but it's because of that unfair comparison that I realized my initial idea was a bit too powerful.  Grand Gaia shouldn't come CLOSE to doing that high base, especially at the level it's supposed to be learned!  The idea was basically to have the spells be about as powerful as they were in the games when you learned them (while using the "average adept's" stats.  Basically, when comparing the stats, multipliers, and enemy defenses, the spell's base damage on the level you learn it should be about the same as in canon), though it should go without saying that mages will actually have stronger spells in comparison.

The whole goal here is to make Mia and Sheba worth using for more than just healing.  Unlike what Jamie said, there's a DAMN GOOD REASON THEY'RE NEVER REALLY USED.  Base damage isn't good enough.  What needs to happen is a kind of... added check, that allows for spells in the hand of a mage to be nearly as good as a physical blow in the hands of a warrior.

NEARLY, not just as.  The shtick for spells is their Area of Effect.  While physical attack should have many, if any, AoEs (YOU HEAR THAT, CAMELOT? D:<), this is where psynergy shines.  Warriors should be better for boss fights, while Mages would clean house far easier against crowds.  That is not to say that warriors should be useless in normal fights, nor should Mages be useless against bosses.  But that goes without saying, so...

And UNLIKE Jamie, who uses early fights as part of his argument, I'll point out that my idea helps psynergy stay decent all they way up to the higher level fights, like, say the DOOM DRAGON, where psynergy is pretty much USLESS.  When normal, not critical attacks from a MAGE do more than said mage's most powerful spell.  My argument here is that such as situation is bullshit - what happened earlier against Briggs and co should stay happening here - psynergy should remain relevant.  I don't ever want to see a mage opt for physical over magical unless they're just plain out of PP.

Anywho, glaring at Jamie for missing the point aside, aye, I did realize that my first formula was a bit too powerful, so I halved it.  The outcome was great, though I wonder if we may need to raise it if it causes the enemy's defenses to be too low.  We don't want them to have decent psynergy at the cost of forcing easy mode.  In the end, we'll need to tweak it to see what's really going on.

For the sake of testing, we should use the 'average character stats', with a multiplier of simply 100% for PP.  Thus, the stats are:

,-----------------------------.
| 00 | 19 | 39 | 59 | 79 | 99 |
|----+----+----+----+----+----|
|  21|  84| 137| 178| 220| 262|
`-----------------------------'

This doesn't take into account Dark Dawn's characters, as I do not have their stat targets to plug into the average.  Anywho, ideally, at the level the spell is learned, with the PP bonus added, and minus the targets 'spell resist', it should be pretty much equal to what it was originally.  This way, psynergy won't lag behind nearly as bad, while it won't get too uber either.

The other part of this, of course, is nerfing the crap out of some of those unleashes.  I want no more of this 300% damage nonsense, not unless it's impossible to pull off more than a 50% unleash rate.  Personally, I don't wanna see anything higher than 40% in the game - if you want reliable physical damage, try casting an EPA.

And while I'd love to bash Jamie more, he brings up good points.  Psynergy isn't the only thing we need to look at.  We need to free it from its static curse, and this can do that.  But we also need to look at other things, such as keeping weapon power in check, as well as upping the difficulty and defenses of enemies.  More importantly, CONSISTENCY.  So many times things just take strange leaps and bounds.  To be honest, all human foes should follow one formula, the same as that of the adepts we play as.  Each monster family should also share a formula specific to that family.

What I hope to do is to make a bunch of 'level up charts' for monsters - just plug in the level you want, and it levels them up.  Then select the tier of monster you want, and it adds the multipliers, just as if it was a playble character.  Tier, of course, being Vermin vs Mad Vermin vs Fiend Vermin.  Bosses I figure would have an additional set of multipliers, particularly for things like HP, as well as giving them plenty of regen for their spells.



As far as weapon variability goes, I'm working on tweaking it a bit.  I'll get back to you when I find something I like, but I'm trying to find something that doesn't include changing the power/resist formula.

[leaf]

(Well, it's disappointing you're not here to stay, but ok...)

By citing an example from the game, the doom dragon fight, you actually do absolutely nothing to refute either of our points. The game obviously screwed up the balance of physical attacks and base psynergy; no one is arguing that they did it right. However, had the doom dragon had higher defense, physical attacks would've been less effective than they were, and base psynergy would've been equally as damaging as the physical characters' attacks.

If the goal is to make psynergy equally as potent when it's first learned as it was in the original games, that's fine, but I actually find it rather unwieldy for the same stat to affect both offense and defense for base psynergy. Considering the vast number of variables we have to work with as it is, it seems more practical to just adjust them, keeping our formulas as simple as possible. I do agree that base psynergy needs to increase in power as the user levels, but it isn't necessary to bring it back down to the same level it was at before by adding yet another variable on the receiving end. Just as TLA had faster leveling than GS, the progression of power in our hack does not need to follow the original games. All balance is relative.

And as you already know, I disagree with making unleashes inconsistent. I'd rather just make them weaker than EPA psys, so that power is the price you pay for a free attack. You can buff your normal attack up by equipping a good weapon and raising your unleash rate, but that unleash isn't gonna be as good as the EPA that costs some PP to use. Not to mention the stat gains you give up by using unleash raising equipment instead of something else. Furthermore, the best unleashes could be on comparatively weaker weapons stat-wise. Even the default unleash rate can be adjusted on a per-weapon basis. While almost every weapon had a 35% unleash rate in the original GS, we're free to create as many or as few exceptions as we like. If need be, the extra powerful unleashes could have a very very low base unleash rate, making it impossible to hit above a certain consistency, forcing their average damage output down.

I don't think a level mod for bosses will be necessary, although the rest of that sounds like it could be nice. Bosses shouldn't be done based on a formula imo, since then we risk making them too generic.

[Rolina]

While yes, it is awkward, we're not given much of a choice, are we?  Thus why I have it look at two stats - Max PP and Defense.  It's annoying, but this way we can have it so that mages have higher spell resist than fighters, since the PP multiplier is usually higher for them.  However, depending on how much damage the characters themselves take, I may change defense to be (2*Max PP + Defense) / 6, essentially putting twice the emphasis on the Only Magic Stat than on defense, while lowering the defense at the same time.  What I'm worried about here is an inversion, where characters take way less damage from psynergy than enemies do, when I think it should be around the same.


Yes, I know you disagree, but look at it again - I compromised here, saying to either nerf them so we don't have anything crazy like meggido's 300% multiplier, OR prevent any way of getting over a 50% unleash rate.  Remember that they're SUPPOSED to act like critical hits, not like actual skills.  If you raise it too high, you break the weapon.  See:  Rainbow Sword and Dreamseaker in Chrono Trigger, as well as the Meggido Rush combo.


As for bosses, remember that MOST of them are also their own monster type.  As such, you wouldn't have to worry about them being generic.  The exception would be things like a Killer Ape from GS, or perhaps a "Vermin King" boss.  They follow the same trends as the family, so that they're clearly related, but they also receive boosts to make them more boss-like, since let's face it, they ARE generic, as generic as the other monsters in that family.

Also, the Doom Dragon argument was directed not at you, but solely at Jamie, as it essentially inverts his argument.  Psynergy is good at the level it is learned, but quickly grows obsolete.  Plus, in multiplayer, you may want to have a way for it to fare competitively, as psynergy still has relatively low power there, peaking at 200-400, depending on elemental power and resistances.


The Pirate, the class type in DD, gave me an idea.  While it acts as though it's a fighter, it's "Evolving EPA" is actually base damage, thus making it useless (ESPECIALLY in Dark Dawn, where psynergy is even more of a joke).  It DID give me an idea for a new psynergy type, though.

This would be the mage's answer to it, I suppose.  It'd be a Pure Multiplier based on Max PP, affecting the same defenses as the new remix of base damage (or, if you wanna rip out defense entirely, just look at the defense stat so it's not too powerful).  As for it's resistance check, it'd either be the same /200 as Base damage, or /300 to lower the impact of elemental power on it while still keeping it more mystic than physical blows.

I'm still iffy on this, but it's at least an idea to consider to add some variety.

[JamietheFlameUser]

Psynergy honestly doesn't need a defensive stat. If done right, the HP to Defence relation provides defence against Psynergy. The problem is that you are looking only at flat damage values. We don't care about the flat damage so much as we care about the percentage of the target's Max HP removed by the attack. Giving a character higher Defence with lower HP decreases damage dealt by physical attacks, while increasing the percentage of max HP removed by base damage Psynergy. Doing the reverse increases the percentage of max HP removed by physical attacks, while decreasing the percentage of max HP removed by base damage Psynergy.

However, I agree that Psynergy does need to increase in power with level. I realize that now.

Actually, in Dark Dawn weapon unleashes do act like skills, rather than critical hits. I honestly like it better that way. Adds a bit of variety, and makes Agatio and Karst make more sense by comparison. Remember Rolling Flame? That move that seemed so entirely cheap because it shouldn't exist? Well, now it's allowed to.

[Rolina]

Psynergy doesn't need a defense stat >> Implying that whoever comes up with a monster that is resistant but NOT immune to psynergy is an idiot.  Joy.

Look, I'm trying to come up with a way that HAS a defense stat and WORKS.  If you're not gonna help, get out.

[JamietheFlameUser]

We already have elemental resistance, isn't that good enough? Besides, monsters will be resistant to Psynergy if you give them high HP but low defences. Not hard.

[leaf]

@Jamie: Remember how I was talking about aesthetics? I think role wants foes to be taking visibly less damage. I mean, if you used a mars attack against a mars djinni, sure, it did less damage than if you used something else, but it's not like it was made not worth using. Having unnaturally high resistance to taking damage from spells could be a part of the "flavor" of some enemies. Although I agree that it's technically unnecessary as far as balance is concerned.

While yes, it is awkward, we're not given much of a choice, are we?  Thus why I have it look at two stats - Max PP and Defense.  It's annoying, but this way we can have it so that mages have higher spell resist than fighters, since the PP multiplier is usually higher for them.  However, depending on how much damage the characters themselves take, I may change defense to be (2*Max PP + Defense) / 6, essentially putting twice the emphasis on the Only Magic Stat than on defense, while lowering the defense at the same time.  What I'm worried about here is an inversion, where characters take way less damage from psynergy than enemies do, when I think it should be around the same.

I just dislike that if we do that, we can't give a monster very powerful psynergy without also giving it great resistance to spells or nuking its ability to take physical hits. It also makes it frustrating to balance enemies, since their stats do so many different things, and if you adjust one, everything else needs to be adjusted, too.

I think that logically, if magic uses the defense stat, it should also use the attack stat. Of course, if you do that, everything becomes some form of EPA, at which point, why bother having a distinction to begin with?

Yes, I know you disagree, but look at it again - I compromised here, saying to either nerf them so we don't have anything crazy like meggido's 300% multiplier, OR prevent any way of getting over a 50% unleash rate.  Remember that they're SUPPOSED to act like critical hits, not like actual skills.  If you raise it too high, you break the weapon.  See:  Rainbow Sword and Dreamseaker in Chrono Trigger, as well as the Meggido Rush combo.

Ok. So we're more or less on the same page here, then. We agree 300% consistent unleashes are OP, that weaker ones can be consistent, but stupidly strong ones should not be.

As for bosses, remember that MOST of them are also their own monster type.  As such, you wouldn't have to worry about them being generic.  The exception would be things like a Killer Ape from GS, or perhaps a "Vermin King" boss.  They follow the same trends as the family, so that they're clearly related, but they also receive boosts to make them more boss-like, since let's face it, they ARE generic, as generic as the other monsters in that family.

I think we're misunderstanding each other. I was saying that I don't want bosses, among themselves, to become too generic. From the sounds of things, my concern may be misplaced, as I don't think I entirely understood what you meant to begin with.

Also, the Doom Dragon argument was directed not at you, but solely at Jamie, as it essentially inverts his argument.  Psynergy is good at the level it is learned, but quickly grows obsolete.  Plus, in multiplayer, you may want to have a way for it to fare competitively, as psynergy still has relatively low power there, peaking at 200-400, depending on elemental power and resistances.

Psynergy only grows obsolete because the foe's defenses don't increase enough to bring physicals down to their level. That was the basic point.

As for multiplayer... doesn't having a way for psynergy to grow with the character already do that for us? You're not really making any sense... I already agree with you that we need to make the power of base psynergy grow with the user.

This would be the mage's answer to it, I suppose.  It'd be a Pure Multiplier based on Max PP, affecting the same defenses as the new remix of base damage (or, if you wanna rip out defense entirely, just look at the defense stat so it's not too powerful).  As for it's resistance check, it'd either be the same /200 as Base damage, or /300 to lower the impact of elemental power on it while still keeping it more mystic than physical blows.

This sounds pretty cool. I like it.

Psynergy doesn't need a defense stat >> Implying that whoever comes up with a monster that is resistant but NOT immune to psynergy is an idiot.  Joy.

Look, I'm trying to come up with a way that HAS a defense stat and WORKS.  If you're not gonna help, get out.

We could probably code it so that if a foe is holding some certain item or whatever, they take half damage from spells. Or something like that. Surely there are ways to make certain monsters have unusually high defense against spells without making it overly complicated against everything else.

[Rolina]

Sorry for being snappy Jamie, but you have to realize that the only reason I'm here right now is to seek Leaf's advice, and, well, you're not him.  Leaf has earned my respect when it comes to things like this, but you, to be quite frank, haven't.  That's not to say I don't respect you, it's just that you've yet to show me that you're... helpful, when it comes to this.

I just dislike that if we do that, we can't give a monster very powerful psynergy without also giving it great resistance to spells or nuking its ability to take physical hits. It also makes it frustrating to balance enemies, since their stats do so many different things, and if you adjust one, everything else needs to be adjusted, too.

Uggh, tell me about it.  In the end, nothing replaces the need for them to have their own stats.  But we've gotta do the best we can.  In the end, it'll just require a bunch of tweaking until we find a balance we like...

Ok. So we're more or less on the same page here, then. We agree 300% consistent unleashes are OP, that weaker ones can be consistent, but stupidly strong ones should not be.

Bingo.  I also think that some weapons should have two forms of their unleash - the physical attack variety, and the spellcast (bestowed) variety.  Staffs and ankhs in particular here are what I'm thinking of, though other weapons may have similar things (ex:  A spear with a ST 1.2x multiplier, but bestows a 3T 0.9x multiplier version of the same thing.  It'd be the only way to get close to multi-target unleashes, but we'll need to be careful to balance it).  Overall, though, the stronger the unleash, the lower the max possible unleash rate would be.  Meggido should just plain be nerfed to hell.

This sounds pretty cool. I like it.

Good, since it was an 'off the top of my head' kinda thing, I was a bit worried. ^-^;

Psynergy only grows obsolete because the foe's defenses don't increase enough to bring physicals down to their level. That was the basic point.

Not quite.  Psynergy quickly becomes obsolete as new weapons and levels are gained - though you could add the defense in there, to be honest, that's not enough to justify the static nature of spells.  They should at least slowly get more powerful until their version of the 'new weapon' can be learned.

We could probably code it so that if a foe is holding some certain item or whatever, they take half damage from spells. Or something like that. Surely there are ways to make certain monsters have unusually high defense against spells without making it overly complicated against everything else.

Hmm, that might work, but the spell defense needs to stay, if nothing else than for having a way to have mages make a bit more use in combat - taking noticably less damage than fighters from spells would be a good start.  More importantly, though, we cannot simply rely purely on elemental power and resistance, since BOTH physical and magical attacks check this.  Sure, it has more of an effect on spells, but it does not replace the need for a proper stat, or in our case, make-shift formula.

[Rolina]

This is the closest thread I could find in relation.

My, my, role. So hostile.

Don't act innocent, unless you want the whole Skype convo copypasted here.

Eh... there's a certain amount of logic in breaking formula for unique psys. Heat wave is unique to garet's class, which has terribly low PP reserves compared to the rest of the party.

Wait, so basically your claim is that for characters with low PP amounts, we go out of our way to make sure that the low PP isn't an issue?  Really, leaf?  So basically we take the pros and cons of each class, and try to fix the con, instead of making sure each class has its own set of pluses and cons...  That's basically what you're suggesting there.

No.  Garet has low PP, and the player has to work with that.  Now, I don't know about this 1 PP per 5 power thing, I personally don't like that formula very much - it shouldn't be that linear.  I'm a fan of quadratic formulas, to be honest. Ax²+Bx+C=Y.  This keeps things from getting too powerful at lower levels, but when you have the PP reserves at higher levels it'll cost notably more.  This is how golden sun seems to work now.  I don't intend to change that formula style.

So I play devil's advocate, like I often do, and you turn it into a personal attack on me. Wonderful.

The rationale here is quite simple. Different attacks have different costs. Pyroclasm is a spell available to both mage and fighter classes. It's considerably more costly (percentage-wise) in fighter classes, and especially in garet's base class. Spells are fixed across all classes that use them. Therefore, does it not make sense to give garet - a fighter - a cheaper cost on what he specializes in, while keeping the mage skills expensive?

I do like how you pointed out that even Odyssee doesn't follow the formula Jamie claimed.  I think we should use a formula that feels right to us, but because we may be making Added Damage stronger as a whole, we may wind up doing something pretty different with the costs.  Of course, I was counting on a certain someone to get his suggested enemy strength patch out so I could stat testing EPAs, but... looks like I'll have to do it myself.  Shouldn't have counted on them to get it done, really.

Wheee more personal attacks.

I believe I gave an outline on how battle system progress should be tackled some time ago. We don't have enough done yet for that, which is why I haven't done anything. Unless you just want to assume old classes and level benchmarks, which will inevitably be different in the hack. (I once made the mistake of thinking we could balance some of the endgame stuff prematurely. While I do still think it's possible to do so and get close to what we want, the unknown variables will undoubtedly screw with anything we conceive. This is why we need to follow a very specific direction in this stuff, rather than just doing things as we feel like doing them.

---

@Jiten: We know what you meant. 140% atk in a tier 2 class (think, like putting two venus djinn on isaac) is a bit much. Should really be 120% for a typical "high" value, and 130% for a "very high" value, as is done in the brute line. At tier 1, brute (1 djinni) has 120% atk, the highest in the game for a tier 1 class. Naturally, at tier 2 (2 djinn) it has 130% atk, since stats increase by 10% each tier up in traditional GS. The brute line is also a 6 tier class line, since it involves symbiotic elements (venus/mars), so at chaos lord (tier 6) it hits 170% atk, the highest in the game, tied with the master class from the ninja line (which is an uber class). Now do you see why 210% atk is silly high?

@Devil's Advocate:  You may want to reword it then - the way you came across sounded like you wanted to just do away with low PP being an issue.  Poor example on your case, then.  As far as your EPA vs Base Damage is concerned, I don't think you're correct here.  Cost should roughly correlate to damage output.  Fighters don't mind running low on PP because they're strong even without it.

@More personal attacks:  Whatever do you mean?  I never named any names here.  If you felt that was a personal attack against you, then perhaps you did something wrong, and would like to share?  If you're implying that I'm accusing you personally of dropping the ball, then by all means go ahead and say so - but I never specifically said WHO it was, after all.  You merely filled in the blanks yourself.  Of course, you can't claim that I specifically implied you... "You can't know what I'm thinking, you're not me", right?

@Outline:  Outlines are one thing.  We've both given those before.  And if your attitude is "you're not going to do anything until we get close to finishing", then leave.  We don't welcome people who refuse to contribute from just coming in here and saying whatever.  Now, if you're willing to actually do something, then by all means, do it.  But we need work done, and if you're not willing to do it, get out of the way of those who will.

[leaf]

I find this hilarious. Yeah, flames are really relevant to this topic, role.

Don't act innocent, unless you want the whole Skype convo copypasted here.

You may want to rethink this as a threat. You certainly had your own moments of fail in there, too, which if you reread it without role goggles on, you'd quickly see. I told you that I would be civil toward you on the forum as much so as I have been, meaning that I would not start anything with you over this matter. Of course, there's nothing I can do if you decide to bring it up here. I would have been perfectly content to go on discussing the hack and not waste time on petty arguments like this, you know. And you wonder why I don't trust you not to bring it up in the temple chat...

@Devil's Advocate:  You may want to reword it then - the way you came across sounded like you wanted to just do away with low PP being an issue.  Poor example on your case, then.  As far as your EPA vs Base Damage is concerned, I don't think you're correct here.  Cost should roughly correlate to damage output.  Fighters don't mind running low on PP because they're strong even without it.

Gonna use an example from a fighting game here, but the concept applies to any type of battle system. In the touhou fighter, iamp, everyone has access to bullet-type attacks and everyone has access to melee attacks. Those that have a high prowess in close combat might have bullets that are not only weaker than other characters', but also cost more. Attacking physically in these games is free. Patchouli has worse melee than the entire rest of the cast, but appropriately, she gets bullets that are cheaper and more powerful than the entire rest of the cast. Youmu has some of the most threatening CQC in the game, between her lightning fast normals and a command grab that leads into big damage combos; in exchange, her bullets are expensive and have worse coverage than most of the rest of the cast.

While not a perfect analogy, a warrior in GS casting an EPA is similar to a melee character in iamp performing a mostly-melee combo that involves a single bullet type attack; a mage casting in GS is similar to a bullet-centric character in iamp performing a long chain of bullets; a warrior in GS casting a base damage psy is thus similar to a melee character in iamp performing a chain of bullets. The warrior's primary form of damage is quite cheap for them, while if they used the mage's primary form of damage, it would be very expensive. In this case, cost is not proportional to damage output at all, nor should it be. It's a matter of character strengths.

@More personal attacks:  Whatever do you mean?

Way to play innocent. Now what was that you were saying earlier? I think I missed it.

I never named any names here.  If you felt that was a personal attack against you, then perhaps you did something wrong, and would like to share?  If you're implying that I'm accusing you personally of dropping the ball, then by all means go ahead and say so - but I never specifically said WHO it was, after all.  You merely filled in the blanks yourself.

No, I did nothing wrong, and feel no guilt associated with whatever you claim that I have done. However, I do know that you have been singling me out. Besides directly making that same claim while using my name on the forum before, we just had this argument. I would be an idiot if I did not think you were referring to me.

Of course, you can't claim that I specifically implied you... "You can't know what I'm thinking, you're not me", right?

Ha! The irony here is overwhelming. The very argument that you claim is childish, you modify to make even more childish and then use it as the crux of your own argument. Brilliant, role. Just brilliant. In your attempt to be spiteful, you've managed to embarrass yourself in front of the whole forum. Bravo.

Here's why that argument doesn't work here:
When I stated that we don't know what camelot was thinking, I was stating objective fact. We don't, and can only take our best guess.  As such, their intent is up to interpretation, which was the crux of that entire argument. Your interpretation of their intent is not necessarily any better than mine. In fact, from my point of view, you've outright disregarded their intent quite a few times, which makes me wonder how you can even begin using "their intent" as a part of your argument on anything.

When I stated that you don't know what I'm thinking, it's because you were taking actions and then trying to put meaning behind them (ie. put words in my mouth), when the actual rationale behind those actions was quite different from your interpretation. Of course, since you won't accept that even after having the actual intent explained to you from the source, I don't know why I'm still even bothering to write all this, when it's all just going to get skewed by role logic, anyway.

Now, while the previous two cases dealt with directly trying to determine intent and the false interpretation of intent, in this case, the rationale behind your actions doesn't matter. If I were to guess at the rationale behind them, I would say that it's because you have a grudge against me. Even if I'm wrong on that assumption, it has no bearing on what you said. What you said is set in stone. There is no guesswork involved. It's not "oh, she did x, therefore she must think y." No. It's "she did x." In this case, it's not a matter of why you did something, but that you did it. Now, if I were to start telling you to get over yourself and drop the pointless grudge, that would involve guessing at intent.

I'll openly admit to not having played that SPRG you told me to play or to have blown off other parts of the project that don't particularly interest me or that I felt were too early. But that does not magically mean that I won't participate in the work that does interest me when it becomes relevant. Feel free to either believe me or stick with your own delusions. I'm fine either way. Just don't keep bringing up this argument every chance you get.

@Outline:  Outlines are one thing.  We've both given those before.  And if your attitude is "you're not going to do anything until we get close to finishing", then leave.  We don't welcome people who refuse to contribute from just coming in here and saying whatever.  Now, if you're willing to actually do something, then by all means, do it.  But we need work done, and if you're not willing to do it, get out of the way of those who will.

Funny that there are people that contribute far less than I have, yet you don't go yelling at them, telling them to leave. In fact, by bringing all this hatred of yours onto the forum, you're the one that's getting in the way of getting things done.

My attitude is "I'm going to do the things that I came here to do." Which roughly translates to being heavily involved in the development of the battle system for this game. However, as I've said repeatedly, things need to be done in a certain order, and trying to do them out of order will result in an incomplete analysis that will need to be redone later. The thing we really need right now if we're to get anywhere is class concepts.

[Misery]

Seriously guys, what is this? Not even half the content of your last few posts was relevant! I understand that some stuff has been going on between you on the chat, and I'd like to ask that you keep it there.

General guidelines are necessary to develop a functioning system, but follow it too strictly and you end up with a game that feels static and a damage system that becomes too centralized. To determine stuff like PP cost for spells, you have to consider the other properties of the class(es) that use it. Always look at the big picture.

Typical process of game development goes something like this: make something bad -> figure out why it was bad -> modify it until it becomes good. If you expect to get everything right from the start, you will never have anything to work with, putting you in a deadlock position. This isn't going to magically resolve itself with the next release of the editor, or even when you get the customized damage formulas you're planning for. The editor already supports basic value changes for pretty much everything, you could have started game balance testing long ago. Use placeholders for classes that aren't specified yet, and make temporary changes to values (example: psynergy damage) to simulate roughly what they would be in the final version. It's tedious and time consuming, but you will get a much better feeling for it than if you put word against word, and possibly come up with completely new ideas. And I think that if you can present something substantial, you will be more likely to get what you're waiting for.

I do feel this project is heading in the right direction though, especially now that you're taking in class ideas. It may not feel like it, but look back two years and you've really made quite some progress... more than can be said than for any other fan community game project I've ever seen.

[Salanewt]

Seriously guys, what is this? Not even half the content of your last few posts was relevant! I understand that some stuff has been going on between you on the chat, and I'd like to ask that you keep it there.

I agree, could you two please not do this here? I will work on modifying your posts before I go to bed tonight, but this is getting ridiculous. Your latest posts were hardly relevant either.

You may want to consider my post a bit of a warning, actually. If this must be done, then please don't use Dimensional Crisis as a host.

Jiten: That could help, though some alternatives might have to be used in conjunction with buffing enemies; I guess we can look into it, thanks!

[Atrius]

Role, quit bringing your petty arguments onto the forums they don't belong here.  Leafgreen, you do realize you're only making matters worse, right?

[Today]

Today at 18:00:23

Teawater: By the way, I was wondering, did anyone else notice the ".gba" ROM in the Downloads section?

[Today]

Today at 16:54:26

JamietheFlameUser: Well, that particular Briggs fight was from a long time ago. I haven't been working on my current hack the past few days because of other stuff.

[Today]

Today at 16:40:10

Luna_blade: @Saturos: Your english exams?

[Today]

Today at 16:33:40

Teawater: Can't remember exactly what shae of yellow it was, so not sure it would be too close or not.

[Today]

Today at 16:30:58

Teawater: @KoP: Wouldn't Shiny Gold be for the Sol Clan?

[Today]

Today at 15:37:37

Salanewt: Oh wait, tag doesn't work down here. But yeah, how is your hack going Jamie?

[Today]

Today at 15:37:00

Salanewt: [me] considers giving him the Sol Blade...

[Today]

Today at 15:36:00

Salanewt: Oh my. To be honest though, I'd be more likely to give Briggs stuff from later regions; him being a pirate from another continent and all.

[Today]

Today at 09:36:58

JamietheFlameUser: How not to design boss fights: give human-type bosses stats and equipment on par for what the Editor says their level is and what equipment is available where they're from. You get stuff like an actually scaled to level 21 Briggs with a Great Sword, Silver Plate, Silver Helm, Vambrace, and Leather Boots. God, that was BS.

[Today]

Today at 09:09:49

Saturos: Wow first part of exam is ower (in english) tomorow speaking part.

[Today]

Today at 07:11:35

JamietheFlameUser: Eh, I didn't know the exact chance of Curse screwing you over. Still, that 6% chance to fail to act at all could screw you over when it matters most. The obvious solution, of course, is to stick that armour on a character who doesn't do anything but spam attack moves anyway.

[Today]

Today at 07:10:52

leaf: ...assuming I'm remembering the chance of curse taking effect correctly as 25%

[Today]

Today at 07:09:50

leaf: in fact, you get two turns the majority of the time (~56%), and only completely fail to act ~6%, the remainder of the time getting one action

[Today]

Today at 07:07:49

leaf: I like that stealth armor buff. it wouldn't make sense to do that with the clerics ring available, but if you remove that, it's actually an interesting item. On average, you get ~1.5 turns per round. it's potentially very strong, but carries risks

[Today]

Today at 07:04:59

leaf: lol

[Today]

Today at 06:39:21

JamietheFlameUser: Reading the Venus Psynergy topic and 'lol'ing at Role's reaction to a very simple spell idea I'd had (and still think is awesome), where rock explodes out of the ground from a single point in a focused, cone-shaped burst. Role read me the riot act about not combining elements again. lol.

[Today]

Today at 06:17:58

JamietheFlameUser: Well, one thing I came up with that was actually potentially cool is a modification to the Stealth Armour. I gave it +1 turns, under the assumption that the Cleric's Ring would be removed. You might get 2 actions that round, or 1 action, or maybe no actions at all! RNG at its finest.

[Today]

Today at 06:15:32

Knight of Purgatory: Nice orange text kain. Maybe it should be a shiny gold

[Today]

Today at 06:03:40

leaf: I concur. There isn't much I'd consider worth salvaging from dc in terms of work done, but reading the old threads can be quite amusing

[Today]

Today at 06:01:48

JamietheFlameUser: LOL I'm looking at the DCrisis Items/Equipment section. Role and I were both so immature about it (me especially) that it's hilarious in hindsight.

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