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Patch: Independent Stop

#1
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Hello everyone, I finally got around to solving something that I've been thinking about for a while. Stop and Slow, when combined, results in the Stop timer lasting TWICE as long, which is somewhat overpowered. I also feel that since they are both Time Magics, they shouldn't be stackable (see: Haste and Slow being mutually exclusive).

This moves the code that decrements the Stop timer to before the $3ADC,X check. That means it will be independent of the ATB multiplier (Slow/Haste), but will also increment four times as fast, which is compensated for by initializing the Stop Timer to four times its original value.

This patch includes assassin's Premature Continuation Fix so as to not cause conflicts. It requires no free space.

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[-] The following 6 users say Thank You to seibaby for this post:
  • assassin (01-06-2017), Gi Nattak (02-14-2022), JWhiteLXXXIX (01-07-2017), madsiur (01-06-2017), SSJ Rick (12-24-2016), Warrax (10-04-2017)

#2
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nice.  a status exerting such sway over one that supersedes it (or at least everything it normally affects) seemed weird.  maybe not full-on contradiction or snake eating its own tail, but getting there.
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#3
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Thank. Honestly, I'm tempted to just replace the ADC $3ADD,X with ADC #$40 and be done with it. I'm not sure Slow and Haste have any business interfering with status timers or periodical ticks at all. That is, from a game mechanics and balance perspective; thematically it makes sense in some cases (Poison, Sleep) and less sense in others (Regen, Stop, Reflect).
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#4
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the current way (with your above patch) makes sense enough to me..  i see Slow and Haste as having the same scope as Stop, albeit subordinate to it.

also, C2/09D2 is quite deliberate about things.  storing a value to $3ADD immediately after it checks for these statuses.

if Square didn't want the two to affect anything outside ATB and ready stances, they could've made them modify a copy of the Speed stat instead.  however, they went the route of giving time magics a wider influence.

what's your reason for having Poison separate from Regen?  would Seizure (and Phantasm's unnamed clone) go with the latter?  as for Reflect, are you seeing it as something that's happening immediately around you as opposed to of you?  if that's the case, why should it be influenced by Stop?
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  • seibaby (01-07-2017)

#5
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Haha, yeah, it's pretty explicit; $3ADD is only used for this specific purpose! I should have clarified that I was thinking in modding terms, not in terms of sticking close to Square's vision. Even the decision to let Slow affect all timers, including Stop, is pretty explicit, so this patch already strays from bugfix territory.

Fun fact: there is in fact an unused copy of the Speed stat! C2/286D stores Speed into both $3B2D and $3B19, but only the latter is ever used. It's possible they intended to go that route at some point, but abandoned it.

My reasoning is vaguely based on separating buffs/debuffs into magical or physical type; Sleep, Freeze and Poison being physical, while Reflect is of a magical nature.

Sap and Regen are deliberately vague about what they represent; in the case of PCs, the Regen effect is clearly magical, while Sap could represent both physical injuries and magical curses (Phantasm obviously being the latter). However, a creature with inherent Sap or Regen could simply represent it having innate regenerative capabilities, or it suffering from sickness/starvation and wasting away (like Peepers).

Your point about Reflect and Stop is valid. The idea, I suppose, is that physical statuses are innate to your body while magical ones act on your body as an outside force. As such, Reflect's timer shouldn't be influenced by Stop, a separate outside force. The whole thing gets fuzzy with Sap and Regen, and I deliberately contradict myself with Poison, Sleep, and Freeze by saying that thematically, they should be affected by Stop, while on the other hand arguing that buffs and debuffs should remain mostly self-contained and independent of each other for gameplay reasons.

On the other hand, for the same gameplay reasons, I wouldn't want Stop and Poison to stack anyway. The biggest issue is allowing Sleep and Freeze to stack with Stop, I think. There might be no elegant way around it.

EDIT: Come to think of it, Stop itself is used ambiguously by the game, representing both Time magic and physical paralysis or immobilization (for example, Areneid's !Numb or Marshal's !Net). Another reason, I think, to only let it affect ATB and Wait timers.
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