Introducing the PSO Rebalance Project: PSOBB REBORN

[falkenjeff]

and then are an irrelevancy

Takes up an item slot.

It's the only reason people don't use them lol. (They cast instantaneously and are generally more useful than the really long cast time of Ryuker - but they take up an item slot)

 

[Fire AKA Drazn]

Takes up an item slot.

It's the only reason people don't use them lol. (They cast instantaneously and are generally more useful than the really long cast time of Ryuker - but they take up an item slot)

Well more reasons for people to play together then ;3

 

[Aleron Ives]

The only thing more "useful" about Telepipe than Ryuker is glitching through locked doors. The casting time of Ryuker is irrelevant, unless you're trying to escape from a clusterfuck.

 

[RedKing]

Sounds like a fairly similar idea to a project I'm wanting to work towards.
I was looking to make a whole new game that kept some of the addictive aspects that keep PSO players coming in whilst refreshing the combat and providing a whole new story. I'll not spoil the name, just in case I ever do manage to get it done, but it's kind of my big end goal-type project as a wanting game designer.

Some of the things I wanted to add to combat was things like a class that specialises in the use of shields and can use the shield generator on a chain (with small blades on the generator) as a grappling hook, a system where all characters can have the type of shields characters in PSO use to "evade" but they have individual barrier pieces which have the potential to be broken and come back over time, and a method of balancing the android types which included ways of making them stronger in some specialised area or even allowing them to take a support role, but them having limitations based on their setup.

EDIT:
When I have more time to take a proper look at what you've got planned, i'll make some better comment on your work, I did notice a couple things that just by title-reading didn't sound like it was so much a change as a re-explaining of things, and other bits that without looking at fully I'm not sure I can be completely in agreement on as keeping the nostalgia.

2ND EDIT:
Okay, so, reading through stuff, here are some comments I have on the briefings of some areas.

Spoiler: Complete Rework Of Weapons and Tech Damage

Most of this sounds good, though a couple details I think may want a little further looking in to.
The weapon restrictions idea could probably do with being re-visited, I think if you'll be giving hunters and rangers any FO weapons, maybe let them have the basic set and SOME rares if the cane type, let wands stay exclusive, they don't have enough weapons to themselves already where hunters and rangers have many, especially if rangers get mechguns, launchers, shotguns and rifles entirely to themselves. Back on the basic sets, I think hunters should get access to some common type mechguns and lower tier rares, and forces should get the common types only.
Tech currently are useless, and putting them on par with physical damage is a good start, but that still makes them useless, as physical attacks pump out damage at a faster rate, and other than TP draining attacks, don't cost a resource you have to buy items to replenish - I think putting the power of techs ABOVE that pf physical damage, when properly built is a better way to go in order to compensate for slower outputs and resource costs.
As for dropping the max % on a weapon stat, it's a good idea but I think dropping to 20 is taking it maybe a tad far, because 20% means almost nothing on a lot of things, ESPECIALLY early game, when 20% on a damage type is worth maybe 1 point of damage.
Better S-Ranks is always good, makes a better incentive to try to get them and could also drive a more competitive in-game economy.
The change to no-combo weapons is definitely what they needed from the start, good show.
Removal of Charge from commons is probably for the best, though it would be sad to see it go, I think maybe in compensation, some new rare weapons should be produced, one for each class (let's say the multi-target weapons - Vjaya, a new shotgun and a new Talis) just to keep things a little more interesting on the unique items front and to not completely rob the charge-addicted.
Removal of those specials and keeping ice? Probably not best, I'd say re-formulate the specials, maybe to function more closely way weapon elements did in PSU/PSO2, where the special attack will do the base damage + a % of the element damage based on the tier (burning, blazing / storm, tempest etc) which can allow for more diverse physical combat and not require MST to deal "just any damage whatsoever".

Spoiler: Complete rework of "Stat Maxing"

I don't think the complete removal of materials is such a good idea, I'd probably go more towards a reduced importance, maybe by further limiting how many a character can have used on them total and lowering the amount of bonus you can gain of any one stat by use of materials, so that by capping a per-stat raising, you prevent stacking everything onto a single stat and you can also spin it into preventing maximum use on all stats, for example, you could uniform it over all classes (except CASTs for MST and TP who will need a slightly different table) where each stat can have up to 20 materials put in maximum, BUT you only have a max total count of 90 (out of the 120 that would have otherwise been available to use on the non-HP/TP stats)

Spoiler: Complete rework of enemy resistances and Tech availability

It's a good idea to re-work this, but don't overdo it, you might accidentally render class choice obsolete by doing so, especially if some of the other re-balances somehow happen not to work out as planned, for instance, you're almost turning a RAmarl into a FOmarl who can use bazookas and rifles and HUney into a FOney with giant swords, daggers and a Vjaya!

OK, so, I realise that this post is slowly turning into novelbooks and so I'll leave it here for now. Rethink your removals, because you might find yourself at a stage where you simply take too much away and don't put any equivalent functionality back in to make up for it. Go more in the direction of reductions in areas where you feel something is needless or too much.

 

[falkenjeff]

unless you're trying to escape from a clusterfuck

Which is exactly why I said pipes are more useful lmao.

Heck I'm surprised hardcore characters use ryuker. They shouldn't be. Pipes would save them from wasting scapes.

 

[Fire AKA Drazn]

Thanks for all the feedback

The weapon restrictions idea could probably do with being re-visited, I think if you'll be giving hunters and rangers any FO weapons, maybe let them have the basic set and SOME rares if the cane type, let wands stay exclusive, they don't have enough weapons to themselves already where hunters and rangers have many, especially if rangers get mechguns, launchers, shotguns and rifles entirely to themselves. Back on the basic sets, I think hunters should get access to some common type mechguns and lower tier rares, and forces should get the common types only.

Hunters and Rangers only get access to the more basic force weapons (Canes and Rods) while Wands and Talises remain exclusives. Forces also have a fair bit of overlap with hunter weapons (Claws, Katanas & Double Sabers) so there is a fair exchange going on, and Forces actually can use a very wide range of weapons. Its worth noting CAST hunters also cannot use Canes or Rods.

Rangers as a whole, while they have multiple exclusive weapons, can actually use less weapon types than hunters can (e.g. 15 total for HUmar, 12 for RAmar.) Force weapon availability is deliberately restricted as they have the greatest access to techs, and to avoid them being able to use the more specialized weapons (such as mechguns) which are naturally very powerful.

I do not feel it is wise to give a class a weapon type that will become irrelevant later for them. This only serves to confuse and frustrate players in the long run. Mechguns are also being deliberately restricted to prevent the obvious exploit case that exists in original PSO (HUcast with Charge Vulcans.) The only exception to this are Twin Psychoguns (both normal and S-Rank) can be used by Forces, however they are naturally less powerful than other mechguns and cannot obtain a sacrificial special.

Tech currently are useless, and putting them on par with physical damage is a good start, but that still makes them useless, as physical attacks pump out damage at a faster rate, and other than TP draining attacks, don't cost a resource you have to buy items to replenish - I think putting the power of techs ABOVE that pf physical damage, when properly built is a better way to go in order to compensate for slower outputs and resource costs.

I feel this point is my fault, because I said damage and not damage per second which is what i actually meant. I shall change this section of the manifesto to make this clearer.

Simple Techs in their current form do about twice as much damage per hit compared to a physical attack from a saber type weapon both with average ATP/MST. Techs should be on average somewhat weaker than physical attacks however their damage remains relevant for far longer. Forces should never be out-DPSing their Hunter or Ranger counterparts, but they definitely can carry their own weight now and groups should feel much better about taking more than a single Force along.

As for dropping the max % on a weapon stat, it's a good idea but I think dropping to 20 is taking it maybe a tad far, because 20% means almost nothing on a lot of things, ESPECIALLY early game, when 20% on a damage type is worth maybe 1 point of damage.

As a whole Reborn makes PSO's early game a fair bit easier already. Weapon percents are intended to be more for people at endgame pushing harder content trying to get an edge. I may look into making percents appear more frequently on lower tier items though, maybe in higher quantities, but the 20% figure is aimed at endgame.

Better S-Ranks is always good, makes a better incentive to try to get them and could also drive a more competitive in-game economy.

The change to no-combo weapons is definitely what they needed from the start, good show.

I am glad you like these changes as they were dumb issues with a simple solution that has frustrated me to no end while playing PSO -_-

Will have more responses later, but I'm off to college for now. Thanks a lot for your input, it is always appreciated, keep it coming ^^

 

[RedKing]

Hunters and Rangers only get access to the more basic force weapons (Canes and Rods) while Wands and Talises remain exclusives. Forces also have a fair bit of overlap with hunter weapons (Claws, Katanas & Double Sabers) so there is a fair exchange going on, and Forces actually can use a very wide range of weapons. Its worth noting CAST hunters also cannot use Canes or Rods.

That seems fair enough, and I figured that CAST anything not using a tech-based weapon would be a given.

Rangers as a whole, while they have multiple exclusive weapons, can actually use less weapon types than hunters can (e.g. 15 total for HUmar, 12 for RAmar.) Force weapon availability is deliberately restricted as they have the greatest access to techs, and to avoid them being able to use the more specialized weapons (such as mechguns) which are naturally very powerful.

I do not feel it is wise to give a class a weapon type that will become irrelevant later for them. This only serves to confuse and frustrate players in the long run. Mechguns are also being deliberately restricted to prevent the obvious exploit case that exists in original PSO (HUcast with Charge Vulcans.) The only exception to this are Twin Psychoguns (both normal and S-Rank) can be used by Forces, however they are naturally less powerful than other mechguns and cannot obtain a sacrificial special.

Again a fair point for the most part, though I would argue that there is no confusion or frustration with irrelevancies, people tend to just understand that at some point a particular setup become obsoleted with proper setups slowly becoming more geared towards other things, I just think that having the mid~late game option for a different method of higher risk and reward damage output would only serve to keep some of the diversity in the game And the point about the charge vulcans is lost in the fact that you're scrapping those anyway.

I feel this point is my fault, because I said damage and not damage per second which is what i actually meant. I shall change this section of the manifesto to make this clearer.

Okay, better understanding works, had I known, as I expect you'd already know, that part of my reply wouldn't exist, and so, i retract it.

Simple Techs in their current form do about twice as much damage per hit compared to a physical attack from a saber type weapon both with average ATP/MST. Techs should be on average somewhat weaker than physical attacks however their damage remains relevant for far longer. Forces should never be out-DPSing their Hunter or Ranger counterparts, but they definitely can carry their own weight now and groups should feel much better about taking more than a single Force along.

I feel the idea of techs being in any form weaker than a physical attack should be just null, as again, there is a resource cost and a bigger risk of being hit for using them with their slow casting times as well as physical aftercast cooldown before you can even move, especially problematic early game with techs like Gifoie which stop you for a long time with a minimal offering of range.

As a whole Reborn makes PSO's early game a fair bit easier already. Weapon percents are intended to be more for people at endgame pushing harder content trying to get an edge. I may look into making percents appear more frequently on lower tier items though, maybe in higher quantities, but the 20% figure is aimed at endgame.

I think maybe something more in the reaches of a 30% cap might be friendlier, and really, REALLY well sought after if you make the 20+ range really, really rare to get hold of.

I am glad you like these changes as they were dumb issues with a simple solution that has frustrated me to no end while playing PSO -_-

Will have more responses later, but I'm off to college for now. Thanks a lot for your input, it is always appreciated, keep it coming ^^

Total agreement, It'll be good to see what else you come up with.

 

[Fire AKA Drazn]

Removal of Charge from commons is probably for the best, though it would be sad to see it go, I think maybe in compensation, some new rare weapons should be produced, one for each class (let's say the multi-target weapons - Vjaya, a new shotgun and a new Talis) just to keep things a little more interesting on the unique items front and to not completely rob the charge-addicted.

While I'd love to add more weapon variety to the game, that is not something I can accomplish with the tools I currently have. I already have a long list of things I need/would like access to and while this issue features on that list there are other things I am currently prioritising.

Charge itself is a poorly thought out and infinitely abusable mechanic that only serves to detract from the game rather than adding anything of worth. Sacrificial specials will still exist, they will just use resources that aren't infinitely renewable and can't be stockpiled to the extent that the "sacrifice" is mostly irrelevant, at worst leading to more grinding simply to make money rather than playing the game, adding to the game's downtime much like mag feeding does.

To be perfectly honest the only reason Vjaya still exists is because it occupies an important part of that weapon type's progression and because the cost involved is much higher.

All rares that had charge have been replaced with an equal if not greater number of rares with other sacrificial specials, including some very powerful 12* weapons. Hopefully this can be viewed as not a removal as much as a re-balancing of Charge itself.

Removal of those specials and keeping ice? Probably not best, I'd say re-formulate the specials, maybe to function more closely way weapon elements did in PSU/PSO2, where the special attack will do the base damage + a % of the element damage based on the tier (burning, blazing / storm, tempest etc) which can allow for more diverse physical combat and not require MST to deal "just any damage whatsoever".

By Ice I assume you mean freeze specials. Generally the power of crowd control specials, including freeze, will be much lower than in original while remaining useful and requiring more specialisation to keep them relevant (such as the v50X units.) However since I'm not currently able to change the potency of CAST traps this will remain an issue high on priority list until I find some way to change their mechanics.

On the same vein, making fundamental changes to core game mechanics is just generally not something I can currently do. I am not a programmer you see and most of my work is done through tools provided to me by the community (mostly Soly tbh though ;3) so if in any way you can enable me in this regard that would be extremely helpful. Until then however I am going to make the best with what I currently have available to me and look into ways to extend my reach.

I don't think the complete removal of materials is such a good idea, I'd probably go more towards a reduced importance, maybe by further limiting how many a character can have used on them total and lowering the amount of bonus you can gain of any one stat by use of materials, so that by capping a per-stat raising, you prevent stacking everything onto a single stat and you can also spin it into preventing maximum use on all stats, for example, you could uniform it over all classes (except CASTs for MST and TP who will need a slightly different table) where each stat can have up to 20 materials put in maximum, BUT you only have a max total count of 90 (out of the 120 that would have otherwise been available to use on the non-HP/TP stats)

This is an interesting idea, however I still remain doubtful as to the importance of materials themselves as a mechanic. Especially since their exact functioning is never explained in-game, this serves as only yet another mechanic to trip up newer players or those that don't care to do research outside of the game, something that ideally would never be required but is unfortunately sometimes necessary depending on the game and it's depth.

Mags are a very good example of this, as there currently does not exist a way to "respec" your mag choices, which in original was also compounded by their asininely complex feeding stat distributions requiring exacting amounts of certain items to achieve an ideal mag which is not something you are likely to ever learn simply by playing the game.

While I cannot solve this problem entirely I can attempt to minimize it by removing certain mechanics that can be removed (such as materials) and providing easy to find and understand guides on mag raising, as well as simplifying the feeding process itself.

I will think on it some more though, and perhaps try your solution, however material mechanics would need to change as well as there currently isn't a way to restrict materials on a per type basis apart from HP/TP and then everything else being in separate pools. From what Soly has told me, this type of change would need to be server side and a total pain the ass as a result.

It's a good idea to re-work this, but don't overdo it, you might accidentally render class choice obsolete by doing so, especially if some of the other re-balances somehow happen not to work out as planned, for instance, you're almost turning a RAmarl into a FOmarl who can use bazookas and rifles and HUney into a FOney with giant swords, daggers and a Vjaya!

This is my prime concern with all of my changes in Reborn. The goal is more choice not less, and raising any single class above the rest is an obvious obstacle to this.

Addressing these specific concerns, there will always be a reason to choice a force over RAmarl when it comes to techs as they have no restrictions while RAmarl still has quite a few, while said FOney cannot use greatswords, daggers or partisans at all, and would be extremely ineffective at doing so with their paltry lowest-in-the-entire-game ATP, in-fact preventing them from using higher tier weapons that they do have access to (such as double sabers) due to never reaching the ATP requirements.

If this remains a concern of yours I would like it if you looked over my spreadsheet and proof read it for any inconsistencies. There are probably a quite a few as the scope is quite wide and multiple eyes will help keep me on track.

Rethink your removals, because you might find yourself at a stage where you simply take too much away and don't put any equivalent functionality back in to make up for it. Go more in the direction of reductions in areas where you feel something is needless or too much.

Sometimes a reduction of a mechanic is not a complete solution for the problems it poses in the same way simply removing it is. Restrictions in games are often the things that make them more interesting rather than less as it forces you out of your comfort zone and encourages you to adapt.

However I understand your point, PSO is a dead zombie game with no new content in the foreseeable future outside of projects like this that take time and, ultimately, may result in a reduction in total content rather than an increase which is damaging to the overall experience. I do have future plans for things like the addition of additional quests when I finally get round to learning Qedit, but for now my focus is on quality and not quantity.

Its partly why I decided to re-balance Blue Burst despite it being probably the least well balanced of the various versions of PSO. However it has more base content to work with that will mitigate this issue and mean less work later down the road.

Hopefully...

Either way, I'm not about to go cutting things anywhere and everywhere, each of my removals was a result of much personal thought and debate with my IRL friends as well as input from the community. Much like pruning a plant they should lead to a healthier game overall.

Again a fair point for the most part, though I would argue that there is no confusion or frustration with irrelevancies, people tend to just understand that at some point a particular setup become obsoleted with proper setups slowly becoming more geared towards other things, I just think that having the mid~late game option for a different method of higher risk and reward damage output would only serve to keep some of the diversity in the game And the point about the charge vulcans is lost in the fact that you're scrapping those anyway.

It is good to trust your player base to figure it out on their own, however good game design shouldn't require such an understanding although in reality its probably unavoidable especially in games with so many asymmetric options and values such as ARPGs.

However arguably since in original Mechguns were so important to basically every class their removal should lead to more variety and not less, and opens up players to try all of the other weapons their class has to offer. I may consider this in the future though when I see how the new ATP/DFP dynamic shapes up, Mechguns may already be far less potent than they originally were.

Thematically it still seems weird to me a swordsman would ever dual wield sub-machine guns. That seems very much like something only a Ranger would do to any real effect, no?

I feel the idea of techs being in any form weaker than a physical attack should be just null, as again, there is a resource cost and a bigger risk of being hit for using them with their slow casting times as well as physical aftercast cooldown before you can even move, especially problematic early game with techs like Gifoie which stop you for a long time with a minimal offering of range.

While i'd love to agree with this wholeheartedly there is one issue I cannot ignore: Shifta, Deband, Jellen & Zalure. These effects are so powerful that groups in original PSO would take a class which is, when you break it down, fundamentally useless in pretty much every other way, being a FOmar or FOmarl.

Since there are two types of Force, the ones who use weapons and techs and the ones who focus entirely on techs, these types must be balanced against each other as otherwise you would only ever want one of those types of force.

So if I made a FOney's techs more powerful than what a FOmar could do with a saber or double saber, what reason is there for FOmar to exist? They certainly don't outperform a FOney's techs after all.

Chalk it up to poor class design on the part of SEGA, I'm just doing my best to balance the current setup as best I can. And the only feasible way I can see to do that is to establish Force as a support class who's primary role is support. This is also true to the original design of Forces.

And as such their ability to deal damage needs to be limited by their own ability to support themselves. In Reborn A Fomar solo has about the same ATP as a HUcast solo when they cast Shifta, a FOney solo does about the same amount of DPS with techs as both of them. However when said FOmar casts Shifta on that HUcast things become very different. So Force damage is balanced around the baseline of the main DPS classes before they are buffed. Otherwise they would do more and Forces would be the new Hunters or the new Rangers.

I can get them very close to their damage, but it cannot exceed it, and techs cannot exceed the damage of the other Force's limited physical potential.

Beginning to see the issue here? Forces need to occupy a very specific part of the group dynamic that is somewhere between the two extremes of Hunters and Rangers. Anything else would lead to them being too powerful or completely useless for anything other than S/D/J/Z spam.

The only other option would be to remove Foney's and FOnewm's ability to support with S/D/J/Z, which I imagine would not be a very popular decision, I myself would also dislike this for that matter, but also is problematic for encouraging group diversity (less classes that provide support rather than more which was the original goal) and mechanically as Foney has hard coded support bonuses as part of their class.

Overall I think the current solution is the ideal one, Techs do very relevant damage and have unique interactions with monster defenses, as well as completely ignoring monster EVP, allowing them to deal with harder content far sooner than any other class. They also have incredible reach and can hit far more targets consistently than any other weapon in the game. To balance all of these very powerful and useful effects Tech users are generally much more fragile and unwieldy to avoid them completely steamrolling content.

The issue of Tech speed is also somewhat mitigated by making V801 a much easier to obtain unit that appears far earlier, much like battle units for physical classes.

I think maybe something more in the reaches of a 30% cap might be friendlier, and really, REALLY well sought after if you make the 20+ range really, really rare to get hold of.

Now this is something I can get behind completely. If I were to make the 20+ values of a similar rarity to the new 13* rarity items it would provide even more reasons to keep hunting for upgrades. This is probably something I will introduce at some point.

 

[falkenjeff]

Charge itself is a poorly thought out and infinitely abusable mechanic that only serves to detract from the game rather than adding anything of worth

It gives meseta an actual value, rather than it being completely worthless after a certain point in the game. I could go farm up a stack and sell it for 3 PDs. If it's low in demand, 2 PDs would probably auto-sell a stack. In your version, unless you massively decrease ways to obtain meseta, it's essentially worthless (mags/consumables don't drain it fast enough for you to ever have less than 999,999).

I'm not saying you should change yours. I'm just saying why charge in general is good on vanilla servers, in my opinion.

 

[Fire AKA Drazn]

It gives meseta an actual value, rather than it being completely worthless after a certain point in the game. I could go farm up a stack and sell it for 3 PDs. If it's low in demand, 2 PDs would probably auto-sell a stack. In your version, unless you massively decrease ways to obtain meseta, it's essentially worthless (mags/consumables don't drain it fast enough for you to ever have less than 999,999).

I'm not saying you should change yours. I'm just saying why charge in general is good on vanilla servers, in my opinion.

This is an issue, I agree. Its not an issue worth the amount of balance issues it causes though in my opinion. Hopefully I can find something else useful to do with meseta, that isn't trivializing game content ;3

 

[Aleron Ives]

Meseta is only useless because of the ratio of item buying to item selling values. If you gimp how much items sell for, Meseta could be made so valuable that you could simply eliminate Photon Drop and use Meseta for all transactions and trade fodder. You'd have to reduce the prices in the shops, though, as nobody would be able to afford the existing prices anymore. Vjaya would also become useless, although I wouldn't necessarily call that a bad thing.

 

[Slick]

ugh the changes are getting better and better <3 me likey

 

[Fire AKA Drazn]

Meseta is only useless because of the ratio of item buying to item selling values. If you gimp how much items sell for, Meseta could be made so valuable that you could simply eliminate Photon Drop and use Meseta for all transactions and trade fodder. You'd have to reduce the prices in the shops, though, as nobody would be able to afford the existing prices anymore. Vjaya would also become useless, although I wouldn't necessarily call that a bad thing.

This is a pretty good point, but would need some fine tuning. Ill look into it. Ultimately there is going to need to be some universal sink for meseta, just consumables wont be enough. Charge weapons did that (sort of) but I think I could probably come up with something.

Not sure if I want it as a replacement for PDs though

 

[RedKing]

This is a pretty good point, but would need some fine tuning. Ill look into it. Ultimately there is going to need to be some universal sink for meseta, just consumables wont be enough. Charge weapons did that (sort of) but I think I could probably come up with something.

Not sure if I want it as a replacement for PDs though

Maybe the solution lies in making charge just less powerful, or more costly, maybe even go slightly in both directions. Vjaya you say is more on the lines of a balanced charge weapon because it costs a ton to use, hell, you'd wipe out your wallet if you charge spammed just through forest, unless you were really careful to group up monsters and take loads of extra time to gain maximum effect and not have any attacks miss in the process.

EDIT: I'll respond to your giant post some time when my brain is functioning.

 

[Fire AKA Drazn]

Maybe the solution lies in making charge just less powerful, or more costly, maybe even go slightly in both directions. Vjaya you say is more on the lines of a balanced charge weapon because it costs a ton to use, hell, you'd wipe out your wallet if you charge spammed just through forest, unless you were really careful to group up monsters and take loads of extra time to gain maximum effect and not have any attacks miss in the process.

This is another thing that falls in the catagory of not having the tools to fix it as i cannot change either its power or cost as both are hardcoded.

And even then im still not happy with charge as a mechanic as it doesnt sacrifice something immediately relevant to the fight so there isn't really a risk other than a tedious grind afterwards to reload.

I'd rather meseta was used for things out of conbat rather than in it.

EDIT: I'll respond to your giant post some time when my brain is functioning.

Thats perfectly fine, it turned into an essay didn't it :\

Sorry about that.

 

[Soly]

This is another thing that falls in the catagory of not having the tools to fix it as i cannot change either its power or cost as both are hardcoded.

Lately I have been looking into the client some more after Ives told me about a few fixes that could be done (everything graphical tho)... Examples below.
I might be able to search for some of those things you got in the "current progress"... also the shops are no longer a binary file and rather an rng config so you would have some more control over that...

 

[Aleron Ives]

It is very strange that sacrificial specials have a multiplier set in the PMT, yet they don't seem to use it for anything.

 

[Fire AKA Drazn]

Lately I have been looking into the client some more after Ives told me about a few fixes that could be done (everything graphical tho)... Examples below.
I might be able to search for some of those things you got in the "current progress"... also the shops are no longer a binary file and rather an rng config so you would have some more control over that...

Any assistance would be appreciated as usual Soly ;3

And yes, having access to the shop config opens up multiple balancing opportunities for me.

It is very strange that sacrificial specials have a multiplier set in the PMT, yet they don't seem to use it for anything.

I found this strange too, and one of my first balancing attempts was trying to change the power of all sacrificial specials (looking something like Charge=x0.5, Spirit=x0.8, Berserk=x1.0) but concluded it did nothing to their damage or cost.

 

[Soly]

Yeah they don't ... I believe Tofuman found something about charge... but the cost of it shouldn't be TOO hard to find since it modifies values that we know where they are or are easy to find (HP TP and Meseta)

 

[Fire AKA Drazn]

Yeah they don't ... I believe Tofuman found something about charge... but the cost of it shouldn't be TOO hard to find since it modifies values that we know where they are or are easy to find (HP TP and Meseta)

Frankly, If I had access to Charge's damage multiplier (and Vjaya's for that matter) I could balance the damage it does something akin to the multipliers I listed before (of their original multiplier while remaining more than a heavy attack) and I would be satisfied with that and could be persuaded to allow it to exist alongside the other sacrifice specials. It would never be found on a top tier weapon though, except maybe a 13*.

My preference is still it's total removal though. This could potentially be an option when I get round to distribution: Reborn with balanced charge, or completely without it.