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Balance Philosophy?

Started by Salanewt, 17, December, 2015, 04:12:18 PM

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Salanewt

A topic where we can discuss and/or help fine-tune ideas on how Golden Sun (at least the first two) should be balanced. While there may certainly be flaws or oversights with a given opinion, it is unlikely that two people will have the same ideas; furthermore, even one person may have different ideas depending on how they want to balance a particular hack. For example, do they want to keep it close to how GS normally is or do they want to make it more like Paper Mario? It might help to preface your ideas with what your intentions are of course, but the point still stands. The idea isn't strictly for the perfection of GS, although that can certainly be the purpose of your ideas.

As there are so many areas we could start discussion with, I will leave it up to the next poster to lead the discussion with their ideas.
Oh yeah baby, £ me harder.

Fusion is just a cheap tactic to make weak Adepts stronger.

Yoshi's Lighthouse is a hacking website in progress. Why not check it out if you like Yoshi or the Mario & Luigi games?

Rolina

Well, since I've been making a freaking system with my philosophy, I might as well.

Spells:  Spells should always keep to formula.  This means that the balance of power to level and cost should never deviate.  Crazy stuff like Pure Pray breaks the game.  As such, it's more important to understand why the original games went off formula there and then to adjust the formula according to the spirit of it.  In this particular case, it's because by going strictly on formula Wish is too close to Pray, and thus renders it entirely obsolete.  Changing the growth formula for Single Target healing to account for this and keep it useful would have been the better choice here.

Spells should have weight behind them.  This is especially true for indirect spells, which are largely ignored in most jRPGs, let alone golden sun.  This means that spells that are effect-only should have a higher rate of success than spells that do damage while inflicting said ailment.  This is especially true for stronger effects like stun and KO.  This also has the added benefit of making people pay attention to the luck stat, as it becomes just as important as other defenses with this approach.

Summons should not be overglorified spells.  Ever.  This is a problem I have had with jRPGs since the concept was first introduced.  Rather, summons should work by adding another combatant to the field temporarily, something that I applauded FFX and XII for doing.

Spells need to have some kind of statistical association.  Unless everything, even physical blows, are all base damage, then simply sticking to base damage for spells isn't going to work.  At the same time, one should pay attention to the role spells play in GS, and plan a new stat for them accordingly.  Neither spells nor physical blows should be a clearly stronger act over the other - something much easier to do in GS, thanks to some physical skills costing PP as well (thus lowering much of the PP cost influence in the consideration).


Classes:  All classes must be useful at all points in the game.  At no point should a class ever be stricken aside as "just for early game" or "just for post game", as such things defeat the entire point of the class system IMO.  Classes, after all, are all about customizing your gameplay experience and approach.

Classes must serve a purpose.  GS' "winging it" style approach has constantly caused problems, rendering entire class lines as pointless because they just don't really do anything useful.  Giving each class a role to play in battle, and mixing it up for each and every party member, offers a ton more variety to the player.  Maybe they want Garet as the healer, counting on the fact that he's so slow to recover health after the enemies deal damage.  Maybe they want Ivan as the striker, dishing out heavy damage immediately to take down weaker threats before they can harm the party.  Maybe they want Mia to be the tank because f*** you, she's Mia, who knows.  But that should always be an option given to the players.  This also helps to prevent certain class combination from being "This awesome thing!  This awesome thing!  This awesome thing too!  And then you as well because that's all that was left..."  The "all that was left" should still be able to do something.  This is probably most easily seen in TBS, with the Samurai/Dragoon/White Mage/Ivan combo.  Ivan kinda gets screwed as Ranger, because the ranger really doesn't do anything...

Nobody's good at everything.  Even though I push the above philosophy, I also like the idea of each character having both an innate role, as well as an inept role.  Garet's innately a defender, as seen with his base class.  But maybe he's no good with strategy, so his inept role is that of a controller.  That means when he uses jupiter djinn, he'd not lean towards being a controller like other adepts, but instead be more of a jack of all trades.  Think Jenna's base class, how it was able to do a bit of everything.  It wasn't useless like Ranger, though - rather, it could be argued that the class specialized in doing what needed to be done.  Maybe the healer needs backup - in which case, you have some healing.  Maybe there's an opening in battle!  Strike away.  Raise defenses for those who need defending as well.  Sure, Garet may not be all that good at making the enemy dance to his tune, but then he'd easily just join in harmony with his allies instead.


General:  All things must have purpose.  Weapons, for example, should be more than just buffs to the attack stat.  Each weapon should have its own niche to fill and trends to follow.  Items should have a place in battle too - maybe instead of being just an imitation of a spell, attack items could have their own effects, maybe even allowing you to set up combos.  For example, what if the Oil Drop didn't just do fire damage, but also lowered fire resistance by a lot?  That could let you set up for some pretty powerful combos, and give the item purpose.  What about those items that can break when used in battle?  I think I've made my views on their sh*t-tier status in the past, but what if they had their own PP gauge, and that they didn't just have a random chance of breaking, but as you used them, it depleted?  Once it's out, it's not broken, but "tapped", and you'll have to get it recharged instead of repaired.  That'd make a lot more sense and encourage their use a lot more for those of us who don't think rolling the dice on the usefulness of gear has a place here.  Even simple differences between similar classes should be notable.  Maybe there's a reason to make Garet the striker instead of Isaac - maybe his take on it is worth doing over the more paladin-style Isaac uses.  Sure, Isaac does more damage... but Garet's power attacks are piercing, and some have a chance to lower enemy defense as well!  Or maybe you want Ivan and his ability to land powerful spells, striking at defenses that Isaac and Garet can't exploit as easily.  Or maybe you're that weirdo who really likes Mia wielding spiked maces with a slasher smile on her face, who knows.  But having different approaches to the same problem notably changes how you approach it, and often times for the better.

Risk vs Reward should be more of a factor as well.  As it stands, in basic GS some things just aren't worth the risk, and others are just exploitable.  Take Death Curse and unleashes as examples - a low chance of making sure the enemy will die in 7 turns.  Really?  I can kill him in three...  And unleashes are far too powerful to be both guaranteeable AND free.  Having a combination of both counters goes a long away - both having a cap on unleash rate, and a version of unleashes you can expend PP to use would help balance the risk vs reward, as those who don't care for the risk can always spend some PP to guarantee the use.

Enemies should be more than damage sponges that exist to give you xp and rewards.  They should work better with each other, and have roles in their "teams" the way the characters do.  This would add an element of strategy to battles - maybe you could take the enemy out quickly if that damned armor rat wouldn't keep tanking your hits!  And that damned rat warrior hits like a freaking truck, but you just can't get through to him because of his little buddy.  Of course, with the right weapon or spell this could be quickly taken care of...  And that's kind of what I think should happen.  Different areas encourage but don't require certain weapons or setups.  Maybe there's a ton of small foes in the area that zerg rush the bajeezus out of you.  AoE spam them into oblivion, and favor fast gear.  Maybe stuff here laughs at your physical blows.  Go for piercing and spell attacks.  Maybe they have nasty effects.  Go for weapons and spells that encourage control of your own.

Caledor

#2
QuoteSpells:  Spells should always keep to formula.
No need to be THAT strict, also consider you can't make a formula for everything. It's too time consuming and not worth the effort. Just try, test and correct. The real problem are the extremes, like Pure Wish. You should be fine with 2 or 3 general purpose easy formulas and then go from there.

QuoteSpells should have weight behind them.  [...] This means that spells that are effect-only should have a higher rate of success than spells that do damage while inflicting said ailment.  This is especially true for stronger effects like stun and KO.  This also has the added benefit of making people pay attention to the luck stat, as it becomes just as important as other defenses with this approach.
Absolutely agree but we lack the effect slots for that.

QuoteSummons should not be overglorified spells.  Ever.  This is a problem I have had with jRPGs since the concept was first introduced.  Rather, summons should work by adding another combatant to the field temporarily, something that I applauded FFX and XII for doing.
100% agree again, but FFX and XII just used the concept, the whole thing wasn't that great. Generally because you lose 1 or more team members, who are often better equipped/more useful, and some summons in XII are downright useless (Zalera=0xp) or just used as overglorified spells (Shemhazai, Zodiark). On the other hand we're talking about a GBA game so the whole djinn/summon thing looked like a very nice compromise to me. What's bad are the pp/mp costing summons: Those are really just spells with a longer animation.

QuoteSpells need to have some kind of statistical association.
Couldn't agree more. Not just spells OFC, but that's the main issue with the GS series.

QuoteClasses:  All classes must be useful at all points in the game.  At no point should a class ever be stricken aside as "just for early game" or "just for post game", as such things defeat the entire point of the class system IMO.  Classes, after all, are all about customizing your gameplay experience and approach.
It's a nice philosophy but to implement this we'd need way more ability slots per character. That, or (something i thought of just now) exploit the hell out of class tiers.

QuoteClasses must serve a purpose.
If classes don't serve a purpose, you're doing it wrong on the first place.

QuoteNobody's good at everything. Even though I push the above philosophy, I also like the idea of each character having both an innate role, as well as an inept role.
This applied OVER a good class system makes for a good gameplay. Many good class systems don't do this. FF5, for example.

QuoteGeneral:  All things must have purpose. [...] Each weapon should have its own niche to fill and trends to follow.  Items should have a place in battle too. [...] What about those items that can break when used in battle?  I think I've made my views on their sh*t-tier status in the past, but what if they had their own PP gauge, and that they didn't just have a random chance of breaking, but as you used them, it depleted?
First part agree, second not that big of an issue but yes the gauge idea is better than RNG.

QuoteRisk vs Reward should be more of a factor as well.  As it stands, in basic GS some things just aren't worth the risk, and others are just exploitable.  Take Death Curse and unleashes as examples
Those are just blunders. Like pure wish's cheapness or Paladin Jenna.

QuoteEnemies should be more than damage sponges that exist to give you xp and rewards.  They should work better with each other, and have roles in their "teams" the way the characters do.
agree on the roles, not really with cooperation. Random battles are frequent, and with randomness added you might encounter some VERY annoying or broken teams. like 3 tanks that will never defeat you but you take forever to kill.

leaf

Quote from: RoleSummons should not be overglorified spells.  Ever.  This is a problem I have had with jRPGs since the concept was first introduced.  Rather, summons should work by adding another combatant to the field temporarily, something that I applauded FFX and XII for doing.
I feel like you're taking more qualm with the name than you are the mechanic. Summons in GS work off a completely different resource from your normal psynergy, so I see nothing wrong with their fundamental implementation (balance is a different issue).

Quote from: CaledorNo need to be THAT strict, also consider you can't make a formula for everything. It's too time consuming and not worth the effort. Just try, test and correct. The real problem are the extremes, like Pure Wish. You should be fine with 2 or 3 general purpose easy formulas and then go from there.
Agreed. Formulas are a good starting place, but nothing can replace hand-tuning.
[spoiler=quotes]
[9:00:50 PM] Randel Peltier: Ok...what did I do last night?
[9:01:19 PM] Kain: Something boring, repetitive, and lasted for about sixty seconds.
---
[10:45:08 AM] Salanewt: But yeah, the elemental phalluses are being... Stroked up by Saturos and co., and the energy will go towards... Mt. Muffin, where the Golden Climax will arise.
[7:28:42 PM] Salanewt: An added bonus is that Isaac and co. were trying to stop Saturos and co. because their beliefs state that Mt. Muffin should remain a virgin.
---
[9:54:21 PM] Randel Peltier: Guess the number in my head an you get to pick what I say. Number between 1-10
[9:54:28 PM] leaf: 11
[9:54:36 PM] Randel Peltier: @#$%!
---
[8:38:13 PM] Randel Peltier: Shes like this queen up on a pedastal that I have yet to court.
[8:38:29 PM] Kain: You've tried courting her.
[8:38:43 PM] leaf: and failed spectacularly
[8:38:44 PM] Randel Peltier: Ive tried...shes the best dating game ever.
---
[12:24:35 AM] Salanewt: I need to find a picture of a naked person to put on the Christmas tree next year.
---
[2:19:06 PM] Zeadra: wait... Rief's a guy???
---
[1:09:57 PM] Zeadra: well if you want to know if its a new effect or something weird, just check GS1, if side step is there maby it is the nimble dodge thing
[1:10:35 PM] Kioll: For once, you've contributed something useful.  o.O[/spoiler]

VardenSalad

#4
I'm of the opinion that as little of the original games should be changed as possible. I don't like formulaic implementation of power. I don't like changing the summon system. I don't really even like changing statuses. When I'm playing Golden Sun, I want to be playing a game highly similar to vanilla, simply improved. I don't want FF Tactics: GS Edition.

My balance changes are restricted to the following methods:

1. Tweak enemy health. Not Attack, not Defense, not abilities. Literally attempting to shift enemies from dying in a certain way to dying in a slightly more complex or intensive way, like trying to get an enemy to the second combat round by having health enough to survive 3 direct basic attacks from the party.

2. Bringing sub-par psynergy series up to par and differentiating some of the series which are highly similar (Frost series, a good number of the Mars psynergy, making Elder Wood and Ester Wood different, making the Pixies different, tweaking Quake, etc.)

3. Passing around some of the more unique Psynergy to classes that could use some differentiation especially Psynergy from classes that get no play at all, like Tamer or Pierrot (Death Leap, Gale, Thunderstorm, Poison Flow, Elder/Estre Wood, Juggle, etc.)

4. Tweak outlier classes that seem to do multiple things too well after moving power around in the first two steps.

5. Tweak items.

Anything else seems overly involved and complex to the point of creating more problems than they solve.
Never forget why you started playing.

Salanewt

Makes sense. We seem to have a lot of similar ideas for what the end result should be, if not slightly different ideas for how to handle them.

I'm personally cool with having some deviation in spells to an extent, but I agree that Pure Ply and other things go overboard with that. Such deviations should be on a class-by-class basis though. For example, if class A and class B have... lets say Fiery Juggle in A and Supernova in B. Both have the same power, but Supernova has a higher PP cost. If the latter is only found in class B, then the higher cost may be justified if the class also has access to good healing spells that class A lacks. Otherwise they basically become reskins of one another.

I also like variation in class usefulness if the game can subtly nudge you towards a particular class or element depending on the situation (i.e. frequent Growth use -> earth is good to use in battle), although that's because my ideas behind balance also take field mechanics and map/room theming into very strong consideration. One big issue with them as well is an imbalance in eStats between mono/dual/tri/item classes, where you can normally just stay in your base classes for the entire game because there is little point in actually experimenting a lot of the time. Which is really bad. This does tie into your ideas around weapon use, since weapons and gear could be a good way to branch this gap between classes if a larger share of them were to provide eStat boosts or even drops.

In all honesty, this would even be a good way to branch the physical vs. psynergy imbalance as well if magic gear can provide higher boosts on average than warrior gear; with some overlap of course. While I still have to go through equipment and items in Disco Sun, one of the minor changes I made was to make the Wooden Stick provide +5 to every ePower stat. This also accompanies a very major change how eStats are distributed to begin with and allows mages (and warriors) to move along the fighter-mage spectrum by fiddling with their gear and classes. Once gear is actually balanced in my hack, it should be much easier for mages to specialize in magic stuff.

And that's mostly because I think player characters are overpowered, with enemies having no means of effectively countering them. Many ways to fix that, but something I'd like to experiment with is giving some enemies the ability to manipulate your djinn and class setups every so often. Kind of like what select bosses can do near the end, but having it start as early as... Yampi in GS2. I think. Gnomes feel like a good candidate for such an ability, and it could be a nice way to handle a number of issues as well.


That actually goes over a number of things. I mostly agree with the idea of summons just being glorified spells that leave you weakened for a few turns, although it could be cool to have a single summon that works like those FF games. I think having whip/summoner spells work like that might be better though; swap out the caster for the summoned monster, and then let the player access its moveset for a couple turns. That would probably be too much work to be worthwhile, but still.

Oh yeah baby, £ me harder.

Fusion is just a cheap tactic to make weak Adepts stronger.

Yoshi's Lighthouse is a hacking website in progress. Why not check it out if you like Yoshi or the Mario & Luigi games?

Rolina

@Formulas:  I find the opposite to be true.  I already have the formulas, they work fine.  I just round to the nearest nice looking values and call it a day.  Plug and play, simple as that.

@Effect slots:  The hell makes you think I'm using the editor and GS as a base?  The fact I want to add new stats kinda makes that moot, doesn't it?

@More ability slots per character:  No we don't.  What are you talking about?  I already solved this, it was one of my criticisms of your balance patch, remember?  Too many spells of redundant strength levels.

@FF5 example:  Any class system that uses global classes it wouldn't work on.  It'd have to be done in the way GS does it, with classes associated with the individual rather than global association.

@Team complaint:  You're not just going to throw random groups of monsters together when using this philosophy, dood...

@Varden:  That's... an odd opening statement.  GS is largely formulaic as is, only a few spells ever go off-formula.  So what you're basically saying is that you don't like vanilla, you just wanna keep to vanilla...  Golden Sun Tactics would be completely different than what I described simply due to the mechanic of being able to move around and strike foes on a 2d plane rather than a 1d one like we have now.  Also, "tweak" isn't a philosophy.  Philosophy is about the approach you make when tweaking.

Caledor

Quote@Effect slots:  The hell makes you think I'm using the editor and GS as a base?  The fact I want to add new stats kinda makes that moot, doesn't it?
Nothing, it was just a statement. I wanted to do it too, but I couldn't. Simple as that. On the other hand new stats could theoretically be implemented with assembly.

Quote@More ability slots per character:  No we don't.  What are you talking about?  I already solved this, it was one of my criticisms of your balance patch, remember?  Too many spells of redundant strength levels.
I do remember. But to have mages that perform well at every point of the game you have to solve the spell level gap thing. I don't think it can be accomplished with only 14/16 slots without renouncing to something else, be it element variety or other sub-roles the class might have.

Quote@FF5 example:  Any class system that uses global classes it wouldn't work on.  It'd have to be done in the way GS does it, with classes associated with the individual rather than global association.
I basically said the same thing. FF5 was just the example of a good game that could've been better if followed that advice.

Salanewt

Just want to mention that new ability effects would probably be quite a bit easier to add than new stats. I also think that, with a few tweaks and a little work, the existing eStat modifiers could work quite well for this purpose. Using eLevels as some sort of "mastery" stat might help too, which is even supported by their inclusion in the ailment infliction formula. Not sure that would be necessary though. The reason for this is because there is never any indicator that psynergy requires any level of training, unlike where one would have to train somewhat to be a fighter. Ivan learns Reveal from Ham(m)a in seconds, the purple-haired chick and Tret both gain powers suddenly when they are pelleted by psynergy stones, Eoleo can use hand powers as a baby (after getting hit by a stone, but still), the baby in Contigo can conjure whirlwinds with ease, the rewards for the Rock dungeons in GS2, Babi learned enough psynergy to use Cloak, various monsters can use spells... and so on. The only exception is the very beginning of GS1 where Garet is training by using Move, but their teacher is Kraden; Kraden isn't even an adept to begin with and seems incapable or at least not yet capable of using psynergy, so it seems weird that he would actually be able to teach them how to use it. Especially when mere babies can use it with supposedly little to no training.

[spoiler=Before anyone tries to refute the Babi and Kraden stuff :P]
Quote
Sheba    : But... Babi stole a Lemurian ship from you, right? That means that
            he can sail it... You said yourself that he used it to flee the
            island!

Kraden  : Unfortunately, Babi was the only one of us who could use the ship.

Piers     : You see, Lemurian ships can only be helmed by Adepts... Which is why
            I have to get my black orb back! I must be able to captain my ship!
            There may be something up ahead on this path. Then let's go...
[/spoiler]

As such, my view is that physical strength takes effort to build while certain individuals may be more capable of using psynergy for longer periods of time. At the same time though, real battles are no place to train for physical strength (through the use of heavy weaponry or armour) and there is little opportunity to do so when already on a quest. Likewise, everyone should have equal spell power as there is no hint of the opposite being true anywhere in the plot. In this case, classes and worldly experience/the leveling system can allow adepts to acquire different spells that differentiate them from each other if they are naturally prone to entering those classes, while further proficiency should come down to more specific things. I really like the idea of using gear for this, since even warriors have gear that boosts their attack and defence more than magic gear does; why can't the reverse be true for eStats?

Keeping in mind too that stat growths do not differ too greatly between characters for the most part, assuming a circumstance where stats are untouched by class multipliers. Isaac's base attack at level 99, which is the highest in GS1, is only 44 points higher than Ivan's, the lowest in GS1. A new magic proficiency stat would wind up being a magic-oriented clone of an already existing attack stat, when it is generally classes and gear that add the true variation in stats. Djinn already manipulate your eStats, but they do so separately from class multipliers due to their universal nature. Universally applied modifiers and such. Any methods chosen to balance magic and swords so they are on an equal playing field should probably attempt to have the balance still apply in a setting where there are no class multipliers before trying maintain this balance with them. A new stat or two for that could theoretically work, but why bother when you already have eight others that could be used in a similar way?


Class/spell limit issue: Eh, I don't really see an issue with this. If you can make all or most spells have a viable use (including ailments), then you could probably achieve this by giving the magic-oriented classes more options that do not cause direct damage or healing. 16 slots could theoretically give a mage: 9 direct damaging abilities (three lines), 2-5 ailments (e.g. drain, PP drain, poison, venom, bind), and 2-3 buffs (e.g. guard, protect). In this example, you have a magic class that can prevent casters from using spells, boost the party's defences against their [possibly weak] physical attacks or the attacks of opponent fighters in battle, and cause both direct and indirect damage to enemies; they can even heal themselves and replenish HP and PP by using the drain spells, both of which are options that also directly harm the target. You can have a pretty good setup if you pair this up with a healer of some variety. Maybe the trade-off is that it becomes harder to counter physical attackers or walls with this setup, but it could still work well in many situations.
Oh yeah baby, £ me harder.

Fusion is just a cheap tactic to make weak Adepts stronger.

Yoshi's Lighthouse is a hacking website in progress. Why not check it out if you like Yoshi or the Mario & Luigi games?

Rolina

@Mages preform well:  With Casting and Warding as stats, that opens up the ability to use Casting as a power source for spells like Ragnarok, as well as make spell damage more common.  These suggestions don't exist independently from one another, they are intended to work well together.  With a spell version of the attack and defense stats, you're able to mitigate the problems with the delay between spells and able to focus fire better.  Not only do you have EPA-style spells scaling much better than Base Damage, but you also have weapons that deal spell damage, equipment that boosts spellcasting in similar ways to attack.  Using this setup, as well as the rules defined in my character creation tools, the ability slots thing not only becomes a non issue, but remains as a mechanic designed to encourage alt-classing.

Caledor

Quote from: Rolina on 18, December, 2015, 06:21:47 PM
@Mages preform well:  With Casting and Warding as stats, that opens up the ability to use Casting as a power source for spells like Ragnarok, as well as make spell damage more common.  These suggestions don't exist independently from one another, they are intended to work well together.  With a spell version of the attack and defense stats, you're able to mitigate the problems with the delay between spells and able to focus fire better.  Not only do you have EPA-style spells scaling much better than Base Damage, but you also have weapons that deal spell damage, equipment that boosts spellcasting in similar ways to attack.  Using this setup, as well as the rules defined in my character creation tools, the ability slots thing not only becomes a non issue, but remains as a mechanic designed to encourage alt-classing.
This explains a lot. I got kinda lost reading your first post cause it seemed that at times you were making specific complaints to the GS engine and in other parts you were talking about RPGs in general.

Rolina

Also, why all the tearing apart of my philosophy?  Why not, you know, share yours?  We all have different approaches.

Caledor

#12
Quote from: Rolina on 18, December, 2015, 08:23:22 PM
Also, why all the tearing apart of my philosophy?  Why not, you know, share yours?  We all have different approaches.
Why are you getting so defensive? The first poster was the one to lead the discussion, that's all. Besides, we've been discussing my balancing philosophy for the last 11 months on this very forum... i don't understand why it should be THAT bad talking about yours or anyone else's approach.

@Varden. Changing as little as possible to leave the "feel" of the original game is fine but things need to be changed. I think anyone agrees that Delusion is useless in vanilla GS. From level 12-13 onwards you either use ragnarok-like psynergies or unleashes in place of physical attacks, and both ignore it.
1. why is fine tweaking HP of enemies but not other stats? Those are just numbers... and tweaking only HP isn't going to make a fight more difficult, only longer. Also, if you're doing it only to give it a chance to act before it dies, raising only agility is also an option.
2. Didn't really get the elder wood and pixie part, but beginner psynergies are needed.
3. Didn't get this one also. Is it juggle that should be given to other classes so it sees some play or the pierrot that should become stronger?

leaf

#13
If I was going to create a game from the ground up, I probably wouldn't even have tiers of spells. A fire-based class gets one single-target fire spell, and its damage scales off of a magic stat. Done. Then they get another fire spell that does an AOE. And another one that has some kind of secondary effect but is weaker. And so on. The end result is every spell serves a purpose, and no spell is ever completely obsoleted. Now, that's not to say there is no merit to having a stronger attack that costs more, so there might be *some* overlap of pure damaging abilities, but not to the extent that GS does it. Basically, you balance it such that the stronger attack costs considerably more, making it a poor choice for drawn-out or low-threat battles, but it remains effective when you just need to nuke something to get it off the map. This represents a meaningful choice to the player, something that vanilla GS generally fails to do (at least in respect to base damage psynergy).

Look at the angel class in vanilla GS. You have the ice-ice horn-ice missile line, and the frost-tundra-glacier line. All six of these spells take 3 targets and have no effect other than doing damage (except the basic form of ice, which takes a single target). Their only real difference is some do more damage than others in exchange for more PP. But, these have to compete with basic attacks, so you don't even feel the PP increase with the higher max PP and PP regen you get as you progress.  By the time you learn ice missile, you have no reason to use any of the other *five* abilities that you have in your arsenal, which is... really wasteful. I'd rather have a single spell fill the role of all *six* of these, opening up room for more interesting effects and a richer design space. Because when you get right down to it, this is just six skins for one spell. It's pretty boring.

Quote@Varden. Changing as little as possible to leave the "feel" of the original game is fine but things need to be changed. I think anyone agrees that Delusion is useless in vanilla GS. From level 12-13 onwards you either use ragnarok-like psynergies or unleashes in place of physical attacks, and both ignore it.
Yeah, but that doesn't mean that the solution is increasing the delusion rate, like you did for your hack. That just encourages using EPA psys or unleashes even more >_>

Quote1. why is fine tweaking HP of enemies but not other stats? Those are just numbers... and tweaking only HP isn't going to make a fight more difficult, only longer. Also, if you're doing it only to give it a chance to act before it dies, raising only agility is also an option.
Agility is a tricky subject. Basically, if you make an enemy bulkier, it introduces a choice for the player: They can either burn through some resources to inflict more damage to an enemy, wiping it out before it can act, or they can let it take an action in exchange for not burning through those resources. If you just make the enemy faster, this is no longer a choice; you're going to get hit - no matter what.

[spoiler=quotes]
[9:00:50 PM] Randel Peltier: Ok...what did I do last night?
[9:01:19 PM] Kain: Something boring, repetitive, and lasted for about sixty seconds.
---
[10:45:08 AM] Salanewt: But yeah, the elemental phalluses are being... Stroked up by Saturos and co., and the energy will go towards... Mt. Muffin, where the Golden Climax will arise.
[7:28:42 PM] Salanewt: An added bonus is that Isaac and co. were trying to stop Saturos and co. because their beliefs state that Mt. Muffin should remain a virgin.
---
[9:54:21 PM] Randel Peltier: Guess the number in my head an you get to pick what I say. Number between 1-10
[9:54:28 PM] leaf: 11
[9:54:36 PM] Randel Peltier: @#$%!
---
[8:38:13 PM] Randel Peltier: Shes like this queen up on a pedastal that I have yet to court.
[8:38:29 PM] Kain: You've tried courting her.
[8:38:43 PM] leaf: and failed spectacularly
[8:38:44 PM] Randel Peltier: Ive tried...shes the best dating game ever.
---
[12:24:35 AM] Salanewt: I need to find a picture of a naked person to put on the Christmas tree next year.
---
[2:19:06 PM] Zeadra: wait... Rief's a guy???
---
[1:09:57 PM] Zeadra: well if you want to know if its a new effect or something weird, just check GS1, if side step is there maby it is the nimble dodge thing
[1:10:35 PM] Kioll: For once, you've contributed something useful.  o.O[/spoiler]

Salanewt

Oh dear, lol. I'm honestly not trying to Role, my goal was to explain mine after some more came in but then some discussion started and my posts ended up being somewhat comparative. My apologies!

[spoiler=LONG]Anyway: My philosophy is that you need to balance both battle and field mechanics. I have a changelog for Disco Sun that covers some of what I have done so far, but my idea for a balanced out-of-battle gameplay is to have certain things, like utility effects and even running, streamlined so the player can spend more time solving puzzles than watching the puzzles get solved. Likewise, this also means that many dungeons won't be mazes. I would like to aim for having more dungeons like this throughout and especially near the start of the game, albeit with less jumping around obviously.

In the end, I want both variety and at least a little more straightforwardness. One thing that I dislike about GS is that many of the dungeons are pretty similar. A majority of them are caves or have cave segments in them; very few have no cave portions in them at all and several towns have caves as well. This ultimately means that most tilesets are at least partially shared across numerous locations and only have palette swaps applied to them. Another thing is that many utilities, while visually or thematically distinct, serve extremely similar purposes in the end. You use Hover on certain spots to hover over gaps, you use Sand on certain parts to bypass rocks or walls, you use Blaze on certain objects to light other objects on fire to continue, Move moves tall objects on the ground while Carry moves short objects through the air and Lift holds different short objects in the air, Growth creates vertical ladders and Lash creates angled or horizontal stepladders... and so forth. There is a lot of potential for variety, but on the whole Camelot often did little to take advantage of it and many dungeons can be reduced to a couple gimmicks. Gaia Rock had Growth for a maze, Move to move tall objects, Cyclone for floating platforms, Whirlwind for swinging vines, and Reveal for a statue that could be used to move bigger statues. It's tough to say whether Move puzzles even count as puzzles most of the time, but the majority of these abilities are also wind-related. In an earth dungeon. The Whirlwind one even comes back in a later dungeon, except the vines are replaced with chains. Hover also fills the same role as Cyclone and the leaf platforms in the same dungeon, just with a different floor tile required to activate it.

That's not even going into the fact that the leaf platforms carry you all the way around the room before taking you to your destination, but it's not like it is a timing puzzle that requires you to carefully time your jumps or anything. It's a literal duplicate of the iceberg hopping puzzle in Karst, with the penguins and stuff. It would seem like the intent for both versions of the puzzle was for the player to be able to mess up and fall off (there actually is an event in Karst that is fully programmed to reload the room if you fail), but the code was never set up to allow for this to happen. I have the code set up to make such timing puzzles possible in Disco Sun at least, so I can try making some puzzles like that in the future.

Dungeons are also mostly mazes. Heck, the entire Eastern Sea in GS2 is more or less a giant maze (which would be pretty sweet if there were any amount of guidance in-game). While mazes can certainly be fun, not every dungeon should be one. Crossbone Isle may be one of the only not-mazes, but it is also a pretty bland dungeon with almost nothing unique about it at all. Aside from the bonus boss at the very end, it has few to no unique puzzles, no wholly unique enemies, and no wholly unique tilesets. Virtually everything is just a palette swap or reskin of something else that appeared earlier in GS1, perhaps barring a couple items, and every puzzle room is preceded by the same stairwell and an invisible fixed encounter. The end of Mars Lighthouse is pretty bad for that too with the four elemental flame portions copying puzzles from across both games, but maybe not as bad as Crossbone. Maybe.

So, yeah. I basically feel like the overworld should be given a little variety, and this can even extend to towns. Still working out the kinks, but I have a WIP time hack with a day cycle that will one day be incorporated to Disco Sun. Should be pretty sweet when it's done, but the goal is to tie many things (inn rates, store hours, PP regeneration, random encounters, etc.) to it eventually.


To summarize everything I have said or wanted to say so far:
- PCs are too strong, rather than enemies being too weak; this is particularly true of attack and agility, which is in part why physical attacks are so good later in the game
- PCs should be weakened and enemies should have more counters to accommodate that; for example, counters against summons and the class system
- Hopefully, with more counters, enemies can last long enough for other options to be viable (and other options should actually have some effort put into them to be viable, but this isn't hard to do at all)
- Aside from that, many things are cool right now (including the eStats); some things could also be added though, like Charm (WIP) and/or other effects
- There should be variety in everything, both in the field and battle; many utilities are rehashes of each other in the way they are used, but they could be so much more
- Dungeons and puzzles should be unique and interesting, as should towns;
- Camelot did not take advantage of the games/series' capacity to provide a good amount of variety
- Etc.

There are also a lot of other things that I am reconsidering for Disco Sun. For example, should I consider the "no tiers" approach that leaf discussed (or at least an approach where higher tiers completely replace lower ones in higher classes)? Should I re-examine my changes to eStat growth and distribution to make multi-elemental classes equal to mono-elemental? Should I introduce a level and/or HP/PP stat cap? Should I reduce class multipliers? I haven't made any concrete decisions for this stuff yet, but Disco Sun's balance and introductory release will be rolled out over a few different patches. I have plenty of time to mull things over once I get the basics out of the way.


Agility: Just want to mention, but PCs have RNG applied to their agility stats. So you can take that into consideration too if you want to try balancing it better/differently.

Leaf/tiers: I very briefly touched up on redundancy and reskins in an earlier post (mostly in justifying formula deviation), but I agree for the most part. Considering the option of doing something like that for Disco Sun, but I haven't decided yet. It sometimes gets worse than the ice/frost example though. Juggle and Blast(Nova) are exactly the same, except one is learned a level earlier than the other while later tiers are equal in power but different in PP cost and level learned.

In this instance, how would you handle

Delusion: In all honesty, I think it's one of the most useful ailments that the player can use against enemies in a standard spell (not counting djinn, items, summons, or unleashes). Almost useless against the player of course, but it could theoretically be painful if accompanied by bind/seal in the same battle... if the two appeared together more often. This is mostly because the majority of enemies are physical attackers with at least one attack command, and their AI doesn't seem to acknowledge delusion most of the time. Drain and PP drain can fail and aren't strong enough for when you get them, condemn fails too often and bosses are immune, haunt is too random for short battles and bosses are immune, there are not enough caster enemies to justify bind/seal a majority of the time (if you even know which enemies are casters to begin with), and the counter for curse is too high for it to do anything against enemies that are actually vulnerable to it unless you really suck at killing things fast. Sleep is the only spell-induced ailment that is better, and that's only because the target that is inflicted with it is unable to cure themselves or perform any other action. And it is multi-target, so if all goes well you can immobilize a couple enemies for 2+ turns. Debuffs are okay, but they have a similar problem to curse in random encounters.

As for the other ailments that actually made it in the game; stun is basically a reskin of sleep and is therefore useful when it lands, poison and venom are really good but there are few options to actually inflict them on enemies (and bosses are immune), 1-turn stun is basically a short, guaranteed sleep/stun that can be useful sometimes, and expulsion would be okay if it were guaranteed to work against all non-boss monsters but sucks mostly for its low success rate and the lack of experience provision.

Oh, and break. Break is actually pretty good and can make buffs, which are generally okay at higher levels, pretty worthless. Not really an ailment, but still. This is mostly because it is guaranteed to land on any target.

Aside from that, the only other finished effects you can activate in battle are counter/reflux and regenerate. The latter of these is probably the best effect in the entire game (behind poison/venom maybe), but the former is only good if you are attacked. So about 50/50 if it only lasts one turn. [/spoiler]
Oh yeah baby, £ me harder.

Fusion is just a cheap tactic to make weak Adepts stronger.

Yoshi's Lighthouse is a hacking website in progress. Why not check it out if you like Yoshi or the Mario & Luigi games?

leaf

QuoteThe end of Mars Lighthouse is pretty bad for that too with the four elemental flame portions copying puzzles from across both games, but maybe not as bad as Crossbone. Maybe.
Actually, this is a pretty standard practice, making the final dungeon basically just a bigger and better version of all stuff you've already seen before. Mario and luigi does this too. The final dungeon should not be the place to introduce new mechanics.


QuoteDelusion: In all honesty, I think it's one of the most useful ailments that the player can use against enemies in a standard spell (not counting djinn, items, summons, or unleashes). Almost useless against the player of course, but it could theoretically be painful if accompanied by bind/seal in the same battle... if the two appeared together more often. This is mostly because the majority of enemies are physical attackers with at least one attack command, and their AI doesn't seem to acknowledge delusion most of the time. Drain and PP drain can fail and aren't strong enough for when you get them, condemn fails too often and bosses are immune, haunt is too random for short battles and bosses are immune, there are not enough caster enemies to justify bind/seal a majority of the time (if you even know which enemies are casters to begin with), and the counter for curse is too high for it to do anything against enemies that are actually vulnerable to it unless you really suck at killing things fast. Sleep is the only spell-induced ailment that is better, and that's only because the target that is inflicted with it is unable to cure themselves or perform any other action. And it is multi-target, so if all goes well you can immobilize a couple enemies for 2+ turns. Debuffs are okay, but they have a similar problem to curse in random encounters.
Tbh, sleep should be a hella expensive psynergy with near-100% success rate. The *only* time you would ever use it is against foes that you can't fight normally, that if they manage to escape being put to sleep, you're dead. Except that half the time it doesn't work, and you'd have been better off just using your strongest AOE psynergy instead.

Condemn should either not be given to players, or should get the same treatment. You wanna instant kill a normal enemy? Okay, fine, then pay 50 PP for it. It's too inconsistent to ever be worth using as is, and feels more like a secondary effect than a main one (think about the assassin ability in fire emblem).

QuoteAs for the other ailments that actually made it in the game; stun is basically a reskin of sleep and is therefore useful when it lands, poison and venom are really good but there are few options to actually inflict them on enemies (and bosses are immune), 1-turn stun is basically a short, guaranteed sleep/stun that can be useful sometimes, and expulsion would be okay if it were guaranteed to work against all non-boss monsters but sucks mostly for its low success rate and the lack of experience provision.
You can inflict venom on moapa, actually. He has 39 luck. It's the entire crux of the low level strategy against him, using wheeze to poison him while you disable him and his cronies with other status.

QuoteOh, and break. Break is actually pretty good and can make buffs, which are generally okay at higher levels, pretty worthless. Not really an ailment, but still. This is mostly because it is guaranteed to land on any target.
Break needs a single-target version. It's horribly powerful against the party, but only "useful" against enemies. It would open up a decent design space for bosses to have a single-target break without having to negate buffing as a strategy for the entire party. Maybe attach it to a single-target damaging ability, if it was too weak as just a break effect.

QuoteAgility: Just want to mention, but PCs have RNG applied to their agility stats. So you can take that into consideration too if you want to try balancing it better/differently.
I definitely would want to adjust this. A total revamp of the agility system wouldn't be out of consideration, either, but I feel like that's getting more into designing whole new systems.

QuoteIn this instance, how would you handle
Handle... what...? To skype!
Quote from: Sala on skypeThe question was going to involve how you would handle two things in that situation:
a) Are tiers replaced by upgrades (partly to take advantage of animations) or do spells remain constant?
b) Do you fill in the blank spell slots with other things? If so, how would you handle it?

Tiers could upgrade (so as to take advantage of the many animations in GS), but differences between tiers would be minimal. For instance, maybe a 100 power spell at base tier upgrades to 110 at tier 2, and 120 at tier 3. Range could potentially upgrade, so you might still see something go from 3 targets (T1) to 3 targets (T2) to 5 targets (T3). And because the upgrade is so minor/is supposed to be a reward for being in a higher tier class, cost remains consistent across all tiers. Note that this *is* meant to go with an actual magic stat, so it doesn't work well with vanilla GS stats; this so-called "100 power" ability is something you'd have access to at lv1.

As for the blank spell slots... well, yes. That's the point of introducing abilities that do different things. Not every class will necessarily use all of the available spell slots, but I think that's fine. That actually opens up the design space for having certain classes with an exceptionally large number of spells. For instance, you might have a tri-elemental class that uses all 16 slots, while a mono or dual element class only uses 10.
[spoiler=quotes]
[9:00:50 PM] Randel Peltier: Ok...what did I do last night?
[9:01:19 PM] Kain: Something boring, repetitive, and lasted for about sixty seconds.
---
[10:45:08 AM] Salanewt: But yeah, the elemental phalluses are being... Stroked up by Saturos and co., and the energy will go towards... Mt. Muffin, where the Golden Climax will arise.
[7:28:42 PM] Salanewt: An added bonus is that Isaac and co. were trying to stop Saturos and co. because their beliefs state that Mt. Muffin should remain a virgin.
---
[9:54:21 PM] Randel Peltier: Guess the number in my head an you get to pick what I say. Number between 1-10
[9:54:28 PM] leaf: 11
[9:54:36 PM] Randel Peltier: @#$%!
---
[8:38:13 PM] Randel Peltier: Shes like this queen up on a pedastal that I have yet to court.
[8:38:29 PM] Kain: You've tried courting her.
[8:38:43 PM] leaf: and failed spectacularly
[8:38:44 PM] Randel Peltier: Ive tried...shes the best dating game ever.
---
[12:24:35 AM] Salanewt: I need to find a picture of a naked person to put on the Christmas tree next year.
---
[2:19:06 PM] Zeadra: wait... Rief's a guy???
---
[1:09:57 PM] Zeadra: well if you want to know if its a new effect or something weird, just check GS1, if side step is there maby it is the nimble dodge thing
[1:10:35 PM] Kioll: For once, you've contributed something useful.  o.O[/spoiler]

Salanewt

Mars: I mostly agree with that, but I also feel like the copied puzzles should be a step up from what it copies rather than just copying it. Maybe spiced up a tiny bit; no need for new mechanics, but at least mixing it up with previously introduced mechanics would be awesome. The trial and error Move statues are a good example of why I'm iffy about that section. Like, I think the Jupiter part actually did a fairly decent job with spicing things up, even with the trial and error cyclone warps, but then there were pipe pushing puzzles in both the Mercury and Mars areas. The Venus section was probably the only "bad" one in my opinion, and that's because the only puzzle it has that was not in the others was the use of Sand, and all that did was replace how you avoid the flames. Well, there is also Carry, but all that does is make it so you can drag an object to block a trap in a very similar manner to what you do in the Mars section. I don't know, it just feels like there could have been more variety in the ending section there, even if just using puzzles that appeared earlier in the game/series.

The lack of transfer data could be a pretty big issue with that, but then you still have Parch, Tremor, Grind, Lash, Mind Read, Growth, Douse, Whirlwind, Lift, Pound, and Scoop go entirely unused if I recall correctly. If excluding the three warp/escape spells (Avoid, Retreat, Teleport), the four GS1 or transfer-exclusive (Force, Catch, Cloak, Halt), and the two unused/unfinished ones (Arrow and Magnet), just over half (11/21) of the utilities go entirely unused in this area. So much wasted potential in my opinion.


Sleep: Maybe not 100%, but I agree that it should have a higher success rate. Higher rate for a little more PP, and maybe easier to recover from as a tradeoff (and to make Stun desirable over it in certain circumstances, should it be made available as a spell).

Condemn: Ditto, both your answer to it and mine. The djinni effect for expelling foes should be the one with 100% out of the two (especially as a djinni effect), but condemn should still be higher for sure. Almost every ailment should be higher though, with the notable exception being Break. Well, Break if it remains multi-target. It should be high for sure, but probably not guaranteed. I tweaked the formulas to make infliction rates higher without actually changing most of them, but I may need to revisit the rates for Disco Sun later.

Moapa: Both the editor and the wiki(s) say 40 in this case, which sucks because 39 would be a pretty fair tradeoff. His knights have 36 each though, so the venom thing would work there.

Break: I could get behind that if bosses and other enemies can use it more regularly than full break.

Agility: Same, I think. At the very least so RNG also applies to enemy agility stats in the same way.

Skype: Sounds neat. I have considered experimenting with this sort of thing in a vanilla GS setting (with no magic stat), but the way you describe it sounds pretty balanced overall. Added bonus is that utility spells wouldn't go up in cost either.



Just to add some more discussion stuff, but a part of my goal in adding variety is also to change and/or improve on mechanics and other things that are already in GS. For example, I plan to add Confuse, Charm, and Reflect as fully functional ailments/effects. I also want to work out which utilities and/or field effects I want to add to the game. Lift in particular is basically going to be a new utility in Disco Sun, although I still need to work out some of the minor details and do some testing to be sure. I am also seriously considering the idea of a swimming mechanic, rather than a "Float" spell to mimic GS1's Jesus effect. Swimming feels like it would be a pretty good fit without ending up as water Hover, so that's nice. I figure it could be limited to certain bodies of water, and not be permitted in either frigid settings or beyond the shallows of the world map. Not sure about rivers yet though.

I also want to try getting diagonal block pushing and Move puzzles to work somehow, but I'm not entirely sure about keeping such a change unless I can test it beforehand. Same with diagonal jumping. The animations exist for both things at least, so that would work until I get around to sprite editing later on.
Oh yeah baby, £ me harder.

Fusion is just a cheap tactic to make weak Adepts stronger.

Yoshi's Lighthouse is a hacking website in progress. Why not check it out if you like Yoshi or the Mario & Luigi games?

leaf

QuoteMoapa: Both the editor and the wiki(s) say 40 in this case, which sucks because 39 would be a pretty fair tradeoff. His knights have 36 each though, so the venom thing would work there.
I misremembered. The low level strat uses wheeze on the knights, not moapa himself.

QuoteSleep: Maybe not 100%, but I agree that it should have a higher success rate. Higher rate for a little more PP, and maybe easier to recover from as a tradeoff (and to make Stun desirable over it in certain circumstances, should it be made available as a spell).
Quote from: Sala on skype, about vanilla GS ratesStun = 20%
Sleep = 50%
[12:52:48 AM] Love Machine: Those are the recovery rates.
[12:53:54 AM] Love Machine: 080B066C - 45% (24 - Sleep)
...
080B0698 - 40% (23 - Stun, 85 - Stun)
[12:54:24 AM | Edited 12:54:40 AM] Love Machine: In an unmodified game. So that is actually pretty bad; Stun is clearly superior to Sleep.
The answer is simple: You don't make stun available as a spell. In vanilla GS, it's only available through djinn, *because* it's a stronger effect. Additionally, it pays for being a stronger effect by having a slightly lower infliction rate. Anyway, I wouldn't have all status abilities of a given type (e.g. sleep) use the same infliction rate to begin with. Some forms of putting a foe to sleep should be more consistent than others.
[spoiler=quotes]
[9:00:50 PM] Randel Peltier: Ok...what did I do last night?
[9:01:19 PM] Kain: Something boring, repetitive, and lasted for about sixty seconds.
---
[10:45:08 AM] Salanewt: But yeah, the elemental phalluses are being... Stroked up by Saturos and co., and the energy will go towards... Mt. Muffin, where the Golden Climax will arise.
[7:28:42 PM] Salanewt: An added bonus is that Isaac and co. were trying to stop Saturos and co. because their beliefs state that Mt. Muffin should remain a virgin.
---
[9:54:21 PM] Randel Peltier: Guess the number in my head an you get to pick what I say. Number between 1-10
[9:54:28 PM] leaf: 11
[9:54:36 PM] Randel Peltier: @#$%!
---
[8:38:13 PM] Randel Peltier: Shes like this queen up on a pedastal that I have yet to court.
[8:38:29 PM] Kain: You've tried courting her.
[8:38:43 PM] leaf: and failed spectacularly
[8:38:44 PM] Randel Peltier: Ive tried...shes the best dating game ever.
---
[12:24:35 AM] Salanewt: I need to find a picture of a naked person to put on the Christmas tree next year.
---
[2:19:06 PM] Zeadra: wait... Rief's a guy???
---
[1:09:57 PM] Zeadra: well if you want to know if its a new effect or something weird, just check GS1, if side step is there maby it is the nimble dodge thing
[1:10:35 PM] Kioll: For once, you've contributed something useful.  o.O[/spoiler]

Salanewt

I definitely agree with you there, should Stun remain unavailable as a spell. May opt for a slight boost in the event that there is a single-target sleep ability/unleash, but even then it wouldn't be by much. May even be able to leave it the same if the infliction/recovery animations are tweaked slightly (like in Disco Sun so far).
Oh yeah baby, £ me harder.

Fusion is just a cheap tactic to make weak Adepts stronger.

Yoshi's Lighthouse is a hacking website in progress. Why not check it out if you like Yoshi or the Mario & Luigi games?

Caledor

Quote from: leaf on 18, December, 2015, 09:51:43 PM
Quote@Varden. Changing as little as possible to leave the "feel" of the original game is fine but things need to be changed. I think anyone agrees that Delusion is useless in vanilla GS. From level 12-13 onwards you either use ragnarok-like psynergies or unleashes in place of physical attacks, and both ignore it.
Yeah, but that doesn't mean that the solution is increasing the delusion rate, like you did for your hack. That just encourages using EPA psys or unleashes even more >_>
From the next version Delusion will completely shut down unleashes.

Quote from: leaf on 18, December, 2015, 09:51:43 PM
Quote1. why is fine tweaking HP of enemies but not other stats? Those are just numbers... and tweaking only HP isn't going to make a fight more difficult, only longer. Also, if you're doing it only to give it a chance to act before it dies, raising only agility is also an option.
Agility is a tricky subject. Basically, if you make an enemy bulkier, it introduces a choice for the player: They can either burn through some resources to inflict more damage to an enemy, wiping it out before it can act, or they can let it take an action in exchange for not burning through those resources. If you just make the enemy faster, this is no longer a choice; you're going to get hit - no matter what.
Hmm, well you have a point. But still, if the issue with a enemy is that it poses no threat at all, increasing its attack should be the correct play. I just think that limiting your options from the get-go is wrong.