FF6 Hacking

@craud Personally, I saw Shadow as a really good damage dealer who costed a lot to fund. Once you have the money to throw Ninjatos, he becomes one of the fastest damage dealers available. All my characters were around level 30 in Kefka's Tower, and he was dealing about 4K per turn. Strago and Cyan were dealing comparable damage for me (although Strago was dealing it to all enemies), but the difference was that Shadow could take 2-3 turns for every turn of theirs. Before I could pay for him, he was mediocre, but afterwards, I found him to be really good.

As for upgrading Dispatch, if you're on the fence, then I'd say it's not necessary. I found Cyan extremely valuable at that point in the game, and he wasn't lagging behind the others at all. It was only after Dispatch's usefulness began to slow down that I found him falling back a bit.

See, my characters were all level 50, which is probably why Throw was less impressive for me, since multiple characters were able to do 9999 per turn at that point. At level ~30 he probably would have been closer to the top.

(09-07-2013, 11:17 PM)Julford Wrote: [ -> ]Heads up incoming +Mag Cyan build. Storm/Eclipse/Holy spam go! [EDIT: Looking the printme over, it looks like Cyan doesn't actually have any +mag espers available. Still going to go for all the +mag items I can find though (NirvanaBand/MagicCube/ForceArmor/Kazekiri go!), and then probably go for a +Stam build to see how that stacks up.

It'll be interesting to see if anyone gets any use out of Cyan's attack magic (I like his Storm against the IAF picner attacks, but that's about it). Hopefully, Dragon's switch to stamina damage shouldn't affect this build too much.

(09-07-2013, 11:17 PM)Julford Wrote: [ -> ]Will probably give Gogo a shot this time around too, since I 100% ignored him last time. Any recommended builds? BTB likes to hint at a couple different builds he's seen for the mime, but I don't recall seeing any concrete "I used him for this" statements.

We deliberately avoid giving out much info on Gogo builds because we want to see how creative players can get with him. I *will* say the one thing we thought was going to be beyond broken on him is not what has turned out to be broken, so it's really all about how willing you are to experiment.

(09-07-2013, 11:17 PM)Julford Wrote: [ -> ]Maybe try to rush certain WoR espers as well, so I can have a proper magic-heavy Celes.

Yeah, it bugs me that her Magic+2 esper shows up so late (unless you know where it is, obviously). Hopefully, Siren is enough to tide her over, and all of those speed levels don't feel wasted on her.

(09-07-2013, 11:17 PM)Julford Wrote: [ -> ]Any other alt builds people want to suggest?

A speed-focused Relm, tank your Cyan with Kirin/Alexander levels, save Mog for as many Palidor levels as you can and dragoon him, stamina-build Strago and use him for Holy Wind spam (this was done, actually, with rather good results)... maybe see if Edgar finds any use whatsoever for Siren (or Celes for Phantom, which I doubt very much she does).

(09-08-2013, 04:00 AM)craud Wrote: [ -> ]Hey all, just registered to discuss Brave New World. Spent most of the weekend buried in it and just beat it about five minutes ago.

Groovy. I'll PM you the Unlockme password shortly.

(09-08-2013, 04:00 AM)craud Wrote: [ -> ]Everyone was level 50, so Kaiser and Kefka weren't much trouble.

Dear Celestia, man. I need to ask two things:

1) How much grinding did that require (and how much of it was done in Kefka's Tower)?

2) How easy did the endgame feel at max level?

(09-08-2013, 04:00 AM)craud Wrote: [ -> ]MVP World of Balance: Gau. His Stamina was obscene thanks to Stray, so I gave him the Life Bell and he was effectively immortal.

Although the Immortal Sabin build is a bit more popular, our Stamina overhaul should also nerf Gau in this respect, as well.

(09-08-2013, 04:00 AM)craud Wrote: [ -> ]I was able to use his Rages in a supporting role (Flan, Rhinox, Defender) or an MT damage dealer (Albatross, Sand Ray, Ninja) depending on the situation, and they weren't redundant. Dragon and Io were useful for a lot of the WOR, but once my spellcasters started hitting the damage cap, he fell by the wayside.

...this much won't change, though. Just as in the original game, Gau's focus eventually shifts from being a disc one nuke and to tanking elemental damage through proper rage selection.

(09-08-2013, 04:00 AM)craud Wrote: [ -> ]Glitches: In the Fanatic's Tower, the chest containing Crusader opened normally, then defaulted back to its "closed" graphic after I'd entered the menu. It stayed "closed" for the remainder of the game.

I'll let Synchysi field this one >.>

(09-08-2013, 04:00 AM)craud Wrote: [ -> ]Miscellany: I take it Gogo's ability to equip Daryl's Soul is because you're going with Gogo = Daryl?

I was wondering if someone was going to point that out >.>

Yeah, that's what I was trying to hint at. I also tease the Setzer/Terra ship a bit, too.

(09-08-2013, 04:00 AM)craud Wrote: [ -> ]Also, have Edgar's Air Anchor and Debilitator been removed entirely, or did I miss them?

They be gone entirely. We may add in some replacements in a later version, but for now Edgar has only six tools.

Quote:Groovy. I'll PM you the Unlockme password shortly.

Ta.

Quote:Dear Celestia, man. I need to ask two things:

1) How much grinding did that require (and how much of it was done in Kefka's Tower)?

2) How easy did the endgame feel at max level?

The in-game timer was at about 75 hours when I fought Kefka. I did my grinding in Dinosaur Forest rather than the tower (force of habit more than anything). Black Omen, Ultima and Ice 3 clear out the monsters relatively easily, and you can use a tent anywhere. Took a while, but I had frameskip on.

Endgame on max level was about as easy as the original FF6 endgame on a reasonable level, I guess. I watched some of the Betus Beat stream, and he certainly had a much tougher time on the Triad and Kefka at level ~30 than I did; my only real problem was Isis' Love Token, which cost me the first two fights. I didn't lose anyone while fighting Kefka (there were a few KO's, but I revived them before they vanished). Final battle party was Terra (Ultima), Strago (Black Omen), Locke (Omega Weapon / Healing) and Celes (Ice 3 / Healing).

I think a big part of it is - aside from being on the max level - that Strago and Terra's go-to Esper (for me, anyway) was Maduin, who boosts magic AND stamina, so I ended up with my two best casters also being a lot less squishy than their HP suggested.

[EDIT: Having looked at the unlockme... yeah, high stamina is king. Combine it with elemental protection and you likely aren't going down easily against a magic-using boss (ie. most of the endgame ones) even if your HP is unspectacular]

I have to say, I liked that being absurdly overleveled made me feel absurdly overleveled for once. The original game is a cakewalk once you hit around level 60 - 70 and going any higher feels redundant / OCD, but here it felt worth it as something other than an end in itself. Do you have an "expected" endgame level?

Signed up to let you guys know that this hack is absolutely amazing. For me it's the most exciting thing to happen to FFVI since I discovered challenges.

I love the small touches as much as the more obvious ones. For example I love that there's no battle music in dungeons. It brings more attention to the best part of the game, the music.

I also love that you guys have taken such pains to make the game harder, but still balanced.

Keep up the great work!

(09-09-2013, 12:14 AM)BTB Wrote: [ -> ]

(09-08-2013, 04:00 AM)craud Wrote: [ -> ]Glitches: In the Fanatic's Tower, the chest containing Crusader opened normally, then defaulted back to its "closed" graphic after I'd entered the menu. It stayed "closed" for the remainder of the game.

I'll let Synchysi field this one >.>

Yeah, I know of this and I don't think it'll get fixed.

It's because that chest is not actually a chest. It's a map tile with an event sitting on top of it. The event will modify the tile into the open chest graphic and grant the player the Crusader esper, and there's no way to have that change permanent.

...or maybe there is. I'll mess with it and see if I can figure out how to get it to do what I want it to do.

You'll notice the same behavior with the chest at the top of the tower. I had to do it this way because the game doesn't allow treasure chests to contain espers or key items.

You could make an open chest sprite graphic, put it in some empty space and direct an overworld sprite pointer there, then update the entrance event to check the event bit you use to obtain the item to decide if it should apply the "open chest" sprite.

Edit: or better yet, expand the existing chest graphic so all you have to do is change the "pose" of the chest, that way you wouldn't have to find a random "blank" pointer, you can just keep the same one the chest already uses.

Edit 2: You could also keep the blank chest graphic up all the time and put the chest NPC on top of it, and have the entrance event hide the object if the item has been taken from the chest...

Yeah, that's the general idea I had while typing up that post.

Quote: You'll notice the same behavior with the chest at the top of the tower. I
had to do it this way because the game doesn't allow treasure chests to
contain espers or key items.

How does the game handle handing out Coral/Booty in Ebot's Cave? The item (Though not the quantity) is put into your Key Items menu.

The same way. That's actually where I got the idea for handling those two chests in the Fanatics' Tower.

It's a bit different in Ebot's Rock because the chests are restocked with coral when the map loads anyway, so having the chests close works fine there.