Nyarlathotep's Dungeon: Brainstorming Topic!

[dude789]

It's a complex issue I guess since it varies from character to character. Some characters have a ton of potential for aftergame stuff while others have none at all. For my blitz team, it didn't really help that much. Neph offered Lazy Shell for Bowser which was completely contrary to the way the team worked so I asked for a Feather in the accessory slot instead which was accepted. It was partially my fault for not hanging out in chat beforehand, but there probably wasn't anything Bowser could have gotten that would have matched the boost Celes gets from Marvel Shoes.

[Nephrite]

I would generally agree with the assessment that the bonuses should be a little bit more in-line with each other in terms of usefulness.

[dude789]

Maybe we could make them more well known before hand? For each character with the potential for aftergame boosts, we could discuss what they would get in this topic and by doing that we could create a sort of baseline for aftergame boosts. You could request alternatives if the boost didn't work very well for your team, but the boost would have to beat of similar potency to the predetermined boost.

Edit: We should at least be consistent with who gets the boost. Start with the lower priced characters and work up. Don't offer a boost to one team's 1.0 role-player and then give a boost to the 4.0 centerpiece of another person's team on the same floor.

[SnowFire]

Eh.  I think it'd be very hard to have a hard & fast rule for F8 / F9 bonuses, since not all characters have a reasonable or useful bonus they can get.  I think the most that can be asked for is a holistic bonus - so if one character gets a bonus on the strong side (that's still flavorful and easy to vote on), maybe the other character gets a weaker bonus than usual.

Marvel Shoes are very good, no doubt.  That said, I'm very glad I asked for them if for no other reason than to erase the relevance of Celes's sole speed point beneath average, maybe, which tended to require annoying logic splits of "If this, then that" against the Dungeon's many average speed enemies.  Things that reduce headaches are good.  That said, you can make a solid argument that it'd be fairer to hand out RunningShoes just for the Haste and then give a slightly better bonus to the other team member.

Re dude's team, I think that's just a case of lacking something really broken to hand out for Bowser.  Considering that past bonuses have been things like "Enemy Skill on Cloud" for team Tonfa or "all Black Magic" for Yuna, I do think that powerful neat bonuses have their place so long as they don't trivialize everything.

[dude789]

Re dude's team, I think that's just a case of lacking something really broken to hand out for Bowser.  Considering that past bonuses have been things like "Enemy Skill on Cloud" for team Tonfa or "all Black Magic" for Yuna, I do think that powerful neat bonuses have their place so long as they don't trivialize everything.

There's some broken stuff in SMRPG, I just didn't know how powerful these bonuses were supposed to be so I put in a conservative request. I did have FFT Priest who has a ton of after game potential. She definitely would have appreciated something like Draw Out. I would also say that Marvel Shoes may not trivialize everything, but they come pretty close. One of Celes's drawbacks is her speed which is balanced by the insanity of her skillset late and her defensive options. It seems kind of overpowered to take her speed from average/bit below to faster than 90% of the dungeon because of what she can do when she gets a turn. 

[Clear Tranquil]

Haven't a team earned the right to shore up their weaknesses for getting so far in the dungeon? The reward has to be worth the effort surely. I don't think it's that overpowered. F9 showed Snowfire didn't have a free pass just because of Celes with Marvel Shoes. I don't think she becomes auto win/auto Bluelike because of them =)

Granted I don't have a ton of Celes/FF6 speed respect in general but I'll say this for Celes Snowfire built her up well. I think you've earned an accessory of choice for the liability of spending four valuable dungeon points on an average/bit below speed character with only one main type of offence/utility. She mostly ran as pure mage here. Could have turned out bad with the wrong floor/enemy choices. Well played team is well played team~

[dude789]

The interesting thing is, is that if you don't let Blue change his skillset between fights, Celes could very well be a better lategame pick than Blue. Blue's big advantage would be that he can eliminate a floor with Overdrive, but without Overdrive he's not dishing out anywhere near the damage she's dishing out with Quick/Ultima/Ultima. The 8 skillset slots for him really is a killer. He'd probably want MegaWindBlast, Overdrive, and the MT Healing spell at the very least and possibly Bound Shot to help with resource issues, that doesn't leave a whole lot of space for other things.

[Nephrite]

I might be removing Ragnarok from her selection of Espers, or at least the one with Osmose on it... I dunno. It may not even be worth me futzing with.

[Nephrite]

The rest of the FF13 crew has been added.

[dude789]

I might be removing Ragnarok from her selection of Espers, or at least the one with Osmose on it... I dunno. It may not even be worth me futzing with.

Removing Ragnarok is a pretty good solution. Her damage is still dangerous with Double Flare/Elemental spells, but it's no longer OHKO everyone. I would also suggest making summons once per floor to prevent Raiden shenanigans. It wouldn't be a huge drop off since most of the summons are of dubious use.

[SnowFire]

I'd strongly disagree with limiting summons to once a floor - that's a totally artificial hack that isn't true to how FF6 Summons work at all.  And as noted it's not even that effective a hack anyway - Celes can still learn X-Zone if she wants MT ID.

Also, if Ragnarok is removed, then hopefully Celes can opt to pick up the Illumina rather than an Esper on a floor?  (Also.  Paladin Shield bonus hype time!!1!)

[Nephrite]

I think she's good enough without the Illumina, myself.

EDIT: at that point, i.e. F7.

[Nephrite]

I've been thinking about this for a while and I'd like some opinions. Ditto is perhaps the best .5 pick in the Dungeon and everyone always uses Quick Powder on him. I was considering just making that his default and raising him to 1.0 or something. Does anyone have thoughts on that?

[dude789]

I wouldn't say he's the best, just that he's the most brainless to use. I think a lot of the reason people use him is that "Let's see I've got .5 points left but don't really need revival, or status. Ditto works."

His hp kills his durability and not being able to do anything till turn 2 is a big detriment when so many fights typically turn into quick draws. Really though, there isn't much you can do with the .5 slot if you already have enough healing or don't have some specific need that one of the other .5s just happens to fill. I think he's fine where he is.

I also think that if your team has a bit of a speed game, Butterfree could be a neat pick. Put Neo Speed or something on him and you've got a fast character with a really accurate debilitating status which is a steal for .5.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Yeah, I wouldn't say Ditto's worth a 1.0 point cost. He's just useful as a wild card pick for .5.

All of the other .5s have pretty obvious roles, so when people build a team and happen to have .5 left, they generally choose Ditto. When I ran my Terra/Yuri/Lenneth team, I had 1.0 point left, so I picked a generic .5 (DQ Hero), and then Ditto just to fill in the party slots. 0.5s are pretty meaningless all-around apart from being warm bodies that occasionally fall under the "And then the rest of the party does -this-" part of the explanation.

[dude789]

Here's a idea for a sealstone I had today.

Initiative Sealstone: One character on the team may act at the very start of the battle (so everyone elses CT would be at 0 and there's would be 100). In exchange on any following turns, this character cannot act until everyone else both ally and enemy has taken their turn. (In a turnbased system their action would be the very last action taken, in a CT based system their turn would come directly after the slowest characters turn or if they are the slowest, when their turn would come naturally.) If a different character's turn is stolen or pushed back, this sealstone will ignore that effect for determining when the wearer gets a turn. 

[DjinnAndTonic]

Pretty interesting, but really broken. Make it locked on one pc for the whole dungeon AND increase their point cost and then it becomes a little more reasonable.

As-is its like a suped up version of the original Speed? sealstone. With even less drawbacks. Initiative is already broken in the dungeon ( think of Aika), so this would have to have some serious costs to make it even a little balanced.

[ThePiggyman]

Pretty interesting, but really broken. Make it locked on one pc for the whole dungeon AND increase their point cost and then it becomes a little more reasonable.

As-is its like a suped up version of the original Speed? sealstone. With even less drawbacks. Initiative is already broken in the dungeon ( think of Aika), so this would have to have some serious costs to make it even a little balanced.

Not to mention, we saw just how bad Sonic Steel Tidus can shred a team. I'd think that's the whole reason Neph made it so Tidus wasn't allowed the Sonic Steel as a Dungeon pick. Initiative on the right person can decimate the majority of the dungeon.

[Magic Fanatic]

Well, other option - make it a Once Per Floor ability, make the person choose which fight to use it on, the bearer can't be switched between floors, durability is lowered, they cannot be buffed/revived, and their effective speed is cut in half otherwise?

[Dhyerwolf]

Eh to yet another Speed boosting seal stone effectively. Feels like it's specifically geared towards just that single floor 9 fight!

Ditto might actually work as a 1 pick to me, just because of the potential switching into enemies. This really gives it a lot of leeway in some matches, and while the HP does suck, it's getting the transformations off cleanly. Take Neph on floor 4. It can turn into Yang, giving it the ability to mess up anyone on the enemy turn or Worker 8, who I think immunes most of the FFT enemies stuff. I'm torn here because needing that turn is big, but it doesn't necessarily feel like the effect is just a 0.5. If you get it the right matches, it could do really well.

[Magic Fanatic]

Well, slightly different for a sealstone effect idea...  Maybe.

Focused Power Sealstone - X: Field effect.  Choose either Physical or Magic.  Replace X with the chosen type.  Damage from attacks, probabilities and healing of the chosen type are raised by 20%, while damage from attacks, probabilities, and healing of the type not chosen are lowered by 20%.  Damage from attacks, probabilities, and healing that is non-typed is considered the type not chosen for calculation of effects.  After choosing the initial effect, it CANNOT be changed between floors.

It's a stone that punishes having (for example) Deis and Emily on a team, since one of them is having their overall effect reduced (unless you're only using Deis for her buffs!  But that's neither here nor there).  Chemists having the effects of their items reduced is hard on them too, but if Kuja's anywhere in the dungeon, he hates having his Flare Star reduced too (unless it's blocked by either Protect or Shell.  I'm not sure if it is).

[dude789]

I think it would be better to only have it work on the team. As such, magical characters probably would love that sealstone to death. Tia for example would get a decent damage buff and also wouldn't die to physicals as easily. It seems for example that it would be too easy to design a team where there is no downside to using it outside of specific fights. I'd also argue that Chemist's item isn't a physical move but rather an untyped move. Monk's Chakra one the other hand would be affected with it.

[Magic Fanatic]

Any focused-style characters would like it, but I think you're misunderstanding a few things on intent:
1. It focuses on attacks dealt, not received.  If LoT's Alice ever got in, she could benefit for choosing Magic, despite some of her spells hitting PDEF instead of MDEF.
2. By letting it be a field effect, it could tip the scale of the fight either way - it's so much more a blitzing sealstone it's nuts.  Also, 20% is HUGE - don't forget that.
3.  The second-to-last part of the effect specifies non-typed attacks as being reduced no matter what choice you make, so the Chemist's Item is getting hit either way.  Since the Monk's Chakra relies on PA (if I'm recalling correctly), it'd be boosted on Physical but reduced on Magical.

[dude789]

For 1, it still helps characters with big differences between their magical and physical durability. If the enemy's physicals are reduced that is something that Tia appreciates even if their magic is buffed because she can take magical hits a bit better because of her solid mdef.
For 2, like you said 20% is huge. It may have a bit more application than a blitzing stealstone, but that's not what it's going to end up being used for. It will primarily be used to bolster already potent blitzing teams.
For 3, I'd drop that specification, having non-typed stuff be reduced seems like a silly restriction. Just leave non-typed abilities unaffected either way.

[Random Consonant]

Tia is approximately 0.82 mdur, so under this she'd go from barely not 2HKO'd by average magic to being 2HKO'd by a healthish margin, while average physicals will still 2HKO her, so that's a pretty bad example right there.  Don't have much else to comment on regarding the sealstone idea.