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

[metroid composite]

On the one hand, I don't see unfrog as an actually meaningful bonus to a frog. It's a nice bonus, but it is neither keeping you from getting killed as a Frog before you can cast it on yourself, nor is it anywhere near the only fix to Frog.

(Assuming other people are alive and unfrogged...and if they aren't, you have substantially more problems, if nothing else having your turn wasted healing yourself of a debilitating status when there are few to no people alive is, if not a fatal situation, close.).

I think you're missing the forest for the trees here.

Your Wizard gets frogged.  Your Wizard gets their turn.  Sure, they could wait on spot and let the Monk un-frog them...or they could just un-frog themselves, freeing up the Monk's action to do something way more productive.

Being able to take a real action with your Frogs (even if it's just a status cure action) is pretty cool; it basically gives your party an extra turn.

(At least, any individual one. People utilize the various status cures for Chemist...but people buy those because they're cheap. Frog is not a heavy priority for most Wizards, if nothing else.)

Frog is pretty cheap.  Not like...40 JP cheap, but if you're spending a lot of time in Wizard, at some point 150 JP is going to add enough versatility to be worth-it.

[SageAcrin]

I think you're missing the forest for the trees here.

Your Wizard gets frogged.  Your Wizard gets their turn.  Sure, they could wait on spot and let the Monk un-frog them...or they could just un-frog themselves, freeing up the Monk's action to do something way more productive.

Being able to take a real action with your Frogs (even if it's just a status cure action) is pretty cool; it basically gives your party an extra turn.

On the one hand, I don't see unfrog as an actually meaningful bonus to a frog. It's a nice bonus, but it is neither keeping you from getting killed as a Frog before you can cast it on yourself, nor is it anywhere near the only fix to Frog. (...)

On the other hand, it is unique as a trait, so whatever, I respect how you feel there.

Nope, pretty much getting where you're coming from exactly, here.

It just requires a character with a specific action command to be hit with a specific status. At which point, after being inflicted with a status that increases damage to them, mind, meaning the AI will like to hit them if I'm not mistaken, they can cure themselves after a charge time. While charging, damage to them will be increased, and IIRC, this stacks with Frog.

It's neat, and occasionally useful, but...major deal, no.

Frog is pretty cheap.  Not like...40 JP cheap, but if you're spending a lot of time in Wizard, at some point 150 JP is going to add enough versatility to be worth-it.

Long term, yeah. Short term priority though? It's half the JP to an L4 and the entire JP of an L2.

I mean, objectively, you're right, you probably should prioritize Frog over something like Flare(where it's relative cost is one-fifth of the way, and only delays you slightly in a relative sense), but people tend to care more about what the spell *does*, not what they can do with the spell.

I'm having a hard time explaining this, but basically, from how I've seen other people play... things like Poison for utility are impulse buys, because it's one or two actions worth of JP. Things like status or damage you highly value are long term goals. Frog's sorta in the middle-most people don't value the spell it's self very highly, despite it's obvious situational use(particularly early), and it delays their progress significantly towards something they value.

This isn't really true of me-IIRC I did in fact grab Frog pretty early in LFT-but in my case I tend to value having many options over a few really good ones, and in my experience this isn't true of most people (And there's a good argument for it being non-optimal play, honestly.). Perhaps that's a false impression, though.

[Grefter]

I forget the MP cost of Frog, is it low enough that it is something actually meaningful that a melee carrier can do with it (if for some reason you felt that need...)?

If so (or even if not I suppose), you could take mets balance changes to making it a Touch attack and retrofit it to fit that niche as wel.

[SageAcrin]

I think making it ultra-short range is probably the best option, but unless the charge is moderately fast it's going to be too high of a risk of a spell, and I worry that a short charge time fatal level spell would be too useful for any threats that get up in a squishy mage's grill.

Though it's probably the best way to make it stand out without changing the cast-on-self trait.

[Hoxir]

Another spell that I think it could be improved is Ultima.

In the original game, Ultima was already underrated because it wasn't good. MA*23, Faith-dependent. Ok, on LFT is not Faith-dependent; I can't remember the original cost, but 10 MP is okay, and it's a really fast spell, too. But, MA*13? Man, I think the HP of all monsters is freaking high! This does almost nothing compared...

It's nice, and all, but couldn't it be, last say, a bit more effective? It went down from 23 to 13! That's a lot!

[Dark Holy Elf]

"Not faith-based" means 13 is better than 23 in most situations, so it did get an upgrade. Now, granted, if you're in Faith status, then yeah, it's been nerfed... but even then, not much! If the caster has 100 faith and the target has 60 (average), then the LFT version does 6% less than vanilla. If your faith is a more modest 70, on the other hand, the LFT version does 35% more than the original.

[metroid composite]

I think making it ultra-short range is probably the best option, but unless the charge is moderately fast it's going to be too high of a risk of a spell

It's currently ctr 5, which is honestly reasonably fast.  Doing the Oracle comparison, this is equal speed to Don't Act, and faster than Sleep, Charm, and Petrify.  I'd be ok with ctr 4 I guess, just because it's melee.  It's not a ctr 2 spell, though, just...no.  The effect just has so much more bang than other ctr 2 spells that it'd be ridiculous to stick it there (ctr 2 spells are stuff like Blind, Poison, Reflect, Float...).

I'm not even that concerned about fast charge time, though, because my top balance concern with the high-accuracy melee version is still Calc (because of Teleport 2).  We just got done beating Deathcalc with a nerf-stick by raising the MP and lowering the CT on Death.  I'm hesitant about handing Deathcalc a low MP spell they can spam after using Death once or twice.

[Laggy]

Frog could be made better, but it won't for two reasons:

1. It fulfills a role in Black Magic that no other spell does (relatively short range, debilitating, semi quick to cast - contrast with Death).
2. It shouldn't overshadow anything else in Black Magic because that's not what Black Magic is about. It's meant to be a niche utility spell (like Poison), little else. There's an argument it'll get less exposure because it's 150 JP to Poison's 50, but frankly that's cheap enough; if people don't want to bother picking it up, it's really a fault of JP spending habits, not the ability being overpriced.

---

Unrelatedly! Chimp's part 3 of the LP is up: check here.

[metroid composite]

FWIW, Even if they were both 50 JP, Poison is a much, much better spell right now, and I would always learn poison first.

(But yes, poison IS what Black Magic is all about--MOAR DAMAGE--so I'm not too bothered by this).

[Grefter]

poison IS what Black Magic is all about

Ephs of the world unite around this banner.

[SageAcrin]

FWIW, Even if they were both 50 JP, Poison is a much, much better spell right now, and I would always learn poison first.

Agreed. Stronger defined role, a blast radius you can't get easily, and much easier to handle than large area blasting spells if you clip one of your own PCs(It's easier to heal Poison than it is to get good strong healing or revive someone and heal them to full).

I mean, obviously it's not as strong as most blasting spells, but a decent chance of disabling one enemy isn't as good as Poison's boom knock off decent chunk of everyone's life(eventually), and nothing else in Black Magic does that role even remotely the same way, unlike Frog/Death.

Granted, if they were both 50 JP I'd probably grab Frog second and get both after getting an L1. So I guess it'd be a pretty good spell then, just on the raw cost.

[metroid composite]

Granted, if they were both 50 JP I'd probably grab Frog second and get both after getting an L1.

I...wouldn't.  With the L1 nerfs, L2 and L3 are a massive damage upgrade that I don't want to delay, and 12 MP is quite a bit early in the game--probably not something you want to waste on a 50% Frog chance when you could be casting Bolt 2 instead.  And it depends how far saving for Bolt 2 carries you; if it carries you up through Sand Rat, then you've got nothing but assassination missions left, so may as well just pool JP until Chapter 2, maybe get a L3 for Algus.

[SageAcrin]

See the above comment about my playstyle being many options before superior options, by general preference, and how it may not be optimal.

I definitely see your point there. Still, at least it being that cheap would be a selling point to people that think like me. I guess that's something.

[metroid composite]

So...side musings...

Currently there's no range 2 spells.  There's a range 1 spell (Wish), and plenty 3/4/5 etc range spells, but nothing that's actually range 2.  For a while Life Drain was range 2, but it's back up to 3 now.  Furthermore, Frog being range 2 would be a cool symmetry.  It'd be...

Frog: 2
Damage: 4
Death: 8

Yay, powers of 2!

So...I'd be on-board for a slightly shorter range Frog (2 range instead of 3) in exchange for slightly higher accuracy (140 or 150 or so instead of 120).  Not trying to make it a super-powerful accurate spell which would make black magic specialize in something it shouldn't, just...hey, a range 2 spell existing would be cool, and it should probably gain at least a little something if it's losing 1 range.

[SageAcrin]

Yeah, this was about what I was thinking when I was talking about short range powerful spell for a contrast probably being the best change you could make without removing the frog defrogging.

It's probably not too different at 2 Range/150 for general usefulness, but on the other hand it's more fun than before, so.

[Hoxir]

OK, you won against my arguments, haha. 

Finally I managed to win the Bervenia Volcano rare battle! And using just three characters. Now I'm tryng to steal the Paladin Shield and Blood Lance. The first I already got... Need to kill the Juno Knight, but it's been very hard. 

EDIT: HAH! DID IT ALL!



(Damn Void Knight, feel the misery of having all stats at ONE and no MP! All enemies nude, too, haha.)

Changing the subject, I think I identified a problem.

I'm using Chiken Knife on a Ninja. I don't like using two Chiken Knight because sometimes the second hit cancels the chiken effect from the first... and this makes sense. It's just bad luck.

BUT! Now I'm using a Chicken Knife and Spell Edge. The first hit turned the enemie to a chicken, but the second one cancelled it... Why!? Spell Edge is supposed to just cause Don't Act sometimes.

[Luther Lansfeld]

Good work!

[metroid composite]

It's probably not too different at 2 Range/150 for general usefulness, but on the other hand it's more fun than before, so.

Well...it'd be different.

At range 2, it would be a viable option much less often--either because you can't get in range, or you'd get murdered if you did get in range.  However, when it IS viable, it would more frequently be a good choice.

[Dark Holy Elf]

BUT! Now I'm using a Chicken Knife and Spell Edge. The first hit turned the enemie to a chicken, but the second one cancelled it... Why!? Spell Edge is supposed to just cause Don't Act sometimes.

The reason this happens is because whenever you do ANYTHING to a target, the game checks to see what its current brave is, and, if it's 10 or above, unsets chicken. So if you want to use a Ninja with a Chicken Knife, put the Spell Edge first and the Chicken Knife second. The enemies will still be able to remove chicken by e.g. healing the target, but I don't think they have the AI to do so, since the game wasn't designed with non-brave-subject chicken status in mind.

[Hoxir]

Hoh, got it. I'll always put the Chiken Knife as last weapon, so, thanks!

One doubt: why is that the samurai had its HP and Speed nerfed? They use heavy armor! How can his HP be so low? All mages are more durable than them, in terms of raw HP! And about the speed, well, I know they're not ninjas, but samurais in the past were really fast; usually the fights were finished with just one fast and precise blow (heavy damage, well, this they have now, at least, but not the fast part).

EDIT: the modifiers of Steal are still working? You know, if user has Attack Up, then actual speed is 4/3 the original; if he has Martial Arts, 3/2, and so it goes...

(It's funny how many times I've been editing my posts.)

So, I was at Duguola Pass looking for the rare battle and...



Look! A lancer with two heads! (No dirty jokes, guys)

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Take a look at the Samurai's offensive stats and its skillset and you'll have an idea -why- they're not really hot at HP and speed. LFT Samurai's stat spread in terms of speed and durability is very much in line with FFT's original design to boot, and gameplay design has a higher priority than flavor in general, for all that flavor isn't eschewed in LFT. The class has always been about skillset over stats - the rebalance just gave them a really nifty dual-cannon bent as well. Heck, you certainly could argue Samurai as one of the best classes in LFT as is.

Addendum: in Final Fantasy, as a rule of thumb, Samurais are on the low end of the speed spectrum.

[Hoxir]

Yeah, I was thinking about it... innate Two Hands, Concentration; a cheap katana that gives Faith; A giant skillset, with skills for damage, buff and even heal and bad stats infliction. They're really cool, now, even being fragile and slow...

PS: I was doing the Bewoulf/Reis sidequest and at the first battle on Gollund, there were a lot of Time Mages named Ko. They had P Bags, elemental shields and Angel Ring. I'm curious about the fact that after the second time that I killed some of them, they were still with reraise status. Isn't Angel Ring supposed to give one time only Reraise?

[metroid composite]

Part of it was just that we decided to make all three armor users different speeds.  Knight became speed 90, so...one of Samurai/Lancer were getting buffed or nerfed.  95 is actually hardly even noticeable.  Like...their level 99 speed hasn't even changed, it's still 11 (assuming normal stat growth).

As for HP...to a large extent we emphasized class differences that already existed.  For instance, Thief had more HP than Ninja in the original, we just made the HP gap larger by buffing Thief HP and lowering Ninja HP.  Similar things happened with Samurai compared to other armor classes.  Incidentally, low HP actually makes you appreciate armor more.

[Hoxir]

Limit skills are considered magic attacks? If I use Magic Attack Up, this will boost the skills?

(No-Charge, just wait for me.)

[Dark Holy Elf]

Unless LFT changed this specifically (and I don't think it did), Limit is magical and affected by Magic Attack/Defence Up and Shell.