Hello guys, I'm Baransu.
I've been following this site for quite sometime ever since the release of the editor but never really got around to joining it until now.
There's quite a few patches on this site that i'm interested in playing around with such as the Intellect patch as I like the idea of having a dedicated offense stat for mages since they never really scaled properly to endgame and the PP patch doesn't scale them as evenly as I'd hope. Not too keen about the hex editing part but it shouldn't be too hard once I get the hang of it.
I'm definitely looking forward to be a part of this community.
Hey there, welcome!
It's pretty nice to know that you are interested in the Intellect patch! I would just keep in mind that I think I forgot to update the enemy AI to accommodate it so enemy behaviour when using the related buffs/debuff and Break effects may be a little off, but other than that it still works pretty well for its purpose.
It'll be great to have you here I'm sure, and don't hesitate to ask for help if you need it!
I've been using your Intellect patch and its working out fairly well so far in terms of expected damage. However whenever I use the buffs, the game displays wrong values compared to amount that the character is supposed to be receiving. The debuffs on the other hand seem to work out alright although they wear off a little too quickly for my liking.
One other question, is there any particular order in which I should apply these patches? For example would using the Intellect patch cause any other patch to break/not work properly?
Huh, that's weird. I may have forgotten to correct an error in there somewhere; I'll check later.
As for the debuff effects, how quickly do they wear off compared to the Attack debuffs? If I recall correctly they are supposed to have the same likelihood of wearing off at 30%, so if they tend to wear off sooner than Attack then I may have made a calculation error there as well.
Particular order: Not that I can think of. I know for my patches I usually try to describe a proper order if there is one on the download pages but there is always the possibility that they won't function 100% properly with patches that other people make. I also try to make mine compatible with each other, barring the odd exception. Which patches are you applying?
They're supposed wear off at a rate of 30%? Strange because they tend to wear off within 1-2 turns of application.
As for the patches that I plan on using, I'm considering:
5% Stat Increments
Reflux Unlimited
Simple Success Rates
Enemy Specific Immunities
Animation Overhaul
Advanced Reviving
Wave Animation
Intellect Patch
If possible, I'd like to come up with a way to nerf the HP% damage that summons, and a way to completely separate Jenna and Piers' classes from Felix/Sheba since they'd crossover at high djinn levels.
We've kinda already done that last one. Most common approach is to drop the damage form 3% per djinn to 2% per djinn. Some even lock stronger summons behind later turns, though some of us (myself included) think that goes a bit too far.
I'm assuming that there's a patch that makes nerfing summons a thing then?
On a side note, it seems as if setting the intellect equivalents to be 20% higher than their physical counterparts is ideal in terms of letting mages deal comparable damage to physical characters. I'd definitely need to do a heavy overhaul in terms of equipment progression and availability since I didn't really like how physical characters could use every weapon type except for Staves/Ankhs in TLA along with the fact that the stuff from Lemuria were overall better than anything you could buy for a very long time. I'm also looking at revamping spells a bit (particular pp costs and power) since there's a lot of redundant/underused spells.
There is the Simple Summons patch (http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=59), which replaces the function the game uses now with a byte table where you change the added damage values.
For class separation, you'll either need to use the editor setting or code around it to avoid the editor overwriting your changes. Not really sure how the editor handles that, and it's one of the more annoying features but little can be done unless a fix is made for it.
As for the turn/duration bit, would you mind testing something for me? #08FB8A00 has an instruction to use the value xA5, would you mind changing that to xA4 and then checking to see if anything changes? This part of the code calculates the RAM address of the buff/debuff values and I think I may have accidentally entered the wrong value here.
I'll check the text thing later!
Balance setting: That's good to know. I noticed originally when testing that psynergy either started out the same or weaker, but gradually grew stronger as you progress through the game. Still not quite as strong as warriors in most cases but an improvement all the same.
^ Yes, Simple Summons if you want to go down to 2% (With some hex editing of that table...) - Prior to the patch/as it was in original code... I'm guessing it was an optimized switch statement... those can look pretty cluttered in compiled format. (Small switch statements may leave out a pointer table, while larger switch statements include them?)
Atrius's Class Separation Patch only divides the two parties.... so yes, you'll need to code something in... The patch Atrius's inserts is very simply, though... (Probably only like ~4 or so instructions, but I forget.)
Which amounts to... if PC is in second party (PC id >= 4), then add 20 to class type.... and then compares that number with the class types in all the classes to figure out which class you'll be getting. ...
To separate them for each character, it could be as simple as pc id * 20 ... But I not sure if anyone is interested in have a ka-billion different classes with the amount of time and effort it could take to make??
@A5 to A4 ... No, I think that's already correct... you're suppose to get the PC # so you can set the arg for this function:
Quote080AFFAC = get_elemental_levels(pc,pcDjinnRamAddr,sp) pc can be 0-7 for PCs, or 8+ for enemies.; Return 0.
Which in the Intellect patch, should return the total of all elemental levels. (No longer is 0.)
Now days, I'm kind of curious if calling that function was a good idea or not....? .... Hm.... I figured it doesn't matter much.
Oh yeah, oops! It's been a while; I'll check that again later.
I'm only really interested in completely separating Jenna and Piers from their counterparts since Felix and Sheba only really warrant having a different base class compared to Isaac/Garet although the problem of having to copy paste the stats over still exists. Maybe I can look at one of the hacks on this site and see some possible solutions for it.
Makes sense!
One more question for you; what are the Luck stats of the characters recovering from the Intellect debuffs?
Luck is based off total element level right? Then its 9 on Sheba/Jenna/Piers and 8 on Felix, while their vanilla luck stat turned agility is 7/4/6/3 on Sheba/Jenna/Piers/Felix respectively.
Sounds good. No equipment bonuses either I assume?
I'm going to be kinda busy over the next couple days or so, but I'll try to squeeze a fix or at least a little research into my schedule soon. You can check around #08124828 if you're familiar with thumb/assembly at all, since the code that checks the Intellect buffs should be around here. If not then that will be the first thing I look into (I have VBA open and everything)!
Take your time, no real rush on my end for you get this fixed right away when most of the stats and stuff for the hack need to be planned out, not to mention that patches need to be applied to the rom.
The only equipment bonuses were +10 HP and +50 Wind Resist on Felix and +15 Wind Power on Sheba. I had set the Intellect buff to Wind but I don't think that has anything to do with it right?
I'm currently trying to figure out how to balance out equipment now that Intellect's an actual stat and Agility got revised to be a single digit stat like Luck was. Not quite sure if a weapon type that buffs agility would be a wise idea in this system unless the light blade characters had lower agility modifiers overall barring Ivan.
Sounds good!
Wind: I doubt it; I mostly just wanted to double check in case you also added the ailment resistance value to any of the gear you had equipped because that gets added as a flat value used in the same way that the original luck stat is used.
Agility: Well, that depends on whether you want to keep the stat a single digit thing or not. It can technically go as high as 255 and still function the same way that the original agility value does. Same goes for stat growths, assuming they remain functional of course!
My personal recommendation would be to boost agility values by at least a little bit so you have more of a stat to work with when balancing enemies for your hack, but only if you feel you can do it well.
Well Agility going up to 255 makes things easier for me to handle then, since I can just divide everyone's agility stat by whatever the difference between the old and new caps were. My biggest worry is hitting the Intellect stat cap since I multiply the bonus that other stats would get by 4 in order to make the one for it.
For weapons, I'll think I go for:
Swords: Atk, pure element where applicable
Axes: Atk, -Def
Staves: Atk, Int, PP
Blades: Atk, Defense, Agility
Maces: Atk, HP, Int, Power, Res
Ankh: Atk, PP, Int, Power, Res
Man, I wish we could add other effects to weapon types, too. I've always liked the idea of different weapons having different passives - for instance, Maces dealing 10% of any physical damage they do to PP as well, or Ankhs reducing any inbound Int-based or summon damage by 10%, and maybe Blades giving a chance of giving a character's action priority. Don't think we can do that, though.
Baransu: Yeah, I could see that being an issue. The option of not doing it that way always exists, but then there will be times when you have points that don't go into anything.
Weapons (a): I like it! Simple enough to understand how each weapon type is themed but not too simple to make it boring.
Weapons (b): A lot of those ideas could probably be implemented with some work, but making it so they can be customized easily may be tricky.
-Maces dealing 10% of any physical damage they do to PP as well
Not sure if I'd call them Damage Types or not... but I could see a possibility in adding more types. (also assuming ability effects are based on chance values....)
The unfortunate part is Atrius's editor would need to be modified to support editing it beyond the current last damage type. (If you don't want to use a hex editor)... or a different editor could be made.. (Such as my own.)
-Ankhs reducing any inbound Int-based or summon damage by 10%
And this one could just be an addition to the Summon damage type. / Etc. ... Unless there are (for example) two different types of summons where one is suppose to ignore Ankhs, then we could just have another damage type here as well... (With the Ankh-resistance built in.)
Squirtle: My intention with equiment was to make the choice a lot more complex than just picking whatever has the highest attack value at the time. Which is why I opted the give the weapon types a variety of effects to encourage people to swap around the djinn and equipment to suit their current equipment pool.
While the data isn't quite finalized as yet, so far I'm looking at something like this in the end
Sol Blade: 180 Atk, Pure Earth
Herculean Axe: 193 Atk, -10 Def
Lachesis Rule: 147 Atk, 118 Int, 25 Power
Tisiphone Edge: 163 Atk, 48 Int, 8 Def, 4 Agi
Clotho's Distaff: 139 Atk, 97 Int, 12 PP, 25 Resist
Vajra Mace: 171 Atk, 20 HP, 26 Int, 15 Power, 10 Resist
The idea here would be that swords are the safe weapon with no real perks or downsides but they'd be optimal for persons who wanted to run an unleash set up since they'd get a higher unleash cap/better unleashes in exchange. Axes are the strongest weapon type overall but you'd need to use slower classes with high defensive modifiers to offset the defense penalty. Blades are a generalist weapon for classes like Ninja which carry high level spells so that warriors could get a decent damage boost on their spells.
For the remaining weapons, Maces would play a similar role to that of blades in that Sheba/Mia can use them to cover a little bit of everything with a defensive perk. Staves are simple beat stick weapons for players who want to use dedicated magic offense classes like Warlock. Ankhs on the other hand are best for healing classes since they boost PP to squeeze out more healers and Int for better damage against mooks.
I haven't quite decided how I want to scale unleashes since after a while the game tends to shift towards multipliers and I definitely have to tone them down a bit so that offensive spell casters stay relevant. Maybe if physical attackers have higher burst damage but mages are better for consistent offense.
Equipment choices: That sounds a lot like my approach to weapon balance, even down to making light blades more likely to boost agility and axes dropping defence!
Multipliers/unleashes: Well, there is an Intellect-based multiplier formula if you also want to use that but I agree about toning down multipliers regardless, at least based off what you have been saying about your goals.
QuoteSol Blade: 180 Atk, Pure Earth
Herculean Axe: 193 Atk, -10 Def
These are effectively the same weapon. Neither the damage nor the defense will make an especially big difference on the axe, such that the player will barely notice it. If the player is using an unleash setup, it's purely about whichever has the bigger unleash. Otherwise, if the player is predominately casting Call Dullahan (or similar), they're the same weapon.
QuoteLachesis Rule: 147 Atk, 118 Int, 25 Power
This is the default choice for any caster. No other item you listed comes even close to competing with it. Highest Int *and* the highest EPow rating makes it a no-brainer, regardless of whether your role is damage or healing. For a caster item, it also delivers pretty respectable Atk.
QuoteTisiphone Edge: 163 Atk, 48 Int, 8 Def, 4 Agi
Vajra Mace: 171 Atk, 20 HP, 26 Int, 15 Power, 10 Resist
Most of the extra stats on these items are irrelevant. The Vajra Mace is able to compete with Sol Blade or Herculean Axe, since it's a minimal loss of Atk but gives EPow. Tisiphone Edge is only relevant to Ivan (if you want to spec him as a physical attacker, since he can't equip anything better here); it could be relevant to more characters if the Agi is relevant, but I don't know how you're planning to scale Agility in this hack, so I'm not sure if 4 is a lot or a little.
QuoteClotho's Distaff: 139 Atk, 97 Int, 12 PP, 25 Resist
This item doesn't exist. It's completely outclassed by every other weapon listed. Unless you're going the disgaea route and making healing based on res, this item offers nothing to anyone.
---
Functionally, you only have two weapons here, possibly three: A caster item in Lachesis' Rule, a melee weapon in Sol Blade/Herculean Axe/Vajra Mace, and possibly an agility-boosting weapon in the Tisiphone Edge. That's *if* the agility is a meaningful amount, otherwise it's just another melee weapon that you only pick because it's all you have left.
Based on your rationale for the items, this is how I'd fix it:
Sol Blade:
180 ->
190 Atk, Pure Earth
-- This will act as our baseline. Since I didn't like the way the ratios were working out with some of the other items (especially the axe), I opted to raise its Atk slightly.
Herculean Axe:
193 ->
230 Atk,
-10 ->
-40 Def
-- This is by far the greatest physical damage weapon, but you should
feel that defense drop. Axes should cause you to lose almost a full piece of armor, but grant that same amount as additional Atk over a Long Sword.
Lachesis' Rule: 147 Atk, 118 Int, 25 Power
-- Untouched, since other items got more powerful around it. This remains the go-to item for a pure caster. Note that the EPow on this weapon boosts its damage further, while also improving healing.
Tisiphone Edge:
163 ->
173 Atk, 48 Int,
8 ->
0 Def,
4 ->
12 Agi*
-- Cutting out the pointless defense, and raising its Atk to make it a better contender as a physical option for mages. More agility to make the stat meaningful.
Clotho's Distaff: 139 Atk,
97 ->
92 Int,
12 ->
120 PP, 25 Resist
-- Yes, you read that right. That says 12 to *120* PP. With the incredibly low offensive stats on this item, it needs to provide hella fuel.
Vajra Mace: 171 Atk,
20 ->
108 HP,
26 ->
40 Int,
15 ->
0 Power,
10 ->
0 Resist
-- Cutting the pow/res since it didn't do much to create an identity for the item. Provides slightly weaker offense than a light blade and doesn't give agility, but makes up for it with some hefty bulk. I picked 108 for thematic reasons, but it comes out to be about right for an endgame weapon like this.
* (The agility on Tisiphone Edge assumes an average party agility of around 80-100 at endgame. If you're using a higher or lower average agility for characters, it should be set proportionately.)
The point of these modifications was to sharpen the identities of the items. Light Blade damage was brought up to be on par with Maces, since both weapon types serve the purpose of helping a caster spec into physical damage, but only Mia/Sheba can use maces, while only Jenna/Ivan can use light blades. Lachesis' Rule is untouched since the power of other items went up around it; if I had instead opted to leave Sol Blade alone and nerf the damage on Maces down to the level of Light Blades, it probably would've lost somewhere around 10-15 Atk. Despite the pretty massive stat buffs to Agility or HP on LBs/Maces, the Sol Blade should still be plenty attractive to primarily physical damage dealers, provided that Long Swords get generally stronger unleashes.
Don't be afraid to give items a unique niche. If you water down their stats too much, they just become more of the same, and you still just end up choosing whatever gives the best damage.
edit: Also, I think it's a mistake to add the "has innate attack attribute" to all weapons of a specific weapon type (e.g. making all Long Swords have an innate elemental attribute on attack, like you do here). That's predominately used to add flavor to certain weapons, and you miss out on the opportunity to do some really cool stuff with other weapon types. Of note, it barely even factors into the power of a weapon at endgame, since if you're using the Attack command, you're probably going for an unleash anyway; it
can factor into the power of weapons earlier in the game (when you don't have a very high crit chance yet), but that can easily be accounted for by just knocking a couple points off Atk, if you even choose to do that much.
I like the idea about the Clotho Distaff giving a lot of PP as a boost to make it more attractive to healers and Pure Wish spamming is going to be quite costly so they'd need the PP. I'd probably halve the boost on the Vajra Mace or something just to keep HP from spiraling out of control earlier. With regards to the pure element gimmick, I can see where you're coming from with that so I'll leave it primarily for forged items and other special one off cases. My biggest problem with the weapons was figuring out a comfortable ratio for their stats so I kind of just went with what felt right.
Statistically at Level 59, we're looking at this for the cast:
Isaac: 479 HP, 167 PP, 229 Atk, 100 Def, 225 Int, 53 Agi
Garet: 509 HP, 161 PP, 234 Atk, 109 Def, 217 Int, 43 Agi
Ivan: 448 HP, 194 PP, 214 Atk, 99 Def, 243 Int, 64 Agi
Mia: 467 HP, 193 PP, 222 Atk, 102 Def, 235 Int, 50 Agi
Felix: 493 HP, 162 PP, 236 Atk, 101 Def, 213 Int, 51 Agi
Jenna: 473 HP, 180 PP, 224 Atk, 100 Def, 231 Int, 56 Agi
Sheba: 455 HP, 198 PP, 216 Atk, 97 Def, 239 Int, 60 Agi
Piers: 490 HP, 169 PP, 227 Atk, 105 Def, 221 Int, 46 Agi
Isaac and Jenna are the base line for physical and magical characters respectively as they're the balanced ones leaning towards their respective fields. Piers and Mia are a bit more focused than Isaac/Jenna respectively and they have pretty good defense (Piers places 2nd and Mia places 3rd at 99). The remaining characters are meant to be dedicated in their respective fields. Everyone's agility stats are roughly a quarter of what was used in the original scale. I'll probably need to shake up the stats around a lot since the party is very close to each other base statwise (particularly Int which is weighted 4:1 and defense where the stat gaps are pretty tiny).
I'd probably place the HP bonus for maces somewhere in the low 70s at JLH, and just under 50 at poseidon. The first mace in the game should prob give about 10. That should give you some decent points to scale from. Endgame GS1 would prob be about 50 as well. That may sound like it's scaling too much at endgame, but remember that endgame items tend to have a massive power spike in TLA, and that GS1 endgame power tends to be about equal to the end of the eastern sea in TLA.
As for the character stats, don't forget that class bonuses are a thing. The bulk of character differentiation comes from classes and equipment. Even if two characters have very similar base stats, having a 160% modifier for a stat on one but only 130% on the other is going to create a huge disparity between their observed stats.
edit: I think +12 agility for the end tier LB is prob fine on that scale, maybe drop it down to +10. I was thinking about agility values post-class bonus when I mentioned the average being 80-100.
Took your suggestions in mind and did some tweaking. Here's some breakpoint weapons that i'm looking at.
-Early Game
Long Sword: 14 Atk
Short Sword: 8 Atk, 3 Int, 1 Agi
Mace: 6 Atk, 4 HP, 2 Int
Wooden Stick: 4 Atk, 8 Int
Shaman's Rod: 10 Atk, 4 Int, 4 PP
-Early Eastern Sea
Robber's Blade: 106 Atk
Mystery Blade: 88 Atk, 24 Int, 6 Agi
Grevious Mace: 84 Atk, 24 HP, 20 Int
Giant Axe: 125 Atk, -22 Def
Cloud Wand: 74 Atk, 62 Int, 10 Power, Water
Angelic Ankh: 77 Atk, 48 Int, 24 PP, 12 Resist
-Lemuria (I'll need to tweak the Corsair's Edge and Hagbone Mace a bit to suit this step)
Hestia Blade: 127 Atk
Sylph Rapier: 106 Atk, 31 Int, 8 Agi, Wind
Thanatos Mace: 108 Atk, 31 HP, 28 Int
Mighty Axe: 156 Atk, -27 Def
Dracomace: 91 Atk, 77 Int, 12 Power
Fireman's Pole: 110 Atk, 64 Int, 32 PP
-Reunion
Gaia Blade: 135 Atk, Earth
Phaeton's Blade: 137 Atk, 39 Int, 10 Agi
Wicked Mace: 133 Atk, 43 HP, 36 Int
Demon Axe: 171 Atk, -33 Def
Goblin's Rod: 108 Atk, 90 Int, 15 Power
Meditation Rod: 127 Atk, 80 Int, 40 PP
-Endgame
Sol Blade: 180 Atk, Earth
Tisiphone Edge: 165 Atk, 12 Agi, 48 Int
Vajra Mace: 161 Atk, 48 HP, 40 Int
Herculean Axe: 220 Atk, -42 Def
Lachesis Rule: 147 Int, 118 Int, 25 Power
Clotho's Distaff: 156 Atk, 96 Int, 48 PP
I see you went with nerfing the other items down and bumping up the damage on clothos so you don't have to give it such a ridiculous amount of PP. Seems like a good approach. The damage distributions look pretty reasonable, but HP still feels undertuned. PP is probably fine.
HP values could probably be set via a formula like... HP = 1.4 * Int, and break formula at endgame. Also, the rusty staff weapons seem to have extremely low Atk for some reason, and are pretty much wholly outclassed by ankhs as they are; a small bump to their Atk would remedy this.
Early eastern sea
Grevious Mace: 84 Atk, 24 -> 28 HP, 20 Int
Lemuria
Thanatos Mace: 108 Atk, 31 -> 39 HP, 28 Int
Dracomace: 91 -> 99 Atk, 77 Int, 12 Power
Fireman's Pole: 110 Atk, 64 Int, 32 PP [unchanged - just here for reference]
Reunion
Wicked Mace: 133 Atk, 43 -> 50 HP, 36 Int
Goblin's Rod: 108 -> 117 Atk, 90 Int, 15 Power
Meditation Rod: 127 Atk, 80 Int, 40 PP [unchanged - just here for reference]
Endgame
Vajra Mace: 161 Atk, 48 -> 60 HP, 40 Int [breaks formula, uses 1.5*Int]
Lachesis Rule: 147 Int, 118 Int, 25 Power [unchanged - just here for reference]
Clotho's Distaff: 156 Atk, 96 Int, 48 PP [unchanged - just here for reference]
I consider this pretty much the minimum you can set the HP values to and expect them to feel good. However, I actually think you could push it a lot further. Something more like... HP = 1.8*Int. With this setting, it might look like Maces outclass other mage weapons at first glance, but that's because Maces are hybrid weapons that shift a mage toward being a warrior; the drastically lower Int means they're not really suitable for what a mage wants to accomplish. As such, it's more appropriate to compare them with other warrior weapons, and see if the health is balanced with those.
Early eastern sea
Grevious Mace: 84 Atk, 24 -> 36 HP, 20 Int
Robber's Blade: 106 Atk [unchanged - listed for comparison]
Lemuria
Thanatos Mace: 108 Atk, 31 -> 50 HP, 28 Int
Hestia Blade: 127 Atk [unchanged - listed for comparison]
Reunion
Wicked Mace: 133 Atk, 43 -> 64 HP, 36 Int
[Gaia Blade is too far behind the curve to be a suitable comparison point]
Endgame
Vajra Mace: 161 Atk, 48 -> 80 HP, 40 Int [breaks formula, uses 2*Int]
Sol Blade: 180 Atk, Earth [unchanged - listed for comparison]
With the way you have the rest of the items set up, I don't think I'd go all the way to 108 like I did before, but it can still give a pretty good chunk of health. The reason I'm so willing to risk overtuning HP amounts is because of the prevalence of healing. A character's effective HP during a boss fight is many times higher than their actual HP bar, and the same holds true of even just standard wandering, as well. Since HP is not multiplicative with itself, it actually does relatively little to a character's overall durability, and is mainly useful to prevent being one-rounded. If you can't look at an HP increase and say "yeah, that looks pretty meaty," it's probably not enough.
Thanks again for the help, I bumped up sword and staff attack by a few points so that they'd fit the curve better. Right now i'm trying to figure out how strong the unleash modifier should be. I'm thinking that it would be about 40% and then the last few weapons would scale up to about a 2.5x (Sol Blade) multiplier while the others would be at about 2.3x at most (Darksword). Staff unleash would probably be maxed out as a 300 power spell (Dragon Fume, Call Dullahan and the Jupiter equivalent would cap at 250).
Quote from: Lord Squirtle on 14, April, 2017, 11:06:41 AMWeapons (b): A lot of those ideas could probably be implemented with some work, but making it so they can be customized easily may be tricky.
Oh? Hmm... perhaps if we did it modularly? Like, select different traits for each weapon type based on what you want in your mod, then install each of them? Could that work?
As for physical vs spell damage, was thinking that's work by basing it off whether the ability being used calls the Attack stat or Intellect/MaxPP stat (so, if Ability in [1,3,4], then Do_the_thing). Main reason for something like that would be to have some weapons prefer warriors while some prefer mages or something - definitely an option to look at for people if they want certain weapons being more friendly to one or another.
I'm starting to consider making unleashes scale as multipliers all game long with a few exceptions like Legend and the other damage multiplier unleashes sort of like what Dark Dawn did. The added damage system is useful too but after really looking at the way that Camelot scaled them I feel like a multiplier system would be fairer for them.
For example, early on Hurricane could be an attack with a 1.3x, 1.4 or even 1.5x multiplier which would be decently powerful but since its not a consistent form of bonus damage, it would even out in comparison to say Ragnarok giving a consistent +35 added damage or a Djinni giving even more bonus damage but since they cripple your stats for using them, it would make a solid enough deterrent to make people not use them willy nilly.
Edit: Thinking it over a bit, staff/ankh unleashes should be a little behind the curve with your magic offense. That way while the unleashes still hit about as hard as your regular offense if you want to conserve PP for long dungeons or in the case of a boss fight waiting for someone to refill, the main bulk of a caster's offense is still from using their best spell. If unleashes were ahead of the curve, I feel like people would just spec their casters into unleash fishing set ups with the exception of the dedicated healer or two and it would go back to the attack command being the best source of damage overall.
Add mods are frequently stronger than multipliers early on. Recall that damage is calculated as:
(Atk - Def)/2 * MultMod + AddMod
Thus, an AddMod of 30 is equivalent to having +60 Atk. The worth of a MultMod is dependent both on the modifier and the difference between Atk and Def. Suffice it to say that even a 2x multiplier will be weaker than a +30 AddMod until the difference between Atk and Def exceeds 60.
What's more, AddMods are beneficial in that they flatten out the damage curve between different characters; even relatively low Atk stats can make use of AddMods effectively. This is why Cannon is such a good djinni early on, and why even Sheba can do insane damage with it. Multipliers are inherently best on whoever has the highest raw Atk stat, while AddMods can be effective on anyone.
I was trying to follow a similar system to Dark Dawn which used multiplier unleashes all game except that I'd slowly scale them up to the levels of the average djinni or slightly weaker around the halfway point (Flint/Echo/Cannon for reference would all probably be about 1.8x and Quick Strike which is the spammable multiplier ability would be 1.6x).
If I'm using added damage then I think i'd probably scale the unleash damage bonus at about 40/45/50% of the weapon's base attack but the problem is picking a decent point to start using multipliers for unleashes. Staff unleashes won't be as hard since i'd just scale them based on whatever the middle of the line spells are for a particular level range for the first half and then ease up to the focused spells at the end.
You could always mix and match - you could design a weapon to have a strong unleash in the hands of a capable fighter by giving it a multiplier, or you could design a weapon to bring parity even to weaker party members. I'd say that generally mace and LB unleashes should be added damage for most of the game, while weapon types that are dedicated to warrior-type characters could feature more multipliers (mostly long swords; axes would have to use weaker multipliers or just do added damage to be balanced). Alternatively, if you want a mace/LB to be ahead of the curve when you obtain it, you could give it a multiplier so that warrior classes can utilize it better, giving it to a mage as a hand-me-down later. You don't have to totally switch over to one or the other at any point, either; you can have items coexist in the same space, some with multipliers and some with added damage, sometimes with a new weapon having added damage despite the previous one using a multiplier.
Also, about dark dawn: DD still had a lot of added damage unleashes afaik, it's just that since every weapon got multiple unleashes, and unleashes were shared across the game, the chances of having a multiplier were much higher.
My idea was that unleashes that had a chance of randomly multiplying a character's damage would be added damage where as the others would be more multiplier stuff.
I do like the idea of mixing and matching added damage vs multiplier unleashes since staves are still technically added damage unleashes under this system due to them using the intellect formula for their unleashes and other unleashes like Mad Zephyr, Legend and Rising Dragon could still be added damage in order to keep them in check. One other thing to note too is that while two weapons might have the same multiplier on their unleashes, the later weapon would still be the stronger one thanks to a higher base attack. I think ideally, Axes would probably need to resort to be added damage up until around the party merge to keep them in check, where as everything else could resort to multipliers.
The reason I suggest keeping maces/LBs added damage for most of the game is because mage-type characters have innately lower Atk, so they don't get as much out of multipliers. So if you give these weapons multipliers on par with the other weapons, warriors will use them fine, but they'll actually be weaker in the hands of a mage. If you give them multipliers stronger than other weapons, then warriors will just say "thanks for the new weapon" and mages will only get to use them as hand-me-downs. However, if you give them added damage on par with the damage output of warrior multipliers, it ends up being a strong option for both warriors *and* mages.
Just want to point out one minor thing (going to read through the rest of this topic later), but multi-target unleashes are also a thing if you feel they would be helpful for making unleashes more diverse.
And yeah, I would be careful with relying on multipliers; they are terrific but that isn't always a good thing.
I think I get what you're going for now. I'm just spitballing some numbers here but this what I have in mind,
Swords are supposed to be the strongest weapon type in terms of unleashes so I'll have them stick to multipliers all game and upgrade as it goes along. I think they'll start at around 1.4x-1.6x damage, then around Lemuria they'll go to 1.6x to 1.8x damage. The last few weapons would go up to a maximum of about 2.5x damage. Swords would have the highest unleash rate.
Axes on the other hand would use about 30% of the weapon's base attack as added damage since they have significantly higher base attack than swords. They'll probably ramp up around the same time as swords but will only be on the 1.4x-1.6x range due to their attack stat. The ultimate axe will probably max out at around 2x damage like in Dark Dawn. One other thing about Axes would be that they'd have a lower unleash rate than the other weapons.
Light Blades and Maces would scale at roughly 50% of a weapon's base attack and then tie swords multiplier wise during the Western Sea segment. At the endgame they'd still be roughly on par with swords but they'd lose out to thanks to having lower base attack as well as Megiddo which has the highest damage multiplier in the game.
AoE unleashes would generally be about 10-20% weaker than their counterparts while unleashes with a random chance of dealing increased damage would be added damage that caps out somewhere in the 20s-30s.
I suspect axe unleash rate would be fine if it was on par with the other weapons, and a 10% penalty on AOE unleashes sounds pretty light; it'll prob bounce around 20% most of the time. Other than that, it sounds like a good starting point to me. You'll probably run into some things that end up needing to be rebalanced when you realize something is too strong/too weak, but you've gotta start somewhere.
edit: Actually, for the added damage percentages, you may want to scale it up throughout the game. Axes might start at 20-25%, then scale up to 30 or 35% shortly before the multiplier switch. Maces/LBs might start at 30%, scaling up to 50% shortly before the multiplier switch. This more closely reflects how GS added damage unleashes usually scale, and keeps added damage from being too strong in the early game. In vanilla GS, base damage unleashes usually scale from 30-50% of the weapon's Atk over the course of the game.
Sounds fair enough to me since it'll let now I just need to work on scaling/distributing spells since staff unleashes are supposed to be based around those.
The basic idea is that spells would fall under 4 basic tiers and they'd generally hover around the same basic damage range
Tier 1: Quake, Flare, Bolt, Douse, Growth, Blast, Slash, Frost
Tier 2: Spire, Fire, Ray, Froth, Thorn, Starburst, Whirlwind, Ice
Tier 3: Gaia, Raging Heat, Plasma, Prism, Cool, Beam (I'll add a couple new spell lines to flesh out this tier)
Tier 4: Fume, Call Series (Jupiter would get a Tier 4 spell while Mercury wouldn't since it has the strongest heals).
From there I would distribute the spell lines accordingly depending on character/class theming. For example Isaac would get the Quake/Spire/Gaia lines where as Felix would get Growth/Thorn/Tier 3 Plant. With the exception of Jenna's base class, Tier 4 spells would generally be reserved for dedicated offensive spell casters as their equivalent of stuff like Planet Diver and so forth to make them stand out from the rest.
My problem however is figuring out a nice and neat way of scaling spells as well as giving them a fair enough PP cost. I remember Dragon Fume being really expensive for something that was just barely stronger than Grand Gaia and with way less range.
I like the idea of having some sort of scaling curve, where greater ranges have greater costs but where the difference between each range decreases. So like, single target might be 10, three targets 14, five targets 16, seven target 17. Power would scale in a similar fashion but reversed with higher powers at lower costs. The main reason I suggest this is because of target group size limits, and on the whole enemy groups tend to average out around three or four enemies; quite often there will be little functional difference between a three and a seven target spell aside from who you select as a primary target to maximize damage output.
That being said, I don't like sticking to a strict formula whenever I try to balance power, cost, and range. And learned level. Some variation usually works well for me because different abilities will be available in different classes, while a strict formula approach works better when trying to balance abilities within a class than between them. This is my take on it at least!
I haven't quite figured out Camelot's approach to things as yet but there's definitely some sort of general pattern that they tend to take when balancing out spells. For example the 3rd stage spells in the Growth/Blast/Douse/Slash lines all cap out at around 110-120 power and have roughly the same PP costs and the same goes for Plasma, Cool and Beam all capping out at around 170-180 power on their last spells. Spell levels also seem to be fairly consistent between the classes too since you can basically expect every class with the Volcano line to learn it at around levels 8, 22 and 48 respectively.
There's definitely going to be case by case thing since stuff like Ply would be learnt earlier in say the Water Seer line compared to the Swordsman line. But I definitely think that keeping spells around the same general range within their respective tiers and spreading them out accordingly would help sort out the problem a bit. For example one mage would have Prism and another could have Cool which are both T3 spell lines, and while they'd both hover around the same basic power values for the first two tiers, the one with Prism would win out at the end since Cool trades its power for range at the last step.
I definitely do agree with you about the enemy group size being a problem since GS doesn't really take advantage of the enemy size cap outside of cases where the boss or whoever could call for reinforcements which is probably why increasing it is probably a good idea.
Remember the sprite limit exists. You can only have up to 6 small enemies on screen at once, and medium enemies count as two small enemies. This isn't a game balance limit, but rather a hardware limit.
I like your strategy!
Also, pretty much what leaf said. From what we understand we have the following limits:
6 small
3 medium (1 medium = 2 small as seen in the Star Magician fight)
1 large/double with 1 small (at least based on a battle I tried to make with a Kraken and two Cuttle enemies).
It might be possible to have four medium enemies if they are encountered before you have a full party, although I am not sure if anyone has tested that before.
This is something I want to look into someday so we have a better understanding of it, but for now I have other goals that are more important so... yeah. :P
I wasn't really intending on reaching the hardware caps on the enemy groups although it is good to know what they are. My plan was to basically increase the variance in enemies that show up in random encounters so players would get a chance to properly take advantage of the higher range spells.
On that note after taking a look at the spell damage range in vanilla, it seems like there's a spell damage variance of about 5-10 in the lower tiers and 10-20 in the higher ones. The middle tier is kind of all over the place since the upgrades don't really follow a regular pattern so certain spell series get a huge power jump (most notably Whirlwind).
It would probably be fairer to group them up like this for the first step
Quake, Flare, etc: 20-25
Froth, Spire, etc: 30-35
Gaia, Volcano, etc: 40-45
Fume, etc: 50
I haven't quite figured out the pattern yet when it comes to going from stuff like say Quake to Earthquake or Earthquake to Quake Sphere but it shouldn't be too hard providing that I stick to the pattern that Camelot seems to use.
Okay, my last exam is done so...
Just to make sure, the main bug is related to text right? Did you use two different buff effects between the first two pictures? Do any of them work correctly or did I mess all four of them up?
Edit: I can double check the duration code after I fix the text issue.
Edit 2: So I just tested effects 39 and 41; 39 (debuff) seems to work fine while 41 (the buff) shows it as a negative value. I don't think it should take too long for me to fix it.
Edit 3: Though, I'm also not seeing what the issue is in the code which is weird. It might be an issue with how I have the instructions maybe? I'll let you know later.
Edit 4: Looks like bad calculations, so I'll fix the remaining two effects and update the patch.
So, an update: I completely forgot that the version of VBA I use has an error and actually swaps the labels for two instructions, so my code was showing the right calculation but it was actually messing up. That has been fixed, so now I'm just going to double check the recovery stuff and update the patch. Shouldn't take too long if all goes well!
Edit: I just tested and it seemed to end after a few turns sometimes, so it's not really out of the ordinary but I can look around a bit longer just to be sure.
Edit 2: As far as I can tell, nothing is wrong with the code that defines ailment recovery rates. The Intellect debuffs should have a base 30% chance to recover on any round, just like the Attack debuffs. I guess it's time to update the patch so the text bugs are no longer present! I also attached it to this post so you don't have to hunt it down in the downloads section. :p
Thanks a lot for the help, although the problem seems to have appeared again with effect 40.
The instruction at 08121596 should probably be sub r1, r1, r3. (Is only messed up for effect 40?)
The error was: sub r1, r3, r1 (That would be fine with buffs... and it seems the effect 39 debuff has it already corrected to sub r1,r1, r3.)
difference = current - previous (Where current is smaller than previous in the event of debuffs. ... Imagine: 2-3 = Oh wait, it is always negative.... :D)
Thought: It almost feels like there could have been a universal buff/debuff calculation formula to simplify things a bit. (Probably also helps with bug testing in the long run as well?)
Oops, I forgot about that error; fixed!