[auraplatonic]

I have been working on the revamps in preparation for Beta 6 for a while. In the end I have decided to revamp all current content and release it as Beta 6, because the sheer amount of things I am changing will merit it. Beta 6 will demand a restart of the game because there will be core changes in response to things that I really didn't react to the right way originally. I will also be extensively testing everything in advance and will do a full playthrough on my own to make sure there are no bugs, inconsistencies, or major imbalances.


The original goal with Dancing Mad was to have the player feel like it was sort of a casual, breezy experience where really no additional battles were needed for the player to proceed; you are generally given enough gold and experience to beat the boss at your level but it was still hard because you had to find the right strategy. This really is the optimum design when you think about it because the player already knows the game so they are not forced through tedium in order to be able to proceed.


I have found though that most people that have played this have not played it how I envisioned it being played which is not a bad thing but it was something that I ended up adjusting to in the wrong way. When most players gave me their feedback they were at levels much higher then I would have thought, and in the case of Anima's playthrough he would heavily prepare for each area and because of this was generally very successful. This made things look too easy in my view so in response I increased enemy damage considerably to account for the higher levels, more items, etc. The problem was on Stann's playthrough when he got to Sabin's and Locke's scenarios he saw these huge amounts of damage but his level wasn't up to that new expected level so he had a lot of trouble and had to end up grinding just to proceed. I also know as a player it is frustrating to feel like you are just getting bombarded with such heavy damage but this was a quick fix from me due to players having more success then I thought they originally would.

Because of damage having much to do with level I have to find a way to try to control the players level and the type of items they have access to. One thing I have learned is if there is something a player can exploit(certain item drops or steals is the best example of this) they will, and why shouldn't they? Unfortunately if a player is having trouble in a game like this their first instinct is to get stronger and this is something that I can only try to change with time. If I make it harder to level and harder to be able to get items or gold I think it forces the player to weigh their options. IMO gaining a level between areas is perfectly fine and suggested, but if it takes you a longer time to gain that level then it will not be as easy for the player to rely on gaining multiple levels to feel like they are safe enough to get by.

In fairness considering the above I will generally reduced damage by most enemies. Not so much that being in the back row makes it too easy but so that being in the front row isn't a OHKO. With this and other equipment changes that will be introduced in the next Beta I am trying hard to make strategies present that will be useful in certain situations. I am really trying to make the player think about how different equipment combinations or party combinations can really help them on specific enemies. Since gold will be harder to come by as well it will really make the player think more about how they approach each shop. You will be given gold, but what will you spend it on? A new Tool, or relics that could protect you? Both have their advantages and disadvantages. I am not being so unfair to where you will get no gold, but you should not be able to buy everything available when you get to a shop. Since I am suggesting you gain a level between areas, this should give you a bit more gold with which to do something with.

I know there will be players that don't like to take some time to level but I don't think this is the majority at least by the pool of people so far, and it won't be like it will take you hours to gain a level. As further beta testing occurs I will be able to really tune the values the best way possible.

There will also be some cosmetic changes as well as some shop changes. There are some interesting things I can do to shops and I will also be giving clues through certain people you talk to on what those changes will be.

I am really trying to make an overall more balanced experience, and with things like the ability to adjust battle mode/speed it will also give the player power to increase/decrease difficulty as well so that they can tune their own experience. I am also dabbling into event and general hex editing and I plan on some kind of custom event and even possibly a new area that you can go to on the World Map. This will be for Beta 7 though.


Comments, questions, and feedback are welcome

[blitzball55]

an update so big it deserves its own topic great job aura keep it up bro cant wait to experience all the changes

[auraplatonic]

blitzball55, on 30 March 2012 - 04:54 PM, said:

an update so big it deserves its own topic great job aura keep it up bro cant wait to experience all the changes

Thanks I also thought to do the thread because I wanted everyone to know that I have been working on this but it is a process. Don't want to release anything incomplete and I also don't want to run into stupid issues like buggy graphics or some weird numbers somewhere.

[auraplatonic]

OK, so I am going to be away from ID for probably 2-3 days so that I can really focus on this. I have been making steady edits over the past few days but I don't want to get distracted by that which is Chat


I have made a couple of event edits already, will give some details soon

[dchrist2]

My only suggestion would be that if you are having issues with players powerleveling to overcome difficulty, then it might be beneficial to take a Legend of Dragoon approach to experience were random battles give a very small amount of experience, and the TNL are quite high, but bosses give a large amount of experience so that you are pretty much guaranteed to level up at that time. That way you can kind of control what level the party is at, and if someone wants to grind they have to really work at it to the point where it's too much work for too little gain. It might be too drastic of a change, but worth looking in to.

[Archael]

dchrist2, on 03 April 2012 - 01:29 PM, said:

My only suggestion would be that if you are having issues with players powerleveling to overcome difficulty, then it might be beneficial to take a Legend of Dragoon approach to experience were random battles give a very small amount of experience, and the TNL are quite high, but bosses give a large amount of experience so that you are pretty much guaranteed to level up at that time. That way you can kind of control what level the party is at, and if someone wants to grind they have to really work at it to the point where it's too much work for too little gain. It might be too drastic of a change, but worth looking in to.

+1

[Stann]

I remember grinding out a level in Legend of Dragoon. I did it once. It took forever, lol. I don't know how anyone was supposed to beat the end-game super enemies without spending hours grinding though. Especially that massive dragon that you have the dragon block staff to beat him the first time.

[auraplatonic]

These are all concepts I am thinking about, but it is a matter of testing. I don't think I want exp to be so low that you take hours to gain a level. In the end I will rely on the testers to see how these changes will effect the game.

[auraplatonic]

Update!


Item/equipment tweaks are done, barring some tweaks in my final playthrough. I am testing out some general stat tweaks which may allow me in increase the power of abilities a little bit. I am also testing out some new HP, MP, and exp curves as well. MP would probably seem the most drastic...the HP is actually just more balanced overall and tops off a bit lower. The reasoning is that otherwise there really wouldn't seem to be a point for HP or MP + type items later. This will also make the HP/MP esper boosts more useful. Max HP at level 99 is about 7500 now and max MP is about 650. You won't really get to see the most decent boosts until after level 50 though and those levels won't be easy.


Of course testing will be needed, but I will be doing some of that myself pre-release. My initial feeling going into it is that MP is a little low from 1-50


I should mention that enemies are probably 60-70% done but when I start my playthrough the process won't be that crazy.

[auraplatonic]

I have another sweet event idea involving Espers. The full implementation of that will not be until Beta 7 but you will see some hints in in the Beta 6 release. The main things to finish now are just tweaks. I have been messing around with stats and I need to do a full playthrough to really gauge how damage will progress. Thanks for your patience all and I hope you enjoy the preview

[Archael]

lol Gilgamesh looks great

good job

[blitzball55]

definitely gonna give plus rep that was an awesome preview incorporating gilagamesh and even changing up terra menu picture oh btw what was that weapon terra had it looked HUGE!

[auraplatonic]

Thanks

The Terra menu pic might have been in the last update I can't remember. I have been editing some weapon sprites, so pretty much every sword will be noticable, and some other weapon sprites will be better. I never liked that when you would attack with the lower level swords you really could not see much of the sword, but then the high end swords had a sweet graphic. You can change a lot of things around from color to appearance so its pretty flexible.

[Midnight980]

Nice changes so far I see you have been getting into monster/sprite editing some. Have you checked out FF6Hacking.com at all? They have some nice ideas with some sweet boss battles and other changes that might be worth looking into. I also have one other idea for a special event I found over there that would be pretty sweet to incorporate, I'll pm you the vid's link so as not to spoil the surprise if you do use it. Keep up the good work! Have been looking forward for a new release to play.

[auraplatonic]

Midnight980, on 23 April 2012 - 01:37 PM, said:

Nice changes so far I see you have been getting into monster/sprite editing some. Have you checked out FF6Hacking.com at all? They have some nice ideas with some sweet boss battles and other changes that might be worth looking into. I also have one other idea for a special event I found over there that would be pretty sweet to incorporate, I'll pm you the vid's link so as not to spoil the surprise if you do use it. Keep up the good work! Have been looking forward for a new release to play.

Yea I have been reading and researching a lot of info there. It took a while and a lot of work but hopefully with more practice I can get some even cooler stuff in game

[Archael]

You got this down pretty quickly

I'm expecting really amazing things out of this mod now

[meohmy]

I'd be concerned about the LoD leveling system that it would further force you to stick with "one main party". It's already somewhat pushed a bit with the magic points currently, and a "high boss exp "system would further exacerbate the problem.


I think a level cap system would work better. Every main boss raises your max level cap by 2 levels or whatever. I'm sure it would be different amount for different sections of the game. So like first level cap is, say, 4, so terra can't gain any exp at the beginning beyond level 4. Kill snail dude and the cap is raised to 5.. So locke and her can't go over 5. Then another level after marshall, etc.

I'm sure that would be more complicated to code than just mega exp bosses approach.

Maybe another possibility would be something similar to your characters being flagged as petrified/wounded/etc. when exp is awarded if that character had a higher level than the enemy's levels. Or maybe there is someway to simply subtract it after the battle.

Code-wise this way might be easiest if you can make the enemy variable easily:

Let's say level 6 takes 1000 exp and you are using terra level 4 with 300 exp and locke who is level 5 and has 500 exp each. They win a fight with some leafers who have a party variable off 1000 because you want the area to cap at level 6.

1000 - 300 = terra is awarded 700 exp
1000-500 = lock is is awarded 500 exp.


Both are instantly caught up for their level with no need for any grinding, even characters you aren't using can be quickly brought up to the ideal level for that area by fighting one fight. That way there is never a question if you should grind for a higher level before the boss or if you are having problems you know that your level is not the problem.

Even easier to code might be just zeroing out the exp after every battle and setting all the characters exp at the start of the battle battle to the exp cap you want them to be at. You could do an enemy variable or a story progress/boss killing system. That way you don't have to deal with an inequality.

[auraplatonic]

meohmy, on 08 May 2012 - 06:01 AM, said:

I'd be concerned about the LoD leveling system that it would further force you to stick with "one main party". It's already somewhat pushed a bit with the magic points currently, and a "high boss exp "system would further exacerbate the problem.


I think a level cap system would work better. Every main boss raises your max level cap by 2 levels or whatever. I'm sure it would be different amount for different sections of the game. So like first level cap is, say, 4, so terra can't gain any exp at the beginning beyond level 4. Kill snail dude and the cap is raised to 5.. So locke and her can't go over 5. Then another level after marshall, etc.

I'm sure that would be more complicated to code than just mega exp bosses approach.

Maybe another possibility would be something similar to your characters being flagged as petrified/wounded/etc. when exp is awarded if that character had a higher level than the enemy's levels. Or maybe there is someway to simply subtract it after the battle.

Code-wise this way might be easiest if you can make the enemy variable easily:

Let's say level 6 takes 1000 exp and you are using terra level 4 with 300 exp and locke who is level 5 and has 500 exp each. They win a fight with some leafers who have a party variable off 1000 because you want the area to cap at level 6.

1000 - 300 = terra is awarded 700 exp
1000-500 = lock is is awarded 500 exp.


Both are instantly caught up for their level with no need for any grinding, even characters you aren't using can be quickly brought up to the ideal level for that area by fighting one fight. That way there is never a question if you should grind for a higher level before the boss or if you are having problems you know that your level is not the problem.

Even easier to code might be just zeroing out the exp after every battle and setting all the characters exp at the start of the battle battle to the exp cap you want them to be at. You could do an enemy variable or a story progress/boss killing system. That way you don't have to deal with an inequality.

The only thing here that would be possible as far as I know would be to make people gain a level only on bosses. I don't think its possible to do the type of coding you are talking about but I can't say for 100% certainty. I am ok with the player's character choices determining what level certain characters are at. Theoretically most sitiations after you are able to party switch will be doable with any party combination, but easier/harder depending on who you choose.

I don't think the inequality will be very large because after Magitek Factory for example you characters are adjusted to the average party level. After Zozo they are not but this is one of those things that I can only really see long term with more testing.

[Midnight980]

The sheer amount of time and testing alone to completely rewrite all the code to change the xp system, not to mention if it would actually work would be astronomical. To be honest what you want to do is quite easy. Make every characters xp growth identical then have normal enemies give 0 xp and bosses give the exact amount to level up to the desired level. But i personally don't think anything needs to be changed.....it's fine as it is...this is supposed to be a harder version of Final Fantasy 6 with maybe a couple new tweaks added into it to make it unique not a complete overhaul of something that honestly isn't broken to begin with....

[meohmy]

auraplatonic, on 08 May 2012 - 09:22 PM, said:

The only thing here that would be possible as far as I know would be to make people gain a level only on bosses. I don't think its possible to do the type of coding you are talking about but I can't say for 100% certainty. I am ok with the player's character choices determining what level certain characters are at. Theoretically most sitiations after you are able to party switch will be doable with any party combination, but easier/harder depending on who you choose.

I don't think the inequality will be very large because after Magitek Factory for example you characters are adjusted to the average party level. After Zozo they are not but this is one of those things that I can only really see long term with more testing.

Oh, they are readjusted after the factory? On a continual basis? I haven't played entirely through the game in a long time, but I recall only them being readjusted was when you find them in the WoR. Hmmm.