LFT: An FFT mod (The final release is a lie. Download here!)

[metroid composite]

I like the front page. Pictures make everything better, and it's an excellent sumary of what to expect from the hack at least in terms of classes. (And class rebalance is the hack's biggest point of appeal to me.)

Definitely agreed.  That's a really, really nice front page.

I'm a little reluctant to add anything dramatic on a patch that is for all intents and purposes done, yeah.

Yep; I've been aware for ages that any new LFT ideas I come up with are pretty much theorycraft at this point.  Not that being theorycraft has ever stopped me from posting something....

[Laggy]

A working Eboot of the playstation version that works on a PSP? I've tried running an ISO -> Eboot program so I can play LFT on the go but it doesn't work.

This. Other people have apparently tried and ran into the same issue. I was wondering if anyone has been able to overcome it.

[TigerKnee]

LFT is one of the only few FFT mods I managed to get working on the PSP (1.3 works too. Pretty much everything else crashes and I don't know why.)

I have a "barebones" version of an eboot for use for PSP, which makes me icky about uploading THAT version. If someone can design some graphics, a 144x80 32-bit PNG file for a thumbnail icon and a huge 480x272 32-bit PNG file for background image I can make a more polish version and upload that.

[Laggy]

I can get something pretty basic out though I'm not an artist. Could you explain the process of how you managed to get it work? (there's another patch update coming around the corner and this would have to be redone.)

[TigerKnee]

Nothing special. Just patched the ISO, then converted using PsGUI300beta. Firmware compatibility might be an issue though, but it works on mine so.

[Laggy]

Djinn came to the rescue for these. Much thanks.

Icon: http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u137/DjinntoTonic/LFTicon1.png


Background: http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u137/DjinntoTonic/LFTLogo3.png

[DjinnAndTonic]

For those that don't know, that snazzy fedora-wearing FFT sprite is based on Laggy himself~

[superaielman]

Did you tweak space storage/back's status hit rate?

[Laggy]

I did not.

You can't change status hit rates on anything that isn't a pure status ability (it's always 25% when added on top of other stuff and 6.25% for multihit attacks).

[Cotigo]

For those that don't know, that snazzy fedora-wearing FFT sprite is based on Laggy himself~

Lies.  That sprite is not AZN enough. Nobody would ever believe that that sprite plays SC2 and doesn't suck at it.

[TigerKnee]

Done.

http://www.rapidshare.com/files/450216971/LFT.rar

Well free to mirror on some other filesharing site because I realize rapidshare kind of blows.

I tested the game on my PSP and it works, but like I said, I don't have multiple PSPs to test multiple firmware out so I can't help anyone who can't run theirs.

Edit: My firmware's 5.00 m33-6 if anyone's curious.

[Grefter]

Just for reference, what firmware are you currently running?  I imagine the majority of people with CFW here are lazy and have not updated since installing.

[Laggy]

TigerKnee: Thank you kindly! I will let you know if people grab it and get it working. Muchly appreciated.

[Laggy]

And of course, in checking over things that are newly possible I arrive at new conundrums.

The following things are now possible:
- Teleport's failure chance can be edited. Ramifications: Since it's an interesting ability strategic-wise, a large JP drop could be justified by ramping the failure from 10% to 15-20%. That would incidentally make Move+3 much, much better when competing with it, raising the possibility of dropping it entirely (and moving Move+2 in its place). Not sure how to approach this; this isn't the first time I've puzzled over the Movement slot.
- Auto-Potion can have X-Potion removed from the list of potions it uses. Obvious ramifications by dropping it from gamebest reaction for the entire main game to merely a really good reaction for the first half of it instead. (If this starts making Blade Grasp look too good, it and Arrow Guard can also be tweaked as brought up before to have clear, defined roles. Damage Split is the other reaction often brought up when mentioning gamebest ones, and it is actually not so amazing that I'm worried about it.)
- A new movement ability can be added (replacing the unused Silent Walk) which grants X Move when the unit is in critical. This is pretty interesting and I'd like to make room for it. There's an obvious spot for it on Thief if Move+2 does indeed get moved.
- Short Charge can be altered to affect the Charge skillset. I don't know if this would also make Non-charge work - I presume it would, which means Calcs could Charge+20 at will (for the lulz).

[Dark Holy Elf]

Not sure how I feel about Teleport nerfs and possible elevations of the value of movement abilities.

Charge is certainly not in danger of being too weak at the moment (quite possibly the opposite if anything), so SC affecting it may make me a bit leery... but then again, Short Charge Charge is cross-tree enough to make it a bit of a later-in-the-game thing (though you could get it reasonably running by chapter 3) where Charge does start to fall off a little. And it does crowd out an attack boost (at minimum, Attack Up's 4/3). Again, not really sure.

Crisis Move Up sounds terrific to me.

I have some "zuh?" issues with AP working with Potion and Hi-Potion but not X-Potion. Just can't see a good justification for that flavour-wise. Also not... especially enthused by the idea of a jeigan reaction ability like that. I sorta like how it is now; solidly powerful at all points (less so in the aftergame but so is everything else) but costing a lot.

[Laggy]

I am inclined at this point, unless a strong argument is made, to be pretty conservative about these things. The addition of a new movement ability is of course pretty much "why not", but the others are honestly good speculation is there's an elegant way to implement them.

The one thing I do admit is that I kind of just want to make Teleport cost less so that it gets used because it's so much more interesting than the Move+ series. Say going to 20% but having the JP drop all the way back down to like 500 (at worst, it does everything Ignore Height and Fly does). It just would absolutely cement Move +3 and even +2 as "these are the ones you'll probably stick to forever once you learn them".

Short Charge working with Charge is entirely to preserve its usefulness later on. The ramifications of having to balance it all around as such may not be worth the effort.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Are you implying Charge isn't worth using later on? I mean... I got decent milage out of it in the aftergame. Charge+5 is pretty much reasonably viable forever, and +5 XA for basic physicals is nothing to sneeze at. I'd have to sit back and look at how Short Charge compares with Attack Up/Two Hands/Two Swords at various points in the game (i.e. CT viability) and with various weapons to really get a feel on what SC would even change.

Honestly, currently, Teleport and Move+3 fight nicely enough for that title of "Best movement ability when you have JP to burn" and that's fine. I think Teleport has a pretty notable advantage but this opinion isn't universal or anything, so yeah. Nerfing Teleport would in turn probably call for a Move+3 removal so that Move+2 and chibi-Teleport fight it out for the best movement ability in the game. This isn't much of a change, although it does make the various non-pure-movement boosters (Move-HP/MP, etc.) a bit more viable late, and also means there's no really high-end move abilities in terms of JP (they'd top out at what, 800? Incidentally, I think it says something that I think I'd favour this nerfed Teleport over Move+2 and you're suggesting it'd be 300 less). I don't really like that.

[Laggy]

Opinions on whether Move+ and Teleport vary widely, yeah.

The main advantage of cutting it down from Teleport/Move+3 and nerfed Teleport/Move+2 is that all the other movement abilities look less grossly bad by comparison. Granted, there's still the argument that it doesn't actually change the end result, sooo...

JP numbers can be argued over - it's just from a personal level that I find Teleport more interesting than Move+, and thus would push it more strongly, but they could honestly be level with each other.

The more I think about Charge, the more I'm inclined just to skip over it. It's not that it's *useless* at endgame so much as it tapers off in its original effectiveness and SC could be used to extend its viability, but it's also an additional layer of work that's probably not necessary.

[Grefter]

Grefter has opinions off coarse.
- Teleport's failure chance can be edited.
Not a fan of this personally, I think the 10% failure rate makes for interesting enough gambles in game.  Would be interesting if the formula could be made to increase on a curve or something, but as is, I like 10%, it is a fairly elegant number.

- Auto-Potion can have X-Potion removed from the list of potions it uses. 
Do not want.  Not intuitive, blech.

- A new movement ability can be added (replacing the unused Silent Walk) which grants X Move when the unit is in critical.
This I love.  Do you have an idea for the movement rate?  My immediate thought was like +8 then I thought of Chantage and it made me sad.  It really needs to be smaller than that which kind of makes it a niche.  Movement ability that doubles as a reaction is pretty awesome flavour though.

- Short Charge can be altered to affect the Charge skillset. I don't know if this would also make Non-charge work - I presume it would, which means Calcs could Charge+20 at will (for the lulz).
I think this one honestly needs to be mathed out, at what point is Short Charge better than Attack Up?  How much of a boost to Charge is it in most lategame Charge setups?

[Ranmilia]

My opinions mirror Elfboy and Grefter's mainly.  Crit Move Up sounds awesome, the others not so much.

- Teleport is not only competing with Move+X, it's also competing with Fly and Ignore Height, which LFT currently does a good job at making relevant choices.  I think the proposed change would make Teleport definitely overshadow these abilities, and on top of that I don't agree that Teleport with increased failure chance is more interesting.  +2-+3 Move is sort of the sweet spot for most FFT battles, you rarely need more and you can wear shoes for less. 

I think there's a big difference between a 70-80% success chance and a 50-60% chance there in terms of being interesting.  The former is a tradeoff where you can expect the ability to fail once or twice if you use it four or five times in a fight, and need to plan your risks accordingly and make a strategy with a little leeway for failure.  The latter is a coinflip and you really can't strategize around it.

- Auto-Potion nerf is not intuitive and fairly arbitrary, not really a fan of skills that are useless early/late game because of shop stuff.  I don't think it's overpowering right now anyway, if you really want to nerf it try a price hike on X-Potions instead.

- Crit Move Up is awesome, though perhaps impractical to actually set up and use.

- Charge and Short Charge don't really need the help.  Charge is pretty awesome already, and having to risk charge times is what makes it interesting, and Short Charge... well, I think it's the best support ability in LFT despite only powering up a few skillsets, for what that's worth.  Also Attack Up needs more love, it's already too often overshadowed by 2 Swords/Hands/Equip Something.  Also also, being crosstree works the other way around, this would be a big boon to mages who get Short Charge first and then go into the physical side to learn stuff.  Also also also, Archer/White Magic secondary/Short Charge/Move MP Up.  Sick.

[Grefter]

Would it be possible to make only Charge +20 viable for it?  Sadly would kill  the point of Charge +10.  I really want to just have Charge +20 Calculator shenanigans.

[superaielman]

Would it be possible to make only Charge +20 viable for it?  Sadly would kill  the point of Charge +10.  I really want to just have Charge +20 Calculator shenanigans.

This.  So this.

New movement skill is cool, pass on the rest. Don't like nerfing teleport or removing Move+3. You will just do the same thing for an optimal setup for move+2.

[Grefter]

That wasn't a serious suggestion though, it isn't intuitive either and I think the best parts of most of the LFT changes is that they feel fairly organic and unforced.  It is just a case of leveraging the existing system a bit better and retaining the original flavour.

[metroid composite]

My thoughts:

Hell yes we should make Charge affected by Short Charge!  We may have to modify the Charge skillset for this to be reasonable, but "Short Charge" not working with "Charge" was always really lame and unintuitive.  We should absolutely take this change, and just complete the necessary design homework.  Actually...allow me to do the homework, since I've been waiting for this forever.  I'll assume 10 base XA, and 10 WP.
Left = Attack Up, Right = Short Charge
0ctr: 130, 100
1ctr: 160, 130
2ctr: 180, 150
3ctr: 190, 170
4ctr: 200, 180
5ctr: 220, 200
6ctr: 230, ---
7ctr: 240, ---
8ctr: ---, 300
9ctr: 270, ---
Yeah...Short Charge actually sucks compared to Attack Up (unless you're doing Charge+20).  Very safe change.  Except for the part where Noncharge C+20 Dictionary Calcs are BEASTS (like...we actually might want to talk about removing Dictionaries from Calc equips.  I'm serious).  The places where you might run Short Charge over Attack Up is if your attack is particularly low, or you have a Mime in the party, or your Archer has a magic secondary/you are a mage with Charge secondary.  All hilarious and worth encouraging.



Teleport nerf...question: could we have two Teleports with different values?  Like...a chibi teleport and a non-chibi teleport?

On the 20% nerf in particular: I've run a few numbers in my spreadsheet (average number of turns it takes you to move X squares where X is 10 or less).  These numbers make traditional Teleport look slightly worse than Move+2, and chibi-Teleport look slightly worse than Move+1.  (These numbers also ignore the "Fly" part of Teleport, of course).  However, the decisions look less strategic in general with chibi-Teleport; you will sometimes take an 80% chance, on rare occasions take a 60% chance.  Anything higher than that almost never has strategic value.  You don't get the same interesting comparsions, where it's technically better on average to take a 7-panel Teleport than a 4-panel followed by 3-panel Teleport.  In other words, the in-battle decisions just aren't as deep for chibi-Teleport.


Auto-Potion: this is bad because X-Potion isn't the most powerful potion relative to its point in the game.  That would be Hi-Potion, which is a ridiculous amount of HP for mid Chapter 1.  (I'm curious if we can go the opposite route, actually--make AP work with Elixirs when you have no X-Potions left.  You'd only get to use it for like...one battle before you ran out of Elixirs, but it'd be hilarious).


Crit-move-up:  Hm, maybe.  The question on my mind is whether we want to make it an earlygame ability, or a lategame ability (i.e. something that could compete with Teleport/Move+3 on the right setup).  I can totally imagine a setup that wants to knock itself into critical round 1...or centered around Reraise abuse.  But it would have to have a GOOD bonus to make all that setup worthwhile.  And you're likely not doing something that elaborate in Chapter 1 where you can't customize your setups to knock someone exactly into critical.  That's the argument for the lategame version, anyhow.  If we do go lategame, though, you're also probably going to want to add Regen back on to Chantage so that Chantage isn't just "I'm always in critical with absolutely no work".

[Grefter]

Yay!  Math!

Edit - Benefit to adding short charge to Charge it allows for there to be a very neutral magic/charge support skill which is neat.  Niche as fuck (useful for magic using Archers?  Charging Oracles maybe?), but neat to have exist.  Yay.  Math.