New Nyarlathotep's Dungeon Topic, Updated 10/1/14 with new rules

[SnowFire]

And since you're already short a point, it could be a pretty decent bonus.  Agrias w/ Chemist stuff (including Item / Auto-Potion) rather than Chemist, perhaps?

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

UPDATE:

Mei-ling's Koorong Freakshow Male Prostitution Ring

Geno (3.0), Mei-ling (2.5), Yuri1 (3.5), Hope (1.5, Speed?), Beecham (0.5)

Eh, shuffling things around because my last team suddenly turned illegal with Hilda going up to 2.5. Basic idea is pretty much the same, only with less fweem, more FFXIII and even less durability. Also, using Beecham because harem.

[AndrewRogue]

Sounds like a decent idea. I've specifically avoided trying to take synergy bonuses in the past to spare Neph, but it'd be fun to see what happens here.

[Yoshiken]

Went back to find my team as it should be, since the first post wasn't updated with it.

Vantage Sealstone:
Shadow (2.5)
Ramza (3.0)
Tidus (2.5)
Elincia (2.5)
Moulder (0.5)

General idea is that Shadow can smash things about with Interceptor if they're, y'know, any kind of physical. (As far as I know, at least. Might be wrong about that, but it's still hilariously awesome.) Elincia and Moulder are both capable healers and.. Elincia's a capable damage dealer too! Plus, evasion hype to go with counter hype! Ramza acts as yet another healer, while also getting reaction commands for more Vantage abuse. Tidus throws around some ridiculous speed shenanigans as well as eventually getting Caladbolg for absolutely ridiculous Vantage abuse.

Still not sure how useful Tidus is in here, wouldn't mind a half-decent mage early on, but not sure who. Any thoughts?
(For now, Neph, go with this team, and I'll update it if any changes are made.)

[Pyro]

After tgis team, my next will be...

Rikku, Ryu2, Lilka, FFT Chemist, and Firefly Rand.

Ryu2 screams out for a chemist pairing. Rikku is a pretty cool 4.0, I like Lilka, and Firefly Rand works in this format.

[hinode]

It would probably be a major administrative pain and might end up wildly overpowered with Chemist in play, but I always thought that allowing spillover jp (something like 150 jp per floor) would be the coolest synergy bonus possible for an all-FFT team.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

That's pretty <3.

[Nephrite]

Since I'm not too knowledgeable on how spillover works, I'll have to think about something I can make sense of for it, but I'll come up with something.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I can help you out with that if you want. Hit me up when I'm on mIRC.

[Magic Fanatic]

Rika (4.0) (Multitarget)
Miakis (4.0)
Purim (3.0)

Now, let's see if this experiment turns up the results I want.

EDIT: Nevermind, it was a stupid idea.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I cannot possibly fathom what you're trying to accomplish with Multitarget on Rika. The only remotely relevant things she has that aren't MT are Shift and Eliminat, and it's not worth gimping the effectiveness of all her skillset redundantly just for turn two MT ID and a middling attack buff on a team where you have only -one- potential heavy-duty physicaller. You also have no revival -at all- until late, so your entire strategy will fall apart as soon as someone dies from floor 1-5 minimum. Unless you're trying to make a Rika team that loses to floor 1 (in which case, go nuts, though floor 1 is so bad I think Miakis+Rika risk soloing it -anyway-), I dunno what's the deal there.

[Magic Fanatic]

Unless you're trying to make a Rika team that loses to floor 1 (in which case, go nuts, though floor 1 is so bad I think Miakis+Rika risk soloing it -anyway-), I dunno what's the deal there.

That's the entire point.

[dude789]

Rika+Purim do have some neat synergy with Rika's MT physical move and the Saber spells, but I agree with Jo'ou that the team is really too much of a late bloomer in terms of skillset and revival. It'd definately be a better choice to swap Miakis out with 2 or 3 less expensive characters.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

He wants to lose with the team anyway. Whatever gets someone's mojo going, really.

[Dhyerwolf]

2 of 3 of them may not even get any skills floor 1!

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Rika starts with Res and Illusion, so that's not -that- big a problem. Now, Purim. Hooooooooooly crap.

[Dhyerwolf]

Right, she at least has something. I think the team would fall in the second match (Cecil, Galleon and Knight all give that team fits).

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Oh, true. Miakis being all elemental is :nergal: there.

[Nephrite]

I am putting things on a temporary hold as I try and come up with some ways to make the Dungeon a bit more interesting.

[Nephrite]

So, I've had some time to think about this, and I'd like to present everyone with a question: Why do you do the Dungeon?

I created the Dungeon to be a fun challenge of a variety of teams facing a seemingly insurmountable task of defeating it. In my own way, I wanted it to be unbeatable. I can respect the fact that that isn't why people play it, to be defeated -- they want to succeed.

I think my problem is that for the later floors, it usually requires things that I'd consider "cheap" or "broken" mechanics to get through. It's hard to reconcile those differences in team design with the sheer amount of absurdity that the later floors have to have.

So, I guess my ultimate question is: When is the Dungeon the most interesting? I know I can make things more engaging, I think it just requires that I put more thought into floor mechanics and theme.

I appreciate everyone's enthusiasm in it and don't have any plans to quit on this anytime soon, I just need to find a way to make it more fun.

[DjinnAndTonic]

I personally enjoy the Dungeon because I like Team Battles. I like seeing big parties fighting each other and trying to figure out what strategies would work best.

I personally would be more likely to vote if each floor had fewer fights, though. The resources aspect is important, but I feel like the sheer number of enemy duellers I have to look up every time I try to vote is staggering.

Thematically, I like seeing enemy fights that have some sort of interesting synergy, or big groups from the same series crossing over. I also like the unique mechanics floors like reverse heal and MT/ST since they force looking at teams in a different way.

I find myself less and less concerned with the "Improve over time" aspect of the dungeon. Trying to remember what duelists are like 2/3rds of the way through their game is far more work now that there's such a ridiculous number of games I have to keep track of.

Still a really fun tournament in general, and building a team is always my favorite part.

[Pyro]

I like looking at team options and seeing how they work together.

I will agree that floors could stand to be shorter. Maybe only one grind floor instead of each one being a grind. Resource management can be an issue but it feels like too major a one.

I think you should allow healing and revival between fights. Too often it comes down to 'let one enemy live, heal up!' which is silly.

Shorter floors with harder fights would be cooler. I think.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

What I personally like about the Dungeon is the metagaming. This is the most fluid part of the dungeon in theory, and I really like comparing how theorycrafting teams work in the practical gameplan.

That said, I feel like sometimes the dungeon tried to be too thematic in lieu of more exciting and interesting fight designs. Honestly, lowering the amount of fights in a given floor wouldn't be a bad idea for less repetition and more room for breathing. I already feel the dungeon is too much of a resource grind as is (multiple healer-revivers are absolutely mandatory, for instance). Another thing I kinda miss is the more surreal designs of the really early dungeon - stuff like Connie x9 or the White Rose swarm. But this gets into whimsies.

[dude789]

I created the Dungeon to be a fun challenge of a variety of teams facing a seemingly insurmountable task of defeating it. In my own way, I wanted it to be unbeatable. I can respect the fact that that isn't why people play it, to be defeated -- they want to succeed.

I think my problem is that for the later floors, it usually requires things that I'd consider "cheap" or "broken" mechanics to get through. It's hard to reconcile those differences in team design with the sheer amount of absurdity that the later floors have to have.

I think this is what's inevitably going to happen when you design the later floors to be unbeatable. I think toning down both the last few floors and also the aftergame bonuses is an easy fix to reducing cheapness. If teams don't have to rely on cheap strategies to win, than they won't use them.

I think there's a fairly even split between experimentation and desire to succeed. For example, my current team is more experimentation based because I find the fact of all the team members dodging Explosion with Saner to be funny, and I know there's eventually going to be a floor that's able to outspeed Rika and poke Mew to shut it down or something. 

[Random Consonant]

Pretty much seeing what works or what is fun together and seeing how it pans out in practice.  Beating would be nice but I kind of think that's a tertiary goal.  That said...

That said, I feel like sometimes the dungeon tried to be too thematic in lieu of more exciting and interesting fight designs. Honestly, lowering the amount of fights in a given floor wouldn't be a bad idea for less repetition and more room for breathing.

I pretty much agree with this sentiment.  When a theme works and is interesting, great.  On the other hand some themes really shouldn't be forced if they create too many scrubfights.  Granted there's sort of a risk of that happening anyways, but cutting down on floor length should reduce that.