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The complete version can be found here:
http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/707/

I am using the great Eviltype hack to create a rebalanced, harder, perfected version of FF6. I could really use people's input on FF6 in general and also the Eviltype ROM in order to make sure I create the best version of FF6 ever played by humankind. I'm at least 60% done already, but have barely begun the testing phase. So what could be improved in FF6? Comments on any of these questions would be greatly appreciated.

Items
How should FF6 balance 255 item slots among Weapons/Armor/Relics/Items?
I never noticed how little armor there was in FF6 until I edited it. There are only 73 pieces of armor, split among 3 slots to create a full suit. This means only 14 helmets in the entire game! Currently there are 90 weapons, 73 armors, 55 relics, and 37 items.

I believe the weapons are too exclusive between characters. Although I think each hero should have limits from item classes, it should be less than in the original. What do you think?

I have implemented a natural evade and mBlock to each character, and made heavy armor decrease evade, so that only heroes with naturally low evade benefit from heavy armor. Heroes have to determine whether the armor or their evade is better. Would this be better than the original system?

There are 4 major armor classes I've constructed: Heavy, Light, Ninja, and Mage. Unfortunately, there isn't enough item slots to really make enough armor in the game. In fact, if I create 7 levels of the 4 armor classes, there would only be 23 armor slots for unique armor, and that's assuming I cut 8 weapons out of the game.
What are some of the greatest items you'd love to see in the game?

Characters
Which skills are the best? Which ones are the worst? How should characters whom you lose control of (Gau, Mog, Umaro) be compensated?
And how would you make Relm or Setzer better? I gave Relm X-Magic and made her very weak besides magic. Setzer I just made a jack-of-all trades warrior who can use any weapon and any armor (besides character-specific ultimate items).

Spells
What spells are missing/lacking in FF6? Should wall change become a Strago Lore? Do spells cost enough mana?

Monsters
The monsters were greatly improved in the Eviltype hack, but what would you like to see in the game? How much damage should the average monster do of equal level?

Gameplay
How much grind, if any, should it take to win vs the last boss and his godly henchmen? How much grind should it take to reach level 99? Does the game give you too much gold? Which items should be purchasable. and which not? Should monsters give gold or items? Should steal work on monsters that obviously are non-humanoid? When should you be able to see 9999 damage, 9999HP, 9999MP? Does the economizer take away scarcity too much? If Vigor can only reach 128 and MPwr can increase infinitely, then should a hero only be able to reach 128 for both, creating equal ceilings for warriors and mage heroes? What is really missing from FF6 that could easily be there?

I've already got my opinions on many of these questions, but some of them have me torn between decisions, and I'd love to know what you all think about them.

I've got a big Xcel file with neat graphs,calculators, lists, and matrices. It's all for the purpose of me planning the edit correctly, but if anyone would like to see it, it could be very useful for anyone interested in looking at FF6 or rebalancing it.

A Little About My Game
I want every part of the game to be challenging, interesting, and with many paths to success. I want players to die at boss fights, and lose normal fights if they're not paying attention. Gold and items are sparse, stores are expensive, and monsters generally kill a hero in 3 hits, but monsters are all with different profiles and extremes. There will always be a place where monsters are too hard for you. I'm changing all the weapons and armor, with a new game evolution for damage & HP/MP. You will rarely be able to do 9999 damage before level 82. It will take a lot of playing before ever reaching level 90. Level 99 will be an ultimate achievement. The Colloseum will be glorious and have elite monsters of immense difficulty. Kefka will not be able to be killed at level 40. Sound good so far? I'd love to hear what you think.

This post has been edited by Gogo14 on 21st February 2011 22:37

Quote (Gogo14 @ 15th November 2010 11:22)

I am using the great Eviltype hack to create a rebalanced, harder, perfected version of FF6. I could really use people's input on FF6 in general and also the Eviltype ROM in order to make sure I create the best version of FF6 ever played by humankind. I'm at least 60% done already, but have barely begun the testing phase. So what could be improved in FF6? Comments on any of these questions would be greatly appreciated.

Items
How should FF6 balance 255 item slots among Weapons/Armor/Relics/Items?
I never noticed how little armor there was in FF6 until I edited it. There are only 73 pieces of armor, split among 3 slots to create a full suit. This means only 14 helmets in the entire game! Currently there are 90 weapons, 73 armors, 55 relics, and 37 items.

I believe the weapons are too exclusive between characters. Although I think each hero should have limits from item classes, it should be less than in the original. What do you think?

I have implemented a natural evade and mBlock to each character, and made heavy armor decrease evade, so that only heroes with naturally low evade benefit from heavy armor. Heroes have to determine whether the armor or their evade is better. Would this be better than the original system?

There are 4 major armor classes I've constructed: Heavy, Light, Ninja, and Mage. Unfortunately, there isn't enough item slots to really make enough armor in the game. In fact, if I create 7 levels of the 4 armor classes, there would only be 23 armor slots for unique armor, and that's assuming I cut 8 weapons out of the game.
What are some of the greatest items you'd love to see in the game?

Characters
Which skills are the best? Which ones are the worst? How should characters whom you lose control of (Gau, Mog, Umaro) be compensated?
And how would you make Relm or Setzer better? I gave Relm X-Magic and made her very weak besides magic. Setzer I just made a jack-of-all trades warrior who can use any weapon and any armor (besides character-specific ultimate items).

Spells
What spells are missing/lacking in FF6? Should wall change become a Strago Lore? Do spells cost enough mana?

Monsters
The monsters were greatly improved in the Eviltype hack, but what would you like to see in the game? How much damage should the average monster do of equal level?

Gameplay
How much grind, if any, should it take to win vs the last boss and his godly henchmen? How much grind should it take to reach level 99? Does the game give you too much gold? Which items should be purchasable. and which not? Should monsters give gold or items? Should steal work on monsters that obviously are non-humanoid? When should you be able to see 9999 damage, 9999HP, 9999MP? Does the economizer take away scarcity too much? If Vigor can only reach 128 and MPwr can increase infinitely, then should a hero only be able to reach 128 for both, creating equal ceilings for warriors and mage heroes? What is really missing from FF6 that could easily be there?

I've already got my opinions on many of these questions, but some of them have me torn between decisions, and I'd love to know what you all think about them.

I've got a big Xcel file with neat graphs,calculators, lists, and matrices. It's all for the purpose of me planning the edit correctly, but if anyone would like to see it, it could be very useful for anyone interested in looking at FF6 or rebalancing it.

A Little About My Game
I want every part of the game to be challenging, interesting, and with many paths to success. I want players to die at boss fights, and lose normal fights if they're not paying attention. Gold and items are sparse, stores are expensive, and monsters generally kill a hero in 3 hits, but monsters are all with different profiles and extremes. There will always be a place where monsters are too hard for you. I'm changing all the weapons and armor, with a new game evolution for damage & HP/MP. You will rarely be able to do 9999 damage before level 82. It will take a lot of playing before ever reaching level 90. Level 99 will be an ultimate achievement. The Colloseum will be glorious and have elite monsters of immense difficulty. Kefka will not be able to be killed at level 40. Sound good so far? I'd love to hear what you think.

Ok first:

Wall change:We don't need wall change because there is already a spell which has the same effect(forcefield)

Character skills that could use help:Bushido or as known in the american version:Sword tech.

It takes too long to use and in that time,it causes him to fall back.

I would say to maybe increase the hits to 12 or 15 hits instead of 4?

Perhaps make retort a bit more usefull depending on the event so instead of picking just quadra slash,you actually have to use the technique depending on the moment.

Hmm make empowerer get stronger if you get stronger.

Same effect on undead.If try to absorb from undead,you get drained of hp.

Hmm let me think about that.

I think she is already pretty strong as a caster and perhaps make sketch something that can be used often and make her special abilities(sketch) more usefull.

Controll already is very usefull for learning blue magic

Let me think hmm...

Setzer:I never liked setzers slot machine.

The effects are a bit too random and need to be more manageable.

Its like:you have great attacks like:h bomb and that ship attack thing he has,but 70% of the time you are getting:flash and muku muku.

His dice attack is already pretty good and hits for a truck.

Overall,i hate using setzer because slot is almost completely random.

Cyan is a pain to use,but at least i can get an efficient attack with him.

Gau is already really powerfull,if anything,he should stay the same.
With more rages he will get very strong.

Mog:I'd say that his abilities need to be made to fit the situations more and be very strong in those situations,so you have to really think about where you are going and not just pick some random dance.

I think they should all be equally strong and fit where you are going.

If you are in for an example an area the esper cave,you will want earth dance because they are strong vs fire and are undead a lot of them.

I wish the dance could get stronger to fit the situations or new dance upgrades to previous dances that you get throughout the game but have to uncover them secretly


Items:Let met hink about this:

I think that most room should go for non armor since you are going to stack up a lot of potions and cures.

You need loads of those for certain times and its very helpfull

But you also need lots of room for the relics because relics are god in ff6.

Relics can go from:Haste at start to extra attacks so i think they are equally important.

Then weapons and armor should be equal.

Evade question:Yes,yes it would.

But the defense and magic defense would have to be higher.

Its like this:You know the big knights in full plate armor in mid evil fights?
They wear really thick plate armor,so if you hit them with a weapon,it should really defend them well vs a blow.


I think since shadow is an assasin,there should be more exclusive assasin only armor

Don't put too many though.

Maybe have secret armors as their final piece or something?

I'd say:gau setzer gogo and locke should be light armor wearers
Terra celes cyan edgar and leo should be heavy plate wearers.
Relm strago mog should be mage wearing armor since dance is a type of magic.

Monsters:

I think monsters of same level should do up to 20% of your current hp.

But if they are casters,they should be concentrating in that aspect and have spells hit you hard.

Gameplay:I'd say that perhaps the secret enemies should give around same if not perhaps have secret enemies who give up to 100 AP.

Money:i'd say they are about right as it is.

Items:it was right the first time.
The secret items like:economizer should not be sold because that would break the game.

Perhaps have it in the arena and have to fight it or steal it from a really hard regular enemy and a boss.

Something like:the first time against a tough boss in the world of ruin and a secret enemy somewhere?

I think you should be able to grind your warrior to mix magery and warrior but not naturally good at something.

But i also think:There should be a magic power limit on not pure casters like:cyan and sabim.

I think like:Perhaps have lower mana and int limit? lower magic power limit.

Something to make relm and strago suceed where cyan and sabim doesn't.

This would make them unique and make you think ahead of time.

Grinding:I think the grinding should not be too tedious but should be there.

Like:Perhaps you have to kill 15 monsters to level up or 20.

And with xp egg,you do it in half that amount.

I think the game could be a little faster paced and i think this would add to the gameplay.

I would love to see the arena have new enemies who are harder and drop better stuff.






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We are stardust.Our bodies are made from the guts of exploding stars.

Neil Degrasse Tyson.

Items

Well, armor is never as interesting to most players as weapons are. (The exception to this is of course hardcore minmaxers who need to achieve 128% MBlock ASAP.) So it makes sense that there aren't that many pieces of armor.

What you do with this is up to you. I'd just advise you not to aim solely for "harder", but to aim first and foremost for "better".

I like that you're actually re-implementing Evade, and on top of that also making heavy armor detract from it. This is a nice idea.

Characters

Relm and Celes definitely need better skills, unless you plan on somehow making Runic useful. In my opinion, though, Relm should get Control rather than X-Magic, though, since Control actually does something useful by helping Strago learn lores.

Cyan's SwdTech could be GREATLY improved if you could set him to wait for some period of time then switch to another character. In the existing version of the game, Cyan is only most useful when put on a team with other "auto" characters like Gau, Umaro, and Mog. Changing this could make him far more useful.

Gau's Rage list desperately needs to be organized. If you can make it easier to use--even, say, just putting numbers before each monster entry--that would make him significantly more fun to use for many players.

You should also re-implement the dummied-out rages. Don't forget to make them rage-learnable on the Veldt, of course!

You could try giving Edgar tools that duplicate some of the things that Magitek Armors can do.

I think Setzer is fine as is; I don't see a reason to make him a jack of all trades. Then again, you made an amusing pun by calling him that.

Strago's and his Lores

Strago should learn some more useful lores. Things like Magnitude8, Gigavolt, N. Cross, S. Cross, Meteo, Wind Slash, Flare Star, and Flash Rain. Maybe even Blizzard and Fireball. Or, heck, Sun Bath (from Mog's dances), and even Love Token (i.e. charm) and Lifeshaver.

Bonus points if you create E. Cross and W. Cross, make those electric and wind attacks respectively (like how N. and S. are ice and fire respectively), and make them Lores as well as monster spells.

Making his one special skill more useful may do wonders to making Strago more useful to the player, and one common complaint I've heard of Strago is that he's not that great at what he does--which, when armed with only the expensive GrandTrain, the even more expensive Step Mine, and a few lower-powered water and wind spells, really doesn't do wonders.

On the other hand, you should be able to get rid of things like Pep Up and maybe Exploder.

Spells

Some spells are rather useless. W. Wind is an example. Earthquake is another, unless everyone's wearing Gaia armor or has Float status. I know I rarely used them. You can replace the with better spells if you so desire.

Note that the game has a 9999 damage cap. If you want to really make powerful attacks more useful, you should instead try to have the attack do multiple hits, rather than simply throwing higher attack power on it.

Gameplay

Grinding: I'll state my RPG grinding design philosophy again: There should be enough random encounters such that if I fight everything I meet but never backtrack, I will be very slightly overleveled. The bosses' difficulty should be designed according to that standard--i.e. design to that standard if you want a typical boss, and make it easier than that if you want an easy boss or harder if you want a harder boss.

One thing I enjoyed in i90east's FFVI Expert Version hack (i90east is a member of these fora from many years ago, who created an "expert version" hack and had it up to 2.0 before he disappeared) was that he kept the area background music going unless you were fighting more than three enemies. I think this is a great idea. Though it may need tweaking if you're fighting particularly strong enemies.

On the other hand, you could just do away with the main battle theme altogether. I didn't really enjoy it much, and I'd much rather have the area theme playing anyway.

As I mentioned above, you should re-implemented the dummied-out rages, by putting them on Gau's rage list AND putting them in monster formations on the Veldt. You can also change the Veldt's sequence for picking monster formations, if you want more fun.

You should also fix the bug wherein undead monsters with "slip" status (i.e. "HP leak" or whatever it's called) lose HP. The intent was for them to gain HP every turn.

This post has been edited by Glenn Magus Harvey on 15th November 2010 19:22

--------------------

Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

I agree with most of what Glenn says. To make Cyan more viable, you could always just make the SwdTech bar charge faster. Maybe work out a way to make stats more useful; Vigor and Vitality, for instance, are pretty worthless, even Speed doesn't really help a character all that much. Umaro could use an increase in stats: as it stands he's not all that useful, and if he was hitting for more damage the auto-berserk would seem like less of a detriment.

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"If art doesn't risk upsetting expectations and challenging its audience, it can only stagnate."

What do Vigor, Vitality, and Speed currently do?

Oh, Gogo14, you should also fix the bug wherein Shadow's dog can get Rippler'd away.

This post has been edited by Glenn Magus Harvey on 15th November 2010 19:37

--------------------

Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

Quote (Glenn Magus Harvey @ 15th November 2010 14:36)

What do Vigor, Vitality, and Speed currently do?

Not much, is the sad answer. All stamina (not vitality, I misspoke) does is determine the chance of gravity or death based attacks, and determine how much health you regain when under regen status. Vigor determines physical damage, but in a very roundabout way that makes it a lot less useful to raise than magic power. And I don't actually know if speed can be fixed...it makes the ATB gauge raise faster, but is hampered by battle timing...even if you got Locke to max speed, enemies would still run circles around him.

Yeah, Rippler can swap way more statuses than it's supposed to...Interceptor, Rage, Morph...

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"If art doesn't risk upsetting expectations and challenging its audience, it can only stagnate."

Oh by the way, here's our very own Djibriel's "Rage Guide", everything you needed to know about the Rage ability, including the monster formations, rageable monsters, bugs, and more.

Feel free to choose the monsters that can be rageable, swap things around, and change their rage abilities.

http://tenchinohoukai.cavesofnarshe.com/fi...ii_rage_1_4.txt

--------------------

Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

Thank you for the thoughtful answers. I've read Djib's rage guide, and if anyone hasn't read his walkthroughs, they should be read not as game guides, but literary masterpieces.

Here's how I see the Boss issue. How hard should a boss be? If you're a genius, he should be easy. If you're tactical, and have gotten all the near chests, he should be doable without grind. If you're lucky and have ran straight through the level, it should be hard. If you throw your characters at him like meat-shields, you will lose without grind.

The Eviltype hack already speeds up Cyan's SwdTech, so that's been done.

I agree that slot sucks. It's fun, but like how Chocobos are fun. And I will not tolerate heroes that dare imitate the holy chocobos. Setzer has been changed to the dashing and daring do-it-all man depicted in the game.

There is already a rage patch to alphabetize and also one for allowing the 3 lost rages. I will be implementing them ASAP if possible.

When it comes to armor, I chose to have each hero have a different amount of armor wearing. One hero can wear all 4 classes, some can wear 2, some can wear a different 2, and some can only wear 1 class, etc. I based this firstly on balance issues and secondly on looks issues. Shadow, for instance, is already a great hero, so I made him only able to wear Ninja armor, which also fits his look. To compensate, I also made him very versatile with many weapons classes.

Although not relevant at all to any near discussion, I also created a new class of weapon, the 2-Handed-Sword.

Oh Relm....we gotta make her work. I personally think X-magic takes care of it, and I'd like to keep control as an upgradeable possibility just to make character advancement more interesting. Maybe X-magic will confound it to ruins? Help a guy out here.

9999 damage....I think should never be seen until 50 hours of gameplay. I hate ceilings that come before other ceilings. If I'm playing a character, I want things to advance with the effort I put into it. And games are so boring once you've hit the limit, so I'm movin' those limits far away.

On vigor, it raises damage 2x faster than battle power. Levels determine much more damage, but vigor adds a good multiplier to those exponential numbers, so I think it's fine. mPwr does increase damage faster, so I've made spell powers very low, such that lvl 99 magic does as much as lvl 99 attacks.

Stamina, what a poor beaten stepchild of a stat. I'll be making stamina an MBlock to lots more spells, making some characters naturally evasive to a fair amount of spells throughout adventures. It's still not Vigor or MPwr, but hey, there can only be 2 damage stats.

Speed, yes it sucks. Can't do much about that until Square watches "Babe" and gains integrity, promptly abandoning it to make FF6-2x: The Advent Crisis Espers Within Core Cross of Chrono Time Warp ChocoboWinWin.

I've made Espers allow +2 spd/level early on, and fast characters start with much more speed, while items give speed much more generously, including haste.

I appreciate all the other spell info, and lore comments. But I have to run for the moment. Keep throwing ideas at me until we got us a perfect game.

Well, I know I never cared for the esper stat bonuses, so in my opinion a perfect game wouldn't be one that depended on those.

I'm also not sure that a level 99 spell should be doing about the same as a level 99 attack. The spell costs MP and thus should be worth more than if I just selected Fight again. Unless you want to make a big distinction between mages and physical attackers wherein mages have far lower attack power than physical attackers...and I'm not sure if I'd support such a vast distinction for a game wherein I kinda enjoyed that there was no gulf between Rydia who could barely hit for 10 damage and Cecil who could hit consistently for over 300 in the same battle.

I still think X-Magic is too much of an upgrade, enough to make Relm possibly broken.

I do like how you're really clamping down on HP and damage inflation.

--------------------

Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

Quote (Glenn Magus Harvey @ 16th November 2010 02:40)

Well, I know I never cared for the esper stat bonuses, so in my opinion a perfect game wouldn't be one that depended on those.

I'm also not sure that a level 99 spell should be doing about the same as a level 99 attack. The spell costs MP and thus should be worth more than if I just selected Fight again. Unless you want to make a big distinction between mages and physical attackers wherein mages have far lower attack power than physical attackers...and I'm not sure if I'd support such a vast distinction for a game wherein I kinda enjoyed that there was no gulf between Rydia who could barely hit for 10 damage and Cecil who could hit consistently for over 300 in the same battle.

I still think X-Magic is too much of an upgrade, enough to make Relm possibly broken.

I do like how you're really clamping down on HP and damage inflation.

Relm already has the highest magic power.

I just checked and she has even higher magic power than strago.

I admit though,sketch isn't very usefull and may only come in handy in a few events.

Maybe its because everybody else is so overpowered.

Setzer's slot machine still annoys me and i wish there was a way to slow it down so you don't get muku muku 99% of the time.


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We are stardust.Our bodies are made from the guts of exploding stars.

Neil Degrasse Tyson.

I have little problem getting diamonds or chocobos with Slot.

--------------------

Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

Slots aren't too hard. And if you're really having trouble, there's a trick to improve your odds: pause the game as the slots spin until you see what you want (say, a diamond) at the top of the reel. hold down A and unpause and your changes of getting Flash or Chocobop shrewdly improve, and make Slots pretty useful. I don't really think Setzer needs too much improving in the patch, he's quite good as-is.

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"If art doesn't risk upsetting expectations and challenging its audience, it can only stagnate."

Should fenix downs & revivifies be able to kill undead? Gold is scarce in my hack, so using items to do damage is very expensive. 20 revivifies would mean one person doesn't upgrade a new chest armor. I'm thinking potions (150 damage) and maybe even elixirs (25% HP) should do damage, but disabling the fenix down/revivify cheats. Maybe make a "holy water" very expensive item that can kill undead?

The biggest problem here is that undead bosses would have to have special scripts added in to counter this, and I'm worried this might bug the game.

Quote (Gogo14 @ 24th November 2010 12:47)

Should fenix downs & revivifies be able to kill undead? Gold is scarce in my hack, so using items to do damage is very expensive. 20 revivifies would mean one person doesn't upgrade a new chest armor. I'm thinking potions (150 damage) and maybe even elixirs (25% HP) should do damage, but disabling the fenix down/revivify cheats. Maybe make a "holy water" very expensive item that can kill undead?

The biggest problem here is that undead bosses would have to have special scripts added in to counter this, and I'm worried this might bug the game.

I don't really think this would be a problem, to be honest. The only times I can really think that a Fenix Down would be beneficial is against Specter, GhostTrain, and Allo Ver, which I think is too small a spread to really worry about.

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"If art doesn't risk upsetting expectations and challenging its audience, it can only stagnate."

Ideas for making Strago's Lores much more useful - a more in-depth analysis.

Strago's Lores, currently, are like spells but fill strange niches. For example, he has Aero (wind), Aqua Rake (wind AND water), and Cleansweep (water), the only wind and water spells you can cast on-demand (apart from esper summons, and Gau's rages and Mog's dances which you can't control, and the insane Merton spell). Then there are funny "meta" spells that you can mess with, such as the Level-X spells, Dischord (halve enemy level), Reflect??? (dark/mute/slow to enemies w/ reflect), Rippler (exchange status, with bugs), Step Mine (damage and cost based on playtime), Force Field (nullify random element), and Blow Fish (1000 needles). Very few of his spells--pretty much only Quasar and GrandTrain are "traditional" damage-dealing spells.

Some ideas:
* Replace Step Mine. It is horribly inefficient unless you're speedrunning, since it charges 1 MP for every half hour of gameplay. 30 hours is 60 MP, and counting.
* Replace Pep Up. The ONLY reason to use it is if you're completely desperate and have no items, or doing a no-item run, or if you want to heal MP (Life 3 + Pep Up = MP refill). Unless you think this is a great idea (and depending on the kind of game you want, it may be), I'd advise getting rid of it.
* Change Aqua Rake's name to something more reflective
* Fix Rippler's bugs.
* Exploder deals current-HP worth of damage. Strago's max HP isn't high anyway, and for it to be worth sacrificing him his HP would have to be rather low in the first place. Fix this, by at least making Exploder deal maxHP worth of damage. Alternatively, replace it.
* Roulette, while definitely a traditional blue magic spell, is rather annoying to learn, and is rarely if ever used. You should decide whether to keep it in for tradition's sake, or to replace it.
* Reflect??? is a...very strange spell, and not very many enemies have reflect status anyway. Decide whether it's useful, and if not, replace it.

Spells being replaced should be replaced with something cool:
* An earth spell (that doesn't hit one's own allies, like Quake) would be nice. It's the last element that we don't have good access to. The obvious suggestion is Magnitude8, but there's also Lifeshaver (earth-elemental drain), which might be a nice complement to Strago's low HP levels.
* Another multi-elemental spell, in the vein of Aqua Rake, such as Acid Rain (poison/water plus sap) or Flash Rain (ice/water).
* Or some other spell with a unique effect: Charm (charms target), Shrapnel (non-elemental 3rd-order magic damage) , Flare Star (oddly-calculated fire spell), N. Cross (freeze on all targets), or Cold Dust (freeze on one target).
* Barring any of these, just another powerful attack, such as Meteo, Gigavolt, or S. Cross.

Useful resources:
* List of lores/blue magic spells: http://www.cavesofnarshe.com/ff6/magic.php?type=Blue
* List of enemy abilities: http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/List_of...Enemy_Abilities (we ought to have a page like this here)
* List of Gau's rages, many of which are enemy abilities that Strago has no access to: http://tenchinohoukai.cavesofnarshe.com/fi...ii_rage_1_4.txt

Edit/Addendum: I would find it awesome if you replaced the Meteor spell's animation with the Meteo spell's animation, but kept the original stats.

Also, I forgot about Sun Bath. It's a nice healing spell that's not Pearl Wind. Though it kinda competes with the Cure series and Pearl Wind when on Strago, unless you make it significantly cheaper.

Also, note that, if you "fix" Quake so that it only targets the enemy party, then that fills up a niche that Strago could fill. Though this also means that you have more (or at least different) choices about what to replace his crappy Lores with.

This post has been edited by Glenn Magus Harvey on 3rd February 2011 02:22

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

Double-post since these are separate ideas from the above.

1. "Fix" the translations of various names. For example, rename Terrato "Midgar Zolom" or a space-permitting abbreviation. Same with turning Stray back into Cait Sith.

2. "Unlock" the Slot command's combo prevention for higher combos, so that it does not prevent players from accessing higher combos. However, to prevent it from being annoying to use, you may want to remove the bad Joker Doom.

This post has been edited by Glenn Magus Harvey on 3rd February 2011 02:19

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

The hack is already done and the topic for it is in the "Your Creations" section of this forum.

Here's what I did:

Step Mine - Replaced
Pep Up - Replaced
Rippler Bug - Patched
Exploder - Unchanged
Roulette - Unchanged (due to code complications) and unlearnable (b/c I hate it)
Reflect??? - Replaced
Lvl?Pearl - Replaced
Lvl? Doom - Replaced
Lvl? Flare - Replaced
Lvl3 Muddle - Turned into MassMuddle

Quake - no longer hits all
Multi-elemental Lore - Added - "ShockBlaze" highest tier magic attack
Spells with unique effects - Couldn't be added due to overpowering. Charm and Freeze are ailments that effect the bosses unavoidably, and unfortunately can't be trusted with heroes.

However....I gave Strago:
Freeze - stops all enemies
MassMuddle - muddles all
RevengeAll - Revenge all (no split damage)
Purify - Dispels every ailment
and
Purity - Medium level Pearl spell

Blowfish was replaced with Whisk, which is a non-elemental armor-piercing spell.

Stone was changed to "Wreck" which hits all enemies with a random ailment

This post has been edited by Gogo14 on 4th February 2011 04:31

Saw it, thanks. I'll give it a try when I get a chance, been very busy with work as of late.

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"If art doesn't risk upsetting expectations and challenging its audience, it can only stagnate."

Quote (Gogo14 @ 15th November 2010 11:22)

The complete version can be found here:
http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/707/

I am using the great Eviltype hack to create a rebalanced, harder, perfected version of FF6. I could really use people's input on FF6 in general and also the Eviltype ROM in order to make sure I create the best version of FF6 ever played by humankind. I'm at least 60% done already, but have barely begun the testing phase. So what could be improved in FF6? Comments on any of these questions would be greatly appreciated.

Items
How should FF6 balance 255 item slots among Weapons/Armor/Relics/Items?
I never noticed how little armor there was in FF6 until I edited it. There are only 73 pieces of armor, split among 3 slots to create a full suit. This means only 14 helmets in the entire game! Currently there are 90 weapons, 73 armors, 55 relics, and 37 items.

I believe the weapons are too exclusive between characters. Although I think each hero should have limits from item classes, it should be less than in the original. What do you think?

I have implemented a natural evade and mBlock to each character, and made heavy armor decrease evade, so that only heroes with naturally low evade benefit from heavy armor. Heroes have to determine whether the armor or their evade is better. Would this be better than the original system?

There are 4 major armor classes I've constructed: Heavy, Light, Ninja, and Mage. Unfortunately, there isn't enough item slots to really make enough armor in the game. In fact, if I create 7 levels of the 4 armor classes, there would only be 23 armor slots for unique armor, and that's assuming I cut 8 weapons out of the game.
What are some of the greatest items you'd love to see in the game?

Characters
Which skills are the best? Which ones are the worst? How should characters whom you lose control of (Gau, Mog, Umaro) be compensated?
And how would you make Relm or Setzer better? I gave Relm X-Magic and made her very weak besides magic. Setzer I just made a jack-of-all trades warrior who can use any weapon and any armor (besides character-specific ultimate items).

Spells
What spells are missing/lacking in FF6? Should wall change become a Strago Lore? Do spells cost enough mana?

Monsters
The monsters were greatly improved in the Eviltype hack, but what would you like to see in the game? How much damage should the average monster do of equal level?

Gameplay
How much grind, if any, should it take to win vs the last boss and his godly henchmen? How much grind should it take to reach level 99? Does the game give you too much gold? Which items should be purchasable. and which not? Should monsters give gold or items? Should steal work on monsters that obviously are non-humanoid? When should you be able to see 9999 damage, 9999HP, 9999MP? Does the economizer take away scarcity too much? If Vigor can only reach 128 and MPwr can increase infinitely, then should a hero only be able to reach 128 for both, creating equal ceilings for warriors and mage heroes? What is really missing from FF6 that could easily be there?

I've already got my opinions on many of these questions, but some of them have me torn between decisions, and I'd love to know what you all think about them.

I've got a big Xcel file with neat graphs,calculators, lists, and matrices. It's all for the purpose of me planning the edit correctly, but if anyone would like to see it, it could be very useful for anyone interested in looking at FF6 or rebalancing it.

A Little About My Game
I want every part of the game to be challenging, interesting, and with many paths to success. I want players to die at boss fights, and lose normal fights if they're not paying attention. Gold and items are sparse, stores are expensive, and monsters generally kill a hero in 3 hits, but monsters are all with different profiles and extremes. There will always be a place where monsters are too hard for you. I'm changing all the weapons and armor, with a new game evolution for damage & HP/MP. You will rarely be able to do 9999 damage before level 82. It will take a lot of playing before ever reaching level 90. Level 99 will be an ultimate achievement. The Colloseum will be glorious and have elite monsters of immense difficulty. Kefka will not be able to be killed at level 40. Sound good so far? I'd love to hear what you think.

You said:

If you need more info than you could possibly want for this version, I have the excel sheet used to create this game, as well as a supplementary documents for easier reading attached.

Can you please PM this to me? I can't PM you nor email you.

I've always thought that Relm could be awesome if they changed Sketch so that, when used on specific enemies, it teaches her an appropriate Magic spell. For example, using Sketch on Fire Enemy X would teach her Fire 2, assuming she did not already know it.

Setzer, IMHO, is perfectly fine ability-wise.

I'd like to see more characters able to use less equipment. I understand, for example, that Terra and Celes are mixed-type units, but I always sort of imagined Terra using staves and robes and Celes using heavy armor and swords.

Once I download the emulator, the rom, and the hack, how do I use the hack? I can play the game without the hack just fine, but how do I use the hack?

Hi Chaos123. If you downloaded the rar file, the Xcel sheet and the readme are in there. You should definitely read the readme!

Here is me explaining how to patch the IPS file onto your rom:
http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php/....html#msg179424

Yelanates - I can see Terra as a pure mage and Celes as a battle mage, but that's just off of looks, because Strago and Relm are already pure mage types. Setzer's slot, imho, was a bit less tactical than some alternatives. And his weapons....dice, darts, and cards? Almost as lame as Relm's brushes. I replaced them all into weapons more people can use and enjoy. I still think Setzer is a badass, but I think now that he's more like Cecil, he's even more badass.

This post has been edited by Gogo14 on 30th March 2011 03:53

Can you give me the list of all of the changes you made? I used X-fer and my party died.

EDIT: Also why does the game keep on freezing?

This post has been edited by chaos123 on 30th March 2011 05:33

Did you patch it onto a pure US version 1.1 FF3 ROM? X-fer kills everyone--it's usable in the beginning only because I couldn't edit Terra's m-tek skills.

Regarding the PM you sent me, it is an empty PM with just quotes and you didn't include any messages.

Also I was able to run the hack just fine, but the game keeps on freezing. Is there a way to fix this? Yes, I'm using the USA FF3 ROM.

Can you give me a consolidated list on all the changes you made, or is this too much work? I have all of the readme and excel files though. If it is too much work, then it is cool. No worries.

My only concern right now is that it keeps on freezing.

Can you PM me your AIM your AIM or something?

EDIT: But if you don't want to PM your AIM to a stranger then that is fine for now.

This post has been edited by chaos123 on 31st March 2011 01:31

For the record, this person got the 1.1 US rom (not the 1.0) and it no longer freezes.

Let's say I find more suggestions, should I post it here or PM them to you? I don't like double posting though and this thread seems dead.

well lets start with umaro....itd be nice to be able to utilize the whole green cherry thing with him like he used in the battle against him.

gogo should be able to use general leos shock as well in his list of attacks in the status menu (make him more interesting). and he is the jack of all trades he should be able to equip anything in the game except for ultimate weapons.

: setzer was cool when i gave him dragoon boots. he flies airships its only fitting that he have jump as his ability. i know him not using spears makes this sound odd. butt edgar using spears always seemed as more of an oddity because how often do we utilize his use of spears? hell make it so setzer can use spears thatd be nice too.

as for the gameplay difficulty i always thought the original final fantasy 2 for snes was a difficult game and i found myself needing extra grindage at times. which makes the game a bit more challenging.

when i play through ff6 i only teach magic to select characters to make it more interesting. for example: cyan, sabin, setzer, gau, edgar, locke, and shadow do not learn magic. its also fun to keep strago from learning any magic as well if your contemplating on improving his lore list.

i like the idea of giving relm control. it would balance her more and is not too much of a complex change. its perfect in my eyes.

if your looking for items space i feel that there are quite a few useless relics

make sprint shoes permanent that can be activated by pressing b like in the advanced version.

ive played hardened hacks where terra could not use swords it was interesting she used rods.

would it be hard to have bows and arrows in this game?

i wouldnt have the economizer available in game until rite before the first fight with a statue.

id make it so mog uses weapons other than lances like dirks and other small weapons.

what about a relic like a mimc charm. could be a possibility it allows character to mimic and have custom abilities and allow use of magic. just an idea
could be a very rare item. or gogo comes equipped with it

cyans omni slash is number 8. make it do 8 hits instead of 4 and yes have it charge faster or somehow have bushido open up a list of attacks that cost mp. like edged ninja attacks. oooooh thatd be a kool idea for shadow though now im getting into a whole nother aspect of things.

instead of giving gogo the shock ability you could possibly give it to celes. it could be an imperial general thing and eliminate runic all together.

ive always felt that locks steal needed a higher success rate.i never used it for that reason.

This post has been edited by reubensmace on 11th April 2011 07:44

Nice ideas, but about 75% of those are already in my version! The others I can't do or disagree with (Celes without shock, but Gogo starts with it, bows n' arrows, relm has X-magic instead of control, cyan's 8th SwdTech is 4 good hits but can't do 8, etc.).

Quote

i like the idea of giving relm control. it would balance her more and is not too much of a complex change. its perfect in my eyes.

Some people would complain about this since Relm's base magic power is already the highest.

That said, I don't care since I'm not the type of RPG player who pays that much attention to stats.

--------------------

Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )