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At this point, trying to make the fool actually worth it seems like a... fool's errand. It would be interesting if they got something, though. The impression I get from the fool is less "this is an intentional challenge class" and more "oops we couldn't come up with an interesting 12th class." Which is fine, it's already a very strong class system; 11 very thoughtful classes and a mea culpa is head and shoulders above most FF1 hacks.
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Jan 21, 2022 16:14
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Isn't the usual technique for using fewer than four party members to simply kill the unwanted characters?
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Jan 21, 2022 16:27
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Nothing says the legendary weapon has to make them stronger. Give them a legendary weapon that makes them a legendary joke. Admittedly hard in ff1, but you could have comical damage but downright terrible accuracy. Or try a negative damage value and see if it heals enemies, assuming that stat is signed.
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Jan 21, 2022 16:32
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A marotte is literally just a stick with a face carved into it. Have it deal exactly 1 damage on the enemy when it hits. I'm sure there's got to be a way to set it up that way.
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Jan 21, 2022 16:38
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FoolyCharged posted:Nothing says the legendary weapon has to make them stronger. Give them a legendary weapon that makes them a legendary joke. Admittedly hard in ff1, but you could have comical damage but downright terrible accuracy. Or try a negative damage value and see if it heals enemies, assuming that stat is signed. I believe hit% and damage are both unsigned 8-bit integers. So maybe the ideal solution would be to give them a weapon with something like ~240-245 hit% and a little bit more damage, which would very quickly overflow and turn into an effective -10 or so... but at low levels and low STR you would be able to boost your attacking stats to near-max levels and be a ridiculous shitwrecker. That way it's both the ultimate joke weapon and also a moonshot to turn your joke character into the most powerful attacker in the game, but only with a lot of extra steps to manage your XP to keep them from turning useless again.
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Jan 21, 2022 16:47
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Randalor posted:A marotte is literally just a stick with a face carved into it. Have it deal exactly 1 damage on the enemy when it hits. I'm sure there's got to be a way to set it up that way. afaik you'd have to go out of your way to set that up in FF1. No matter what weapon you're attacking with, the damage formula is (A~2A - D), where A is attack and D is defense. Randalor posted:I'm fine with the joke character being an actual joke for the entire game. The earliest "intentional joke" character I can think of, only had the "reward" of bring able to class change into the best class without needing an item, but you still had to actually level them up. To be fair, "the class gets a super-strong weapon (at the end of one of the bonus/endgame dungeons)" is something along the same lines, if not even moreso. Sure, they can turn into an amazing shitwrecker... but is it worth dragging them through nearly the entire game? As-is I feel like "this is a class made for people who want to play the game with three characters" feels kinda like a cop-out for "I can't think of a twelfth class". Which sure, yeah, incredibly understandable - thinking of distinctive classes can be hard, and I say that as someone who isn't restricted by FFI's engine - just... don't make it sound that grand, y'know? You can kill off any class in that fourth slot without a real problem.
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Jan 21, 2022 17:16
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Yeah, I get what they're trying for with the Fool, but 'this character is just a stone blank' is both the most boring way to do it and really feels like they're just wasting what limited space they have to solve a problem players already solved in vanilla- if you want to do a run man-down, you just kill off and don't raise folks and suddenly you have a three/two/one-man run. Unless there is some reason you need a useless but technically alive body to clear revamped content, this is just dull. I can't imagine doing a run and actually choosing a Fool, even for a 'challenge' run.
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Jan 21, 2022 17:49
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A useless character sucks up XP so it's effectively worse than a corpse...in vanilla. As this hack gives corpses XP, welp
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Jan 21, 2022 17:54
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Randalor posted:I'm fine with the joke character being an actual joke for the entire game. The earliest "intentional joke" character I can think of, only had the "reward" of bring able to class change into the best class without needing an item, but you still had to actually level them up. Goof-offs being a "joke" character in DQ3 was always a bit misleading because aside from their comically massive Luck growth they also could do some unique random actions in combat. Even without the class change perk they were still better than merchants tbh. At least until the remakes.
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Jan 21, 2022 18:30
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Mr. Locke posted:Yeah, I get what they're trying for with the Fool, but 'this character is just a stone blank' is both the most boring way to do it and really feels like they're just wasting what limited space they have to solve a problem players already solved in vanilla- if you want to do a run man-down, you just kill off and don't raise folks and suddenly you have a three/two/one-man run. Unless there is some reason you need a useless but technically alive body to clear revamped content, this is just dull. I can't imagine doing a run and actually choosing a Fool, even for a 'challenge' run. I agree, but I still have a hard time holding it against them because the design space for FF1 is arguably a bigger constraint than the ROM space. From what I'm seeing, even with only 11 "real" classes this hack does a better job exploring the design space than any other FF1 hack I've seen. Evil Fluffy posted:Goof-offs being a "joke" character in DQ3 was always a bit misleading because aside from their comically massive Luck growth they also could do some unique random actions in combat. Even without the class change perk they were still better than merchants tbh. At least until the remakes. The overwhelming majority of the goof-off's random acts were useless or actively harmful, and you wouldn't see anything special until you were well past the point where you could change to Sage. Merchants were pretty acceptable in the front half of the game by comparison, their main weakness was having absolutely no endgame whatsoever (presumably they expected you to install any starting merchant in New Town and roll a new character... such as perhaps a goof-off, now that you were well into the game and could power level them up to 20.)
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Jan 21, 2022 18:44
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Evil Fluffy posted:Goof-offs being a "joke" character in DQ3 was always a bit misleading because aside from their comically massive Luck growth they also could do some unique random actions in combat. Even without the class change perk they were still better than merchants tbh. At least until the remakes. I will not stand for this slandering of the Merchant class, which gave us Torneko, who's spinoff game eventually led to the second best thing from the Pokemon franchise (the best being Pokemon Conquest).
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Jan 21, 2022 19:28
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FFIV has a randomizer called Free Enterprise where Edward (bard and winner of the overall most useless character award) can be allowed to equip the Spoon (a key item that can otherwise be thrown once for 9,999 damage) as a dagger with maximum attack power. He's still virtually useless even with that weapon, mostly due to the way the final boss does damage. There are some extremely niche strats you can do with Edward by abusing his Hide ability, but otherwise he's pretty similar to a Fool in this game. My point here is even if you give a lovely character an amazing weapon, they're still a lovely character with terrible stats to back it up, and will die to a stiff breeze.
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Jan 22, 2022 00:51
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Dirk the Average posted:FFIV has a randomizer called Free Enterprise where Edward (bard and winner of the overall most useless character award) can be allowed to equip the Spoon (a key item that can otherwise be thrown once for 9,999 damage) as a dagger with maximum attack power. 
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Jan 22, 2022 01:54
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Sure there's a cure! Just grind him to like level 80!
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Jan 22, 2022 02:32
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I'm rather sad about the Fool being a total non-entity. I was expecting some sort of payoff à la the Fool->Sage from DQ3. I do like that the game doesn't deprive dead characters of exp, but I thought that the OP said that characters have to *start* the fight alive to get it. Is that not true? I doubt that they would let a dead character just lie face down and soak up experience. By the way, Edward is a very good support character in the remakes.
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Jan 22, 2022 02:52
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JustJeff88 posted:I'm rather sad about the Fool being a total non-entity. I was expecting some sort of payoff à la the Fool->Sage from DQ3. I do like that the game doesn't deprive dead characters of exp, but I thought that the OP said that characters have to *start* the fight alive to get it. Is that not true? I doubt that they would let a dead character just lie face down and soak up experience. Near as I can tell, all characters get XP from all fights.
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Jan 22, 2022 02:54
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I thought Edward's stats were obscenely broken between levels 50-70 or something. Stuff no sane person would ever attempt in the original release, but if you get and keep him early in the randomizer, or use him in the Advance release, yeah, he can become terrifying.
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Jan 22, 2022 03:11
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iirc it's that Edward has the potential to get really high stats after level 70, with possible levels that give him +2, +3, and even +4 points to various stats. That said half of his possible level ups involve him losing points (and not gaining any), because Final Fantasy IV is weird.
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Jan 22, 2022 04:00
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According to a random guide I found on GameFAQs:quote:Edward/Gilbert can get: It's still completely irrelevant to any sane run.
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Jan 22, 2022 04:27
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FeyerbrandX posted:I thought Edward's stats were obscenely broken between levels 50-70 or something. Stuff no sane person would ever attempt in the original release, but if you get and keep him early in the randomizer, or use him in the Advance release, yeah, he can become terrifying. Spoon Edward does have value in Free Enterprise since the spoon lets him be an excellent physical damage-dealer, but he's a glass cannon.
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Jan 22, 2022 04:41
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Maybe they should've given the Fool 0 max HP and 0 growth in it, or found a way to otherwise just make them a permanent corpse. Always:Dead a la FFT, though I have no idea if such a thing is even possible in FF1. Are there any ways to give a party member and always-on buff, debuff, or status problem...?
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Jan 22, 2022 05:51
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Fool is still of some use, mostly for chucking potions at party members and using rings and staves. It's not a lot, but it isn't nothing.
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Jan 22, 2022 06:33
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I'm sure you could set it so such and such a character slot always had some status, but I'd bet anything that you'd be writing your own 6502 if you wanted to tie it to a class. e:Assorted details on how FF1 is programmed / laid out ee:annotated disassembly for the even more technically minded Fantastic Foreskin fucked around with this message at 06:41 on Jan 22, 2022 |
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Jan 22, 2022 06:36
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Shining Force 2 had a couple of characters that were extremely lovely until you promoted them: the turtle and Slade the Thief. They hit like wet noodles. You had to soften enemies up and let them get the kill to get XP. Once you managed to carry them to Level 20, though, they became MUCH better. I actually enjoy that gimmick and actively look for it in RPGs with classes.
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Jan 22, 2022 19:28
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Sadly Kiwi the Turtle remains trash even after promotion, he just becomes slightly less trash. He's an insane early game tank but mediocre by midgame and endgame enemies just oneshot him with spells.  Slade rules though, and one of the better takes on the concept: his promotion becomes an insane glass cannon that still takes care to use, not just some OP unit that autowins battles.
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Jan 22, 2022 19:40
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Big Mad Drongo posted:Sadly Kiwi the Turtle remains trash even after promotion, he just becomes slightly less trash. He's an insane early game tank but mediocre by midgame and endgame enemies just oneshot him with spells. They're all outclassed by Master Monk Sara anyway 
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Jan 22, 2022 19:45
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Jan 22, 2022 19:46
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TheHoosier posted:They're all outclassed by Master Monk Sara anyway Funny way of spelling Karna.
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Jan 22, 2022 20:29
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I like Phantasy Star IV, and I am glad that it is on Switch now. I have never played a Shining Force game, but I wanted to contribute.
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Jan 22, 2022 23:49
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Big Mad Drongo posted:Sadly Kiwi the Turtle remains trash even after promotion, he just becomes slightly less trash. He's an insane early game tank but mediocre by midgame and endgame enemies just oneshot him with spells. I understand that, and will somehow find a way to fit Kiwi into my endgame lineup because he was my favorite as a kid, dammit 
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Jan 23, 2022 03:35
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Today's update is another short one. We have one last area to clear out before the Temple of Fiends, and while it's on the short side, I want to give the final dungeon its own update. Before I forget to mention it: we hit level 25 walking back to the airship from the Holy Shrine. Not exactly an exciting place to get it, but there it is.  Our destination is on this mysterious little island directly south of Melmond. Although it's quite possible (and even likely) to glimpse this place earlier in the game, the only ways to find it are chance or a very vague clue.  You see, this mystery castle is the only dungeon not shown on the in-game map. It's kind of in the middle of nowhere, and it's possible to play through the whole game without learning of its existence. Luckily, it's not mandatory, but its contents are helpful.  The entrance is fairly unimpressive.   Each room contains a ladder down, as well as an NPC who tells us what's located below. These items should be familiar to vanilla players, but they've been repurposed for UCE. As you might have guessed, there's one room corresponding to each of the four elements.  The earth floor is... somebody's storage unit, apparently. I have no idea what, if anything, all this furniture is supposed to signify. The path to the end is winding, and linear, but it's not a maze or anything.  The monsters here are mostly drawn from the Earth Cave and are not a threat.   And the end of the path is a chest, guarded by a very expected spiked tile. It's not even a challenge.  Our prize is, as promised, the Rod.  The right-hand room on floor 1 leads to the fire area.  This floor is another linear path, but filled with lava. It's really nothing special.   At the end is another guarded chest. With both Hereward and Anduril able to deal bonus damage to casters, this is another complete nonissue.  The Crown is ours.  The second chest from the left leads to the water area.  This floor looks nice and open, but those blue tiles?   They're actually exits back to the previous floor. This floor is probably my favorite in the castle. It's a linear path, at least it offers something a bit different.   Morbols are basically stronger ochus. I didn't even give this one time to hit me with anything, so I'm not entirely sure what they inflict.   Third treasure acquired.  Remember the robot in the Mirage Tower?  I did mention that it wasn't a red herring. It's also the clue I mentioned at the start of the update; this island is (far, far) southwest of the Mirage Tower.  This floor is another linear path, comprised of hallways and rooms. It's quite boring.  One last chest. This shouldn't be much tougher than the others.   Yeah, remember the MagiTek encounter from the Time Tower? Now we've got four of them. This encounter is kinda bonkers. Unlike the other chest guards, these guys have to be taken seriously or you will die.  Our strategy here is simple, but as effective as we can get. Priority one is casting WALL (or SHEL, but I prefer the former). The MagiTeks' beam attacks are lethal and need to be mitigated. After that?  SOFT.  SOFT.  SOFT. Exploiting the Magiteks' vulnerability to petrification is the best way to win this fight. By the time we cast SOFT on three of them, the fourth should be nearly dead from attacks by Rogue, Ranger, and Viking.  Despite the danger, this fight can be extremely lucrative. If you can handle it, it's by far the best grinding spot in the game.  And we finally get the Cube. What do these items actually do, you ask? You'll just have to wait and see. In any case, we're done with this dungeon. Except... No. No we're not. I did mention that this was an excellent grinding spot, didn't I?      All told, this took about 20 minutes.  And here's the reason I did it. With a party this focused on physical power, it would practically be a crime to go into the final fungeon without HST2.  Well, folks, we're about as ready as we're going to get. Let's go kill Chaos. 5-Headed Snake God fucked around with this message at 06:35 on Jan 24, 2022 |
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Jan 24, 2022 05:57
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Would you have been underlevelled without that grinding session or was it really just for HST2?
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Jan 24, 2022 14:37
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I'd probably have wanted to grind out a couple of levels there, but I absolutely went to 30 for HST2. I don't even really need it, but I meant it when I said it would be a shame for this party to never use it.
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Jan 24, 2022 17:12
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This LP and this hack are great. Anybody have any other really good FF hacks? Other than Brave New World. Gonna throw one on my next retro playlist
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Jan 25, 2022 00:10
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FF7 (steam version) has New Threat, haven't played it myself but I hear good things from serious jrpg fans.
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Jan 25, 2022 00:28
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Fantastic Foreskin posted:FF7 (steam version) has New Threat, haven't played it myself but I hear good things from serious jrpg fans. New Threat is fuckin' great. In fact I think I can sell it on one image, but I'll spoiler it because if you're already planning to play, you'll probably want this to be a surprise. 
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Jan 25, 2022 01:14
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5-Headed Snake God posted:New Threat is fuckin' great. In fact I think I can sell it on one image, but I'll spoiler it because if you're already planning to play, you'll probably want this to be a surprise. 
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Jan 25, 2022 01:19
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TheHoosier posted:This LP and this hack are great. How did I miss this? Thank you, it's been fun to do. 
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Jan 25, 2022 02:59
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I’ve been silently following and I want to echo how much of a fun ride this has been. I grew up on OG FF but I haven’t played it in probably 25 years (what is time). It’s been a treat to look back, and a blast to see how the modding community has really changed it.
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Jan 25, 2022 04:12
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| # ? Jun 8, 2024 02:21 |
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqLa5qOVsQg I think most people here will find this interesting.
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Jan 25, 2022 05:17
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