Brave New World 1.9.0 is now available!

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(New to Brave New World? Want to know what it's all about? Check out the Readme here or our list of Frequently Asked Questions.)

It's that time again, my friends! After a beta cycle that went on much longer than we were expecting, Brave New World 1.9.0 is officially released today. The major features of this update include tying the game's cover and counter-attack mehcanics to stamina (the 'ol tank & spank) courtesy of Seibaby and one of the holy grails of FF6 modding in the form of GrayShadow's in-battle spell patch. There's also a lot more goodies in the Unlockme, including boxart courtesy of Shane at RetroGameCases and a little something special to snap into from our good friend Bauglir.

As always, many of the changes in this update are largely inspired by the feedback I get from players who stream on Twitch or post videos on Youtube. I take something away from every playthrough I watch, and more and more with each passing update, Brave New World truly is the work of the amazing community that surrounds it. I can honestly say that the humble project Synchysi and I began work on over six years ago would never be what it is today without all of you, and for that and much else I am eternally grateful. I don't know what the future holds for this mod, but I am certain that you all will be a huge part of it.

What's new in 1.9.0:

1 hour ago, BTB said:

After a beta cycle that went on much longer than we were expecting

This could be part of a new tagline for the mod at this point.

It's already taken

Doomgaze is giving out 10 SP every time he flees.

If I can free up two bytes somewhere to slip a FB 02 into his script, that'll fix it.

Quote

Added new hacks which allow stamina to influence counter-attacks and the possibility of "true knight"
   characters taking hits for healthy allies (critically-wounded characters are still always protected)

Wow, I remember you saying this wasn't a possibility just a few versions ago.
Thanks for all your hard work!

It was up until much better hackers than myself began offering their services.

There's an Alternate Sprites folder in the Unlockme now. Have ya'll considered putting Think's "Behold, Pants!" sprites in that folder? Armor Celes is awesome.

When 1.9.1 comes around, I'll probably add to it. I just haven't really fucked around much with alternate sprites since I was never really interested in the ones that put more clothes on Celes >.>

Yay!

Quick list of things for an eventual 1.9.1 release:

• Soldier rage to Cure 2 / Special ; Rhinotaur to Remedy / Special

• Stop hitting yourself, Powerslave

• Musn't

• Cafe to Pub (maybe)

• Random encounter patch (maybe)

• Atma Weapon to respect Jump (if anyone decides to try to code it)

• Considering upping the random kill rate on the Nodachi/Doom Darts to 33% or 50%

If it means anything, I'll personally chime in that I think "randomly kill" is pretty irrelevant on a lategame weapon like Doom Darts. Sure, Doom Darts x2 has a 75% kill rate. Except Setzer can just cast Doom, or better yet, summon Shoat; it ain't like the darts themselves are hitting terribly hard anyways. Not to mention X-Zone, Cleave, Mog's own Shoat & Doom, vig Mog's Doomstick (which does hit hard & will likely hit first in any given random), Gogo's X-Zone & Cleave, amidst various other powerful AoE, status control, and single target attacks by your other party members relative to the WoR enemies. Kefka's has stronger foes, but IIRC, many of them resist Doom; that, and Setzer gets Fixed Dice anyways.

Nodachi I guess could use more love though? * shrug * I mostly just use it for the increase in damage to Bushido.

Hey guys I have a question about this mod. If you play the game on a patched FF3 US version, are the graphics then censored or uncensored?

 

In case the graphics are censored, is it possible to patch the mod onto a FF6 Jap version? Please lmk before I continue playing again

Everything is uncensored, except apparently the pubs are still called cafe's.

Note to self: a split shuriken should probably be sufficient to wipe out a party of Rabites in the early parts of Sabin's scenario. Should lower their HP in the next update.

On 2/25/2018 at 6:55 AM, SpoonyBard said:

Suggestion: Make Primordite (south figaro cave, locke's scenario) weak to ice or lower their HP to roughly 100

Reasons: Counters physicals with nasty megavolt, formation with 2x Primordite is very common, and all you can do is use up 2 turns with Celes because MT ice doesn't oneshot them.

Not only it drags the fight unnecessarily, but more importantly 12 MP in a fight at that point will make you run out very quickly, so you risk being forced to use physicals against them which means nasty counters.

I think it's a much more tedious fight than it's intended IMO.

Currently they got 200 HP and are weak to fire/bolt like their cousins, weaknesses you cannot exploit at that point.

I'm quoting this post over in this thread as I have to second the request by Spoony here. Primordites are absolute unneeded pains to deal with so early in the game.

I just realized that Stray has the wrong spell list - it teaches Mute instead of Sleep. Will fix that in the next version.

On 2/26/2018 at 1:55 AM, SpoonyBard said:

Suggestion: Make Primordite (south figaro cave, locke's scenario) weak to ice or lower their HP to roughly 100

Reasons: Counters physicals with nasty megavolt, formation with 2x Primordite is very common, and all you can do is use up 2 turns with Celes because MT ice doesn't oneshot them.

Not only it drags the fight unnecessarily, but more importantly 12 MP in a fight at that point will make you run out very quickly, so you risk being forced to use physicals against them which means nasty counters.

I think it's a much more tedious fight than it's intended IMO.

Currently they got 200 HP and are weak to fire/bolt like their cousins, weaknesses you cannot exploit at that point.

On 3/1/2018 at 0:34 PM, GLH said:

I'm quoting this post over in this thread as I have to second the request by Spoony here. Primordites are absolute unneeded pains to deal with so early in the game.

Sorry to be a thorn in the side. But I disagree. Having played through this last night with Locke having 

I was easily one shoting the Primordites . Leaving Celes to ST ice for instant kills.

Just my 2 cents.

Hi,

I first played BNW last year and was flabbergasted at how good it was. I could write paragraphs praising the creators' attention towards engaging gameplay.

It's hard to go back to vanilla now. It's unfortunate because I want to play through FFVI again with a friend who is a beginner, but I think this mod might be a bit too difficult in terms of some of the battles. I remember some really clutch decisions having to be made in order to just barely survive, and I'm an FFVI vet.

I wish there was a version or patch that targeted FFVI virgins. Everything about the mod is superb, but it seems designed solely for those familiar with the original.

What with how tightly every encounter is designed in BNW, I doubt something like this is in the works. But I just wish there was patch to even slightly alter damage values/health pools, if only to curb the number of game overs we'd likely run into (playing with a complete newb). I just wish there was an option to play with BNW's mechanics with an overall difficulty more closely resembling the original game.

For the record, as a vet, I thought the difficulty was pretty spot-on when I played. Just not for a new player.

Thanks for all your hard work.

11 hours ago, F-Bomb said:

 

Sorry to be a thorn in the side. But I disagree. Having played through this last night with Locke having 

  Hide contents

Power glove (it's so bad!) And the Black belt from the South Figaro underground.

I was easily one shoting the Primordites . Leaving Celes to ST ice for instant kills.

  Reveal hidden contents

Also there is a recovery spring right before the boss so MP management shouldn't be an issue. 

Just my 2 cents.

At the level I was at, with powerglove and all I'd be doing around 90-120 damage and eat a megavolt to the face.

To do over 200 on a high defense enemy, you were probably not level 9-11 which is the intended level for that area.

It's not about how hard they are (they are not), it's more about the fact that literally every formation even lategame has (multiple) ways of being handled flawlessly, and this one doesn't. And since your options are limited to physicals with locke+celes and magic with celes at that point in the game, an enemy that isn't weak to either while countering the more spammable of the two options, automatically becomes stronger than it should be.

And it's not any more special than all the other formations before and after this area, so why should it be? Even if you level high enough to the point locke can 1shot, you're still eating a megavolt. I would't call that optimal.

Solution I didn't think of, replace megavolt counter with bolt, so celes can Runic and be useful. (Although admittedly, runic doesn't get shoved down your throat until the boss of that area so new players might not be aware of it, but then again who would play this without having beaten vanilla first is beyond me)

Note to self: can probably re-check the "hide opponent" flag for the version of the Kagenui that you have to bet to get Shadow.

Also should consider adding a ghost merchant to Cyan's Nightmare.

Unsure whether or not this was an intentional joke but most of the WoR stuff that are "Locked!" become "*Name*d!" where *Name* is whatever you renamed Locke to. 

Easily testable: WoR Narshe doors and Cyan's treasure chest. 

Enjoying the mod very much so far. About to tackle Doma Castle.

It's a space-saving technique I used in the dialogue bank, as well as in intentional Easter Egg.

On 08/03/2018 at 9:03 PM, SpoonyBard said:

At the level I was at, with powerglove and all I'd be doing around 90-120 damage and eat a megavolt to the face.

To do over 200 on a high defense enemy, you were probably not level 9-11 which is the intended level for that area.

 

It's not about how hard they are (they are not), it's more about the fact that literally every formation even lategame has (multiple) ways of being handled flawlessly, and this one doesn't. And since your options are limited to physicals with locke+celes and magic with celes at that point in the game, an enemy that isn't weak to either while countering the more spammable of the two options, automatically becomes stronger than it should be.

And it's not any more special than all the other formations before and after this area, so why should it be? Even if you level high enough to the point locke can 1shot, you're still eating a megavolt. I would't call that optimal.

Solution I didn't think of, replace megavolt counter with bolt, so celes can Runic and be useful. (Although admittedly, runic doesn't get shoved down your throat until the boss of that area so new players might not be aware of it, but then again who would play this without having beaten vanilla first is beyond me)

So basically because you can't beat a random encounter without taking damage, it's a problem ? I honnestly don't get the problem here, Random Encounter should give some threat if you know they are going to counter then just prepare Celes to heal, I pass this area and didn't have any problem with them, and besides this is an area that you will go through in what ? 5 minutes at worst.

Also at LV9-10 Locke can indeed one-shot them if you get the strongest throw with the Boomerang (doing around 120 damage each strong throw)

As a first-time player of this mod (and having read the comment about this before I got to said cave), I had no issues with the Primordites. Did what I could to gear Celes for Magic, and while she had to ST the spell, Ice did kill them in one hit, was hitting around 190-210 damage no problem. Now, it's not like it was a "hard" magic gearing, that early in the game, just whatever Terra had been wearing, armor-wise, along with the Magic Box relic (the +50% MP one) and whatever other relic could boost her Magic higher.

Beyond that, I am thoroughly enjoying this revamp to the game's mechanics, as I am about to be tackling the Floating Continent. The fact I've had bosses (and even some random encounters) put me down, is actually refreshing, forcing me to learn how to handle what is going on in the fight. Only "abused" save states right before bosses, simply to save time trekking back to them from the last save point in case of a failure.

Also, through pure accident, I think I overleveled a bit... Is 20 what you should be hitting the FC at?

LV20 at Atma Weapon seems right.

There are experience "humps" at 10, 20, and 30 to keep you from overleveling too much. Expected levels for fighting Atma Weapon are very early 20's at the highest, so you're good.

I'd say that's pretty average especially for the first time getting there.

Only times where I was lower than that (16-17) was when I really made use of chocobos in the world map and in general tried to be fast. If you just walk your way though the game without real grinding but fighting all the battles, 19-20 is what you'll end up. The battles in the FC itself give a lot of experience, so if you feel overleveled just turn exp off or run after lv21 or so. If the boss kicks your butt too hard, just take what you learned from the fight and adjust your setup accordingly. That's much more important than a few level ups and unless you really grind up, it won't take away from the experience of fighting the boss for the first time(s)

I had to sign up to say I love what this mod does to FFVI! It takes one of my favourite games of all time and makes it absolutely amazing! I cannot put into words how amazing this is, it is a work of art and everyone who worked on it in anyway, big or small, deserve ALL the love! If I were to rate this game it would be 100/10!

PS, As a Canadian I love how Narshe is basically Canada! 110/10! Ha ha!

Glad you enjoyed it. A LOT of our players are Canadian, so Narshe is sort of my little shout-out to them.

I would like to make a request for 2.0. It's a minor one all considered.

You know the Fanatics Tower? Have the guy you pay 100,000 Gil to give you an item you can use for betting in the Coloseium. You have said you like games where choices actually matter, and that seems like an easy way of making the players have to put serious time and effort into  bribing the guy in order to get both the info and the item that can then be used (either on its own, or for betting purposes).

Replaying the mod in 1.9 just beat Atma Weapon with Celes LV20, Sabin LV20, Mog LV19 and Shadow LV19.

So far I enjoy this playthrough, I feel like the Cover/Counter combo having higher chance to happen base on Stamina make for some really interesting thing (also making stamina Cyan a little less boring to play) however I'm kind of feeling Stamina is maybe to important compare to other stats, regarding characters they are all good just still have a hard time figuring out what to do with Locke (I dunno why in 3 playthrough he is the only character I am never satisfy with) and I feel Gau is lacking some option in WoB to truly stand out, force myself to use Mog as I am not a fan of him got to admit he is usefull especially as a rod user with the new Counter/Cover thing increasing on Stamina, a little question about Mog can he counter while he is un a Dance ?

 Any "rage"-type status will prevent covering, including dance. I suppose the dance part can be revisited if it's a big deal.

No that actually not an issue since most of the time when I will use a Dance with Mog it means I don't need Rod's Elemental sniping and the opposite is also true if I need to attack with Rod I will not use Dance and in general I think it's better that way to have the player having to choose if he wants Mog to Dance or attack.

I started playing this a week ago after work. It has been very enjoyable thus far. I wanted to thank you for taking the time to change the sauce enough to give me a reason to re-experience this classic from my child hood again.

Note for next version: Kaiser should turn into a save point.

On 3/19/2018 at 7:33 AM, BTB said:

 Any "rage"-type status will prevent covering, including dance. I suppose the dance part can be revisited if it's a big deal.

Ouch. I had been hoping for a Cover-Counter Maduin Mog that used Punisher, Hero Ring, and Black Belt while dancing something like Forest Suite for better all-purpose party support tank. But if Dance disallows Cover, that doesn't work.

I ask to re-consider this. Mog has and has had a lot of trouble pulling together all his tools into a powerful whole throughout BNW's life. Dance (and X-Magic) in particular. I'm not seeing any benefit to disallowing a potentially unique set-up for Mog, especially because I highly doubt it'll be op or anything.

8 hours ago, thzfunnymzn said:

Ouch. I had been hoping for a Cover-Counter Maduin Mog that used Punisher, Hero Ring, and Black Belt while dancing something like Forest Suite for better all-purpose party support tank. But if Dance disallows Cover, that doesn't work.

I ask to re-consider this. Mog has and has had a lot of trouble pulling together all his tools into a powerful whole throughout BNW's life. Dance (and X-Magic) in particular. I'm not seeing any benefit to disallowing a potentially unique set-up for Mog, especially because I highly doubt it'll be op or anything.

Seconding this, I was planning on doing support/tank Mog on my next playthrough and I'm bummed now that I know it doesn't work like that, especially with the potential synergy between cover/counter and dance.

That's fine with me.

@seibaby can make the necessary adjustments.

21 hours ago, thzfunnymzn said:

Ouch. I had been hoping for a Cover-Counter Maduin Mog that used Punisher, Hero Ring, and Black Belt while dancing something like Forest Suite for better all-purpose party support tank. But if Dance disallows Cover, that doesn't work.

I ask to re-consider this. Mog has and has had a lot of trouble pulling together all his tools into a powerful whole throughout BNW's life. Dance (and X-Magic) in particular. I'm not seeing any benefit to disallowing a potentially unique set-up for Mog, especially because I highly doubt it'll be op or anything.

That's personnal opinion but I personnaly like having to choose what I want to priotize with a character depending of what oppenent i will face and personnal preference Mog is a good exemple for me do we want to go all out with Rod damage by Cover/Countering pn the front row or do we want to use a less Rod-damaging set up (Dragoon Seal + Moogle Charm) to take benefit of the Dance's support option I think that's part of what make J-RPG fun, the player having to choose what tool he wants to use and how to use them.

Seems like wanting a counter/cover dancing Mog is a bit greedy.  If this, why not rage or berserk?  

In the cover/counter discussions, it was explicitly stated that there are certain conditions (e.g. status restrictions) and nerfs (e.g. evasion halved) put on them to ensure these mechanisms were only suited to specific builds.  This ties in with spears having auto-cover, so if you want a cover/counter dancing Mog, you need a spear, black belt, and the Moogle charm (thus not officially in the dance trance) and you don’t get the punisher procs.

Edit: Note that spear, moogle charm Mog is still an excellent cover choice, with an extra relic slot to boost HP, defense, evasion, or stam further.  Could also jump with this set up, so offensively he still hits things pretty hard.

Thus, it would probably be a bit OP to give him the chance for frequent autocrit rod procs if cover/counter were allowed while dancing sans charm.  

Hmmm. Rods were mainly there for better synergy with Maduin, but fair enough.

Definitily Maduin Build is IMO best build for Rod Mog by sniping Elemental weakness you can deal a lot of Damage (I was reaching 9000 on Hidon) with it and now with the Cover/Counter having higher chance with Stamina there's even more of a reason to get Stamina, alternativly I think if you don't want to use Cover Counter with Mog then just swap Maduin's EL with Shoat's EL you will reach high damage with Rod's spell faster and increase Dances efficiency and since you might reach a comfortable amount of Magic stats faster you can maybe get more EL to Terrato for more survivability and then the Mystery Egg + Moogle Charm might be interesting.

Something like that :

>_> Don't worry, I'm a firm believer that Shoat is Mog's best option for Dance, weakness sniping, and X-Magic. I'm just not sold on the ~15 extra stamina from Maduin being useful, which is why I had hoped for stacking c/c rods with dances. Oh well.

Then again, I'm not much of a believer of stamina in general. I'm pretty solidly of the opinion that it's a nicety at best, filler at worst, rather than anything seriously good. Tbf, haven't had real opportunity to play with the primary c/c builds yet (Locke, Cyan, Celes, Umaro).

Well for Cover Counter in my playthrough I use it for the following character in my last playthrough :

-Cyan with the following set up :

Completly unkillable (especially with Empoworer) Cover/Counter very often for good damage per counter, Cure 2 is actually not bad at all was healing for 800HP on everyone, get very good ticks from Regen and Dispatch and Tempest still deals good damage in addition of Dragon and Eclipse, I really prefer this build to Vigor Cyan because it has survavibility and more utility.

-Shadow following set up :

There's actually a lot of thing that could change here :

-Using Masamune instead of Orochi you lose Damage but get the counter effect to use a better Helm
-I think Full Phantom might have been better
-Power Glove can be replace by Zephyr Cape for better Evasion

In any case Shadow works suprisingly well as a Cover/Counter user because he evade a lot and his counter with Orochi and Kagenui are actually very strong, combine with a good speed and Auto-Haste and he also attacks a lot so combine the counter for Covering + the actual turns (for attacking or using throw) and IMO this is the best Physical Damage Dealer in the game for me, it would be even better if he could cover while under Image but that's unfortunatly not possible.And finally Mog with the following build :

Replace Punisher by any Rod you need.
Very tanky, magic from Rods with the MP for Critical effect still deals a lot of damage (was dealing 9000 with Fire2 from Fire Rod to Hidon for instance) when snipping weakness, his magic is still high enough to make use Dance in random mobs (or with the Moogle Charm + Dragon Seal set up).

Outside of this 3 I didn't use Cover/Counter but I think it can be well used by Terra, Celes, Edgar, Locke and Sabin (maybe Setzer to) depending of the build.

I'm not too impressed with c/c Edgar, and Terra and Setzer strike me as more the type to pick either Cover or Counter, not both. Sabin strikes me mostly Counter. I'll chalk up Shadow as a c/c user still and maybe raise my estimation of c/c Mog.

I also have some doubt on C/C Edgar's efficiency due to his low base Stamina but he does have Spears for the Cover effect (also Gungnir for HP+50%) alloing to free up a Relic space for Nirvana Band for instance and can reach a decent vigor even if you go full Unicorn but it doesn't seem as appealing as Cover/Counter Cyan, Terra however could be great due to high damage potential thanks to Morph + Sword that cast Spell since she has access to the Oath Veil to increase spellsword cast, being in Morph also boost the healing she receives and give her massive Regen ticks so there is potential there I think, Sabin would be interesting due to the fact that just like Cyan his base Vig is already high enough that even with no investment in Vig through EL he can reach a good Vigor with equipment, however unlike Cyan he doesn't have access to equipment that gives him the counter effect so he requires Hero Ring + Black Belt and his equipment in general gives less Defense than Cyan.

But after all I guess it's ust a matter of playstyle ^^

I didn’t read all the conversation, but it seems I’m echoing Nesouk when I say I don’t want to see cover+counter + dance.  BNW usually asks you to make some choices with your character and that would be a case of having your cake and eating it too. Plus it would give mog a consistent extra damage/defense output on top of dance’s excellent options and would be too powerful imo.

Here's something that always perplexed me. Why are Ice and Bolt so much more expensive than Fire to cast? Fire costs 4 and Bolt costs 8, but the power is 27 versus 33. It doesn't seem to make much sense economically to use Bolt over Fire unless you're hitting a weakness?

That's the MP economy, but you can also look at the turn economy and risks;
just imagine that Fire barely does not kill the target and Ice just barely does.
Then you'd need 2x Fire or Fire + anything else, using more turns and MP, maybe even risking eating a counter attack.

And I guess the deal gets better at the higher tiers.
Fire -> Ice is +50% MP cost
Fire2/3 -> Ice2/3 only +25%
while damage ratio stays the same (+1/9)

13 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

That's the MP economy, but you can also look at the turn economy and risks;
just imagine that Fire barely does not kill the target and Ice just barely does.
Then you'd need 2x Fire or Fire + anything else, using more turns and MP, maybe even risking eating a counter attack.

And I guess the deal gets better at the higher tiers.
Fire -> Ice is +50% MP cost
Fire2/3 -> Ice2/3 only +25%
while damage ratio stays the same (+1/9)

I doubt players are sitting there with a pen and paper and looking at the enemy HP stats and calulating the damage of Fire vs Bolt on Locke deciding which one to use, especially when the random factor to damage

Tbf GamingFiend, the only characters seriously using MP at this point in the game are Terra and Celes. Fire and Ice are virtually identical in terms of MP and Spell Power. Bigger issue is that Ice has few uses in the early game (seems that Brawlers were meant to be susceptible to Ice, but Rock counterattacks + poison strats means that'll never happen). Celes has the MP for Bolt in the IMF, it's just never had much of a niche even in the IMF all throughout BNW's life, and, well, now, Celes has the Morning Star instead.

On 4/10/2018 at 2:02 AM, Nesouk said:

I also have some doubt on C/C Edgar's efficiency due to his low base Stamina but he does have Spears for the Cover effect (also Gungnir for HP+50%) alloing to free up a Relic space for Nirvana Band for instance and can reach a decent vigor even if you go full Unicorn but it doesn't seem as appealing as Cover/Counter Cyan, Terra however could be great due to high damage potential thanks to Morph + Sword that cast Spell since she has access to the Oath Veil to increase spellsword cast, being in Morph also boost the healing she receives and give her massive Regen ticks so there is potential there I think, Sabin would be interesting due to the fact that just like Cyan his base Vig is already high enough that even with no investment in Vig through EL he can reach a good Vigor with equipment, however unlike Cyan he doesn't have access to equipment that gives him the counter effect so he requires Hero Ring + Black Belt and his equipment in general gives less Defense than Cyan.

But after all I guess it's ust a matter of playstyle ^^

Terra I suspect is best off picking one or the other of Cover or Counter. Certainly a more bulky healer build (HP, MP, some mag) would prefer Cover for also defending allies. Vig Terra lacks stamina and should not, under any circumstances, try to combine Morph with Cover. C/C Apocalypse Terra without Morph isn't a bad idea and does make use of all of the Hero's Ring bonuses; though with low stamina and missing the Power Glove, eh. A Morph Omega build could, but I'm not sure how nicely Morph or Omega plays with the increased damage Terra will take. Then again, I'm always surprised with how absurd Morph Omega is, so maybe Terra can c/c better than I thought.

My Unicorn Edgar was played in NHT, so it's not the best representative of Unicorn Edgar balance. That said, he still performed admirably in the WoB, so it's clearly a fine build early on. I just have my doubts on how well he'll scale into the WoR. Worried that he'll become too much of a one-trick pony without speed. And while he ought to be given at least some Siren or Palidor, I'm not sure how well "Unicorn Cover Edgar" synergizes with either mag Support Edgar (moar speed, Force equips, back row) or Palidor (Unicorn + Palidor seems like a worse version of Golem + Palidor). At least Unicorn Edgar can technically claim something for its own now.

I don't trust Sabin defenses to hold up while also Covering allies. Even Terrato Sabin loses HP for using Mantra if he Covers, though he's the only Sabin build who can even think about Covering without eating dirt.

1 hour ago, thzfunnymzn said:

Tbf GamingFiend, the only characters seriously using MP at this point in the game are Terra and Celes. Fire and Ice are virtually identical in terms of MP and Spell Power. Bigger issue is that Ice has few uses in the early game (seems that Brawlers were meant to be susceptible to Ice, but Rock counterattacks + poison strats means that'll never happen). Celes has the MP for Bolt in the IMF, it's just never had much of a niche even in the IMF all throughout BNW's life, and, well, now, Celes has the Morning Star instead.

Terra I suspect is best off picking one or the other of Cover or Counter. Certainly a more bulky healer build (HP, MP, some mag) would prefer Cover for also defending allies. Vig Terra lacks stamina and should not, under any circumstances, try to combine Morph with Cover. C/C Apocalypse Terra without Morph isn't a bad idea and does make use of all of the Hero's Ring bonuses; though with low stamina and missing the Power Glove, eh. A Morph Omega build could, but I'm not sure how nicely Morph or Omega plays with the increased damage Terra will take. Then again, I'm always surprised with how absurd Morph Omega is, so maybe Terra can c/c better than I thought.

My Unicorn Edgar was played in NHT, so it's not the best representative of Unicorn Edgar balance. That said, he still performed admirably in the WoB, so it's clearly a fine build early on. I just have my doubts on how well he'll scale into the WoR. Worried that he'll become too much of a one-trick pony without speed. And while he ought to be given at least some Siren or Palidor, I'm not sure how well "Unicorn Cover Edgar" synergizes with either mag Support Edgar (moar speed, Force equips, back row) or Palidor (Unicorn + Palidor seems like a worse version of Golem + Palidor). At least Unicorn Edgar can technically claim something for its own now.

I don't trust Sabin defenses to hold up while also Covering allies. Even Terrato Sabin loses HP for using Mantra if he Covers, though he's the only Sabin build who can even think about Covering without eating dirt.

True, to be fair Locke will have to choose between Bolt and Fire too, and may use it fairly regularly if going for a Phoenix build of him

Unicorn Edgar is odd and mostly compares to Golem Edgar. For simplicity sake, compare a pure 20 EL Golem Edgar to a pure 20 EL Unicorn Edgar. The Golem Edgar sacrifices 200 HP and 20 Stamina in exchange for 20 Vigor, which gives Edgar a marginal defense boost and a considerably higher offensive presence with Jump and physical tools. The 20 Stamina granted by Unicorn does not benefit any of Edgar's tools or his healing capabilities with magic, thus his offense and Cure 2 are at an all time low. The main benefit is he will have tremendous staying power, particularly since unlike Cyan and Sabin he can equip shields and has a better armor selection. But Cyan and Sabin offer superior options that Stamina can fuel, Cyan with Dragon and Eclipse and Sabin with Mantra and Chakra. A Unicorn Edgar just feels like a tank with no cannon. He can give good ST heals with Remedy and a one time MT heal with Unicorn but that's as far as Stamina will benefit his skill set. Counter/Cover has poor synergy with Jump, since Edgar cannot C/C if he is in the air jumping most of the time, so you will probably want him in the front row using Chainsaw/Drill during bosses, trying to benefit from his C/C and counting on him being alive to Defibrillate downed members and heal/purge with Remedy. It's the poor synergy with Stamina that makes it feels like a niche for Edgar when compared to Cyan and Sabin especially.

That isn't a bad analysis. That's a good comparison to Golem Edgar. Common consensus is that Golem + Palidor is best vig Edgar, so the fact that Unicorn Edgar compares to Golem Edgar, and that not necessarily even favorably, indicates a problem.

Tank with no cannon is definitely how I would describe him. Bulkiest character in the game, but then again, vig Edgar with Gungnir all ready contends for that spot and is pretty hard to kill anyways, alongside providing the benefits of vig & spd, so unless he's leveraging that bulk to help the team, it's all pretty pointless. He looks like the supreme team tank with Golem & Cover, but Sabin's got better Golem summons, Edgar's stamina is low, and his Counter offense is abysmal to mediocre. Tbf, the difference between, say, Edgar's stamina stat and Cyan's stamina stat, IIRC, isn't creating a huge difference in Cover%. The reduced stamina, in some ways, is more the nail in the coffin on top of his other problems (no cannon, no speed/magic for support/heals, other builds having more flexible game plans / equipment load-outs / etc).

At best, I could see perhaps a 10/10 mix of Unicorn with Siren that goes in the front row with Gungnir or another spear. Bit of an attempt to slap on Cover utility to the rest of mag Edgar's utility. Not sure it actually works out all that well in practice, but it's probably a better game plan than pure Unicorn or Unicorn + Palidor.

I agree with the above posts, unicorn edgar may be the tankiest character but he seriously lacks an offensive presence, especially since Gungnir lost its "effective against floating enemies" property. It would be better if Edgar had 30 or 36 Stamina to begin with instead of his pitiable 24, that way you could mix some Golem in there to give him a little more power for his chainsaw and counter-attacks. Using Phantom Celes on my current run and I can say beyond the shadow of a doubt that Vigor/Stamina is a perfectly excellent tank option. So my unsolicited two-cents is that higher base Stamina and Gungnir getting the extra damage effect from thrown weapons like it used to have (and maybe an increase to 180 BP) would make Unicorn Edgar an attractive and powerful C/C build, up there with Cyan and Celes.

2 hours ago, JohnFuklaw said:

I agree with the above posts, unicorn edgar may be the tankiest character but he seriously likes an offensive presence, especially since Gungnir lost its "effective against floating enemies" property. It would be better if Edgar had 30 or 36 Stamina to begin with instead of his pitable 24, that way you could mix some Golem in there to give him a little more power for his chainsaw and counter-attacks. Using Phantom Celes on my current run and I can say beyond the shadow of a doubt that Vigor/Stamina is a perfectly excellent tank option. So my unsolicited two-cents is that higher base Stamina and Gungnir getting the extra damage effect from thrown weapons like it used to have (and maybe an increase to 180 BP) would make Unicorn Edgar an attractive and powerful C/C build, up there with Cyan and Celes.

Would it work to just give the Gungnir +7 Stamina to give Edgar some more Stamina, or would Mog gain too much benefit from that as well?

edit: Just taking this idea a little further, what are the thoughts on giving all spears some amount of Stamina?
Like +2 to the Mythril Pike, +3 to the ele spears (Trident, Fire Lance, Longinus) +5 to the non-ele spears (Stout Spear, Partisan) and +7 to the Gungnir as I already mentioned above.
Would this help defensive spear set-ups without being too much of a buff to Dragooning, or would this end up more under the territory of buffing something "just because" and not really serve any purpose?

1 hour ago, A Dummy said:

Would it work to just give the Gungnir +7 Stamina to give Edgar some more Stamina, or would Mog gain too much benefit from that as well?

edit: Just taking this idea a little further, what are the thoughts on giving all spears some amount of Stamina?
Like +2 to the Mythril Pike, +3 to the ele spears (Trident, Fire Lance, Longinus) +5 to the non-ele spears (Stout Spear, Partisan) and +7 to the Gungnir as I already mentioned above.
Would this help defensive spear set-ups without being too much of a buff to Dragooning, or would this end up more under the territory of buffing something "just because" and not really serve any purpose?

Better solution would be to make a spear that is Stamina damage based like Atma/Omega weapon

Stamina-damage spear with a significant increase (more than +6) to stamina might work. Either alone won't work. More stamina is the more important one here, but it means little when there are other bulky c/c characters who simply provide more options. Stamina-damage spear means little when Unicorn Edgar's stamina is barely any better than his vigor.

It's fine if the stamina-damage spear is WoR. Unicorn Edgar's fair for the WoB. Gungnir's kinda late without early Ancient Castle (more reason to go there early?), but what can you do? Does ruin any idea of vig Edgar using Gungnir though, which is something I did prefer on my previous run.

Ultimately, I doubt a stamina-damage spear is going to get through, so perhaps it may be better to focus on Unicorn Edgar as more closely related to mag Edgar? Both support builds, just in different ways?

Another point I'll mention is that, prior to Genji, Edgar's stam+ armor is limited. No stam+ shields, Power Armor is more offensive, leaving only Green Beret & Red Cap (& Stat Hat) on his armor slot. (In fact, a lot of the interesting armor equips tend to be endgame. I think I and others have bought up this idea a few times.) I think I prefer more stam+ equip options, as it means vig/mag Edgar set-ups are more likely to have significantly less stamina from having chosen different equipment, though a +6 base stamina could also be a part of this as well. Stam+ spears seems fine to me.

Not in the mood for trying to brainstorm other avenues for buffing him, but it seems like there's no way around the fact that his core game plan, Cover, needs to work well before he has hope of getting anywhere.

Edgar already has a stamina-based weapon; making it behave correctly with Jump is backburner'ed wishlist item.

17 hours ago, BTB said:

Edgar already has a stamina-based weapon; making it behave correctly with Jump is backburner'ed wishlist item.

If you had your heart set on unicorn Edgar Omega Weapon is a good idea.

what about a Stamina Based Bio Blaster? Basically a weaker and slower Flash? That would help his atrocious offense option. He can rely on Remedy and Unicorn Summpn for healing

I'd prefer to be stingy with stamina-based attacks. They're certainly not something everyone needs, or else the characters that do have them become much less unique and stamina builds end up universally better than others (which they already are in many cases).

Something my OCD wishes to point out is that most stamina builds do have a stamina-based attack / heal that they rely upon or were critical to said builds being accepted as "good" builds. Terra, Locke, Sabin, Cyan, Gau, Mog, Setzer, they all fall in this category. Even Phantom Celes sorta hits on this with Cover/Counter (arguably Shadow too). Strago's lack of any specific use for stamina is perhaps a or even the major reason for why there's a noticeable portion of the players who hold little respect for said build, myself included. It's also part of why I think Mishrak is crazy for hyping up Crusader Celes so much when he could just play Siren Celes. (Relm's a weird case; she has a stamina-based heal, but the overlap with existing builds is strong, thereby devaluing her stam build severely).

So it's not a surprise that people are asking for stamina-based damage to improve stam Edgar, since we still haven't wholly moved away from that solution to stamina builds, not even with some of our most recent stuff (Terra, Locke, Celes, Setzer).

So I finally got the time to properly patch the game and start over. Played up through Ultros and Cyan’s scenario. 

Havent seen much of the crass language that the mod is usually criticized for. Was that cleaned up along the way? So far everything is really great. It’s nice to have to think about new random encounters (though it usually boils down to “what triggers the counterattack”), and status effects being relevant makes the combat much better. One suggestion I’d make is to make equipment management a bit easier. Whenever I go to a shop, it seems like every equipment gets the “this is an upgrade” triangle even when it is equal (haven’t tested worse yet). It kinda sucks to buy duplicate hard leathers or whatever early in the game. With so many relics being changed, it’s also kind of hard to track what they do since you only see the description on the equip screen. It would be nice if you could also see the description for currently equipped gear. Other than that, no complaints so far. Very excited to see how the game picks up once I reach Zozo. 

On 5/8/2018 at 9:45 PM, thzfunnymzn said:

Something my OCD wishes to point out is that most stamina builds do have a stamina-based attack / heal that they rely upon or were critical to said builds being accepted as "good" builds. Terra, Locke, Sabin, Cyan, Gau, Mog, Setzer, they all fall in this category. Even Phantom Celes sorta hits on this with Cover/Counter (arguably Shadow too). Strago's lack of any specific use for stamina is perhaps a or even the major reason for why there's a noticeable portion of the players who hold little respect for said build, myself included. It's also part of why I think Mishrak is crazy for hyping up Crusader Celes so much when he could just play Siren Celes. (Relm's a weird case; she has a stamina-based heal, but the overlap with existing builds is strong, thereby devaluing her stam build severely).

So it's not a surprise that people are asking for stamina-based damage to improve stam Edgar, since we still haven't wholly moved away from that solution to stamina builds, not even with some of our most recent stuff (Terra, Locke, Celes, Setzer).

Celes does have a Stamina Attack too with her special hidden relic. I don't see the uniqueness issue, as it's kind of ubiquitous. Only Relm, Strago, Locke and Edgar don't have one. Locke and Edgar can through Omega Weapon. Relm has Regen X but a massive burst heal from that isn't a big deal considering she can burst heal with Cure 3 in a Magic Build. It's a bit hard to justify the use of Stamina Relm and when I did my Tier List on this page. Strago has Odin Summon, which is MP intensive but viable with heavy carbuncle investment, and gives him a 1 turn burst damage during a boss fight.

/forums/topic/53-whos-your-mvp/&page=2

This Tier list was for 1.8, and the new stamina additions likely affect it. Unicorn Edgar probably jumps up to C Tier, but because the Cover mechanic is anti-synergistic with Stamina it's very limited. I could see him being a respectable team member if holding Omega Weapon and Nirvana Band so that his heals and damage output can at least be effective enough to not feel like a wasted turn.

Stamina Relm is frankly not tanky enough for the Counter mechanic to be useful and as I said earlier the stronger Regen X is irrelevant because Cure 3 exists for Burst heal. The trade off for Mag+ which is so powerful on her with Flare/Meteor/Osmose is too much. Next to Umaro, she is easily the worst character/build in my opinion, Umaro might actually be better. You could I suppose use Stamina Relm in the capacity of Regen X healer but even with high stamina her HP is so low that she can die easily. I struggle to see the upside. Even with Intercepter it's very underwhelming, and losing Shadow for that purpose is just plain silly.

Tier List Synopsis:

A Tier

A+ : Stamina Terra

A: Phoenix Locke

A-: Maduin Terra, Kirin Locke, Magic Edgar, Magic Celes, Magic Setzer

B Tier

B+: Vigor Edgar, Terrato Sabin, Crusader Celes, Vigor Cyan, Shadow, Gogo (infinite versatlity poor stats), Zoneseek Relm, Magic Strago, Stamina Setzer, Magic Mog

B: Vigor Locke, Vigor Celes, Maduin Mog, Vigor Mog, Speed Relm

B-: Bismarck Terra, Golem Sabin, Speed Gau

C Tier

C+: Stamina Cyan (late game), Stamina Gau (late game)

C: Stamina Strago

C-:  Stamina Sabin

D Tier

 D+:Unicorn Edgar

 D:Stamina Relm

 D-: Umaro (Uncontrollable almost no utility)

I feel like we're partially losing sight here of what Stamina is even about, and asking it to be a better DPS stat is kinda missing the point of what it's even for in the first place, which is as a tanking stat against magic damage and statuses, while also offering some character specific utility. (Like Mog stumbling on Dance less.)
Like for me, the reason I enjoy Stamina Strago is because it lets me put him in the front row without having to worry about him dying letting him get full damage from his Rod hits, combine that with a Black Belt and he throws out a decent amount of free counters besides while I have him do other things.

I think part of the point of Unicorn Edgar is that he can be a good team tank, and with the newer inherent Cover bonus spears give he still gets both of his relic slots while other party members have to give up a slot for a Knight Cape or Hero Ring in order to do so, and besides that he gets the Gungnir which also gives him +50% hp at no downside, with the only other source of of +50% hp in the game having obvious big downsides that you have to build around to make it work.

Also remember part of the point in this hack is you can never have your cake and eat it too, being immortal is going to come at a cost if you go all in on it, and in this case that cost is doing rather mediocre damage, in fact it could be argued trying to attack with your tank should feel like a wasted turn, because you did that instead of using any of his utility options so someone else who does have the better damage doesn't have to do it and can attack instead.
Like have Edgar set slow instead of someone else, or have him open fights with Noiseblaster or Mute, that sort of thing, and leave the damage dealing to others that don't have to do the "Status Chores" because Edgar can already take care of them.

I'm going to say something crazy here and actually state that Unicorn Edgar's low damage might really be a good thing, see I notice Edgar has this huge amount of status utility that doesn't rely on any of his stats that I don't think is really getting fully capitalized upon because he's usually regulated to a damage role of some kind. (In fact in BTB's own utility list Edgar has the highest total amount of utility available out of anyone.)
Like suddenly what tool you use doesn't really have to do with trying to get out more damage anymore, you use Flash because you want to Blind enemies or Bio Blaster for the AoE Poison, not because of the damage itself.

So yeah crazy rant over, now I really feel like I wanna try out Unicorn Edgar on my next playthrough. (Along with a front row Stam/Speed Relm that focuses on Brush healing. lol)

On 5/9/2018 at 8:32 AM, GeradFigaro said:

So I finally got the time to properly patch the game and start over. Played up through Ultros and Cyan’s scenario. 

Havent seen much of the crass language that the mod is usually criticized for. Was that cleaned up along the way? So far everything is really great. It’s nice to have to think about new random encounters (though it usually boils down to “what triggers the counterattack”), and status effects being relevant makes the combat much better. One suggestion I’d make is to make equipment management a bit easier. Whenever I go to a shop, it seems like every equipment gets the “this is an upgrade” triangle even when it is equal (haven’t tested worse yet). It kinda sucks to buy duplicate hard leathers or whatever early in the game. With so many relics being changed, it’s also kind of hard to track what they do since you only see the description on the equip screen. It would be nice if you could also see the description for currently equipped gear. Other than that, no complaints so far. Very excited to see how the game picks up once I reach Zozo. 

I think the "this is an upgrade" triangle got ditched completely. The triangle you see is simply telling you "this character can equip that item".

You have some information when it comes to attack power (I think just before you try and buy the item). My suggestion is to save the game before going in a shopping spree (and I believe there isn't an instance where you can't save right before shopping).

I think there's a hack that's been worked on to give a more comprehensive description of equip stats and properties inside the shops, so maybe we'll see that in future patches. For now, it's more about the game's own limitations when it comes to shops. For example, in the original game you'd get an "upgrade" symbol whenever attack (defense for armors) was higher. Nothing else was considered, stat drops or boosts, properties etc. and you had to figure it out on your own (and make it past the game telling you that you should buy that item when in reality it might not be the case).

As for the above discussion, Edgar's hella good already, doesn't need stamina to be really bulky, doesn't need vigor to do good phys damage, doesn't need magic to use his magic tools effectively. He's IMO the only character that could stay at EL 0 and still be darn useful. As consequence, any extra is just a plus to make him even more awesome. Giving him high stamina would make him just too good. 1.9 stam Celes is already borderline broken with little to no drawbacks to her build, Edgar on a stam attack spear with nirvana band (while still having access to tools, very good equipment, very good support magic) would make him into a jack of all trades (and master of all), trivialize the need for vigor (stam damage), and so on and so forth. From the stupidly versatile character that he is now, which can go dps, support, magic, physical, speedy, tanky (and sometimes he jumps in and covers too!) he would turn into a snorefest.

Want a spear wielder with high stam that never dies and takes hits for the party often? Use mog instead?

Edgar can pretty much hit with every bad stat. Plus has the ability to nearly heal them all without items. Has access to inherant haste. Plus the use of golem. Plus all the other arguments above.

Like it was described in the beginner school, you don't need to worry about how you build your characters to beat the game.

I think a lot of thought has already gone into how the characters are built and what they have access to. Compared to vanilla, where there is definate standouts. In BNW you can just pick the lowest leveled characters (unless you want to steal something) up stats without paying too much attention, and have at it.

Always seems to work for me.

10 hours ago, GamingFiend said:

Celes does have a Stamina Attack too with her special hidden relic. I don't see the uniqueness issue, as it's kind of ubiquitous. Only Relm, Strago, Locke and Edgar don't have one. Locke and Edgar can through Omega Weapon. Relm has Regen X but a massive burst heal from that isn't a big deal considering she can burst heal with Cure 3 in a Magic Build. It's a bit hard to justify the use of Stamina Relm and when I did my Tier List on this page. Strago has Odin Summon, which is MP intensive but viable with heavy carbuncle investment, and gives him a 1 turn burst damage during a boss fight.

/forums/topic/53-whos-your-mvp/&page=2

 

This Tier list was for 1.8, and the new stamina additions likely affect it. Unicorn Edgar probably jumps up to C Tier, but because the Cover mechanic is anti-synergistic with Stamina it's very limited. I could see him being a respectable team member if holding Omega Weapon and Nirvana Band so that his heals and damage output can at least be effective enough to not feel like a wasted turn.

 

Stamina Relm is frankly not tanky enough for the Counter mechanic to be useful and as I said earlier the stronger Regen X is irrelevant because Cure 3 exists for Burst heal. The trade off for Mag+ which is so powerful on her with Flare/Meteor/Osmose is too much. Next to Umaro, she is easily the worst character/build in my opinion, Umaro might actually be better. You could I suppose use Stamina Relm in the capacity of Regen X healer but even with high stamina her HP is so low that she can die easily. I struggle to see the upside. Even with Intercepter it's very underwhelming, and losing Shadow for that purpose is just plain silly.

 

 

Tier List Synopsis:

A Tier

A+ : Stamina Terra

A: Phoenix Locke

A-: Maduin Terra, Kirin Locke, Magic Edgar, Magic Celes, Magic Setzer

B Tier

B+: Vigor Edgar, Terrato Sabin, Crusader Celes, Vigor Cyan, Shadow, Gogo (infinite versatlity poor stats), Zoneseek Relm, Magic Strago, Stamina Setzer, Magic Mog

B: Vigor Locke, Vigor Celes, Maduin Mog, Vigor Mog, Speed Relm

B-: Bismarck Terra, Golem Sabin, Speed Gau

C Tier

C+: Stamina Cyan (late game), Stamina Gau (late game)

C: Stamina Strago

C-:  Stamina Sabin

D Tier

 D+:Unicorn Edgar

 D:Stamina Relm

 D-: Umaro (Uncontrollable almost no utility)

Everything you’ve listed as B or lower I personally have listed as an A at some point. 

What your post tells me is what you like and dislike. Nothing more. 

The reality is every character and every build thrives at what they do if you utilize them well. 

18 hours ago, A Dummy said:

Stuff

A Dummy, I fully agree with you that stamina should be a defensive stat, not an offensive one. Rather, what my implication was, was that, in practice, stamina doesn't achieve that goal. In practice, we have in the past, and continue to this day, to rely upon stamina-based damage / healing in order to shore up the flaws in stamina builds. And I contend that we do this because, inherently, despite the high number of mechanics stamina affects, most of them are simply trivial in their affect. Stamina is nice to have, but when its competing with HP, speed, MP, and one of vig or mag, it gets the shaft.

EDIT: Though I should still be thanking you for saying what you did say. Sorry. >_>

For example: increasing stamina on Strago doesn't do nothing. It does have some minor affects. Mostly noticeable with some extra resistance to suffering a status, or with perhaps surviving a strong, endgame itd attack that he wouldn't otherwise. The problem is that:

• Stamina's effect on the status game is of significantly less importance than simply equipping a status relic or bringing Harvester
• "Magical damage variance", because of the damage numbers and stamina stat needed to even see an effect, basically doesn't exist. When it does, raw mg.def or elemental defense is more important. It's only for big, endgame itd attacks that it really matters, and the character still needs to be healed afterwards. It's really only useful if it prevents a OHKO, which is a mighty fine line to walk, and also one that is immediately solved by grabbing another level.
• Counter still has a high base chance of working, so it competes directly with mag Strago's extra damage
• Stamina has no other synergy with anything else Strago does. Even the Life Bell + Holy Wind combo is practically unaffects by extra regen ticks from stamina.
• Magic improves Strago's elemental dps and his off-turn Black Omen damage. Even for a mostly support Strago, it's highly questionable just how useful stamina is compared to more magic

Similar arguments can be made for other characters. For example, look at the history of stam Terra and stam Locke. Terra had a special stamina-based mechanic. But when did those two builds really become "accepted" as solid builds? When Omega was fixed.

Now, 1.9's new stamina-based Cover mechanic is a very good step in the right direction for stamina. I agree that it can and should open the possibilities for pure tanking builds. But let's not forget that stamina is still shaky in its overall utility and still struggles to fully break away from the "filler stat" it was in vanilla. Let's also not forget that Cover is commonly paired with Counter, and....welll.....Counter is basically a stamina-based attack, of a sorts. So....again, we're still relying on stamina-based damage to shore up the weakness of the stamina stat.

Part of the reason why I played Atma without status relics / Harvester in my recent NHT run was so that I could get hard data on just how much I can rely on stamina. While a wee bit unfair (Mind Blast is awful, stamina's still low in the WoB), it's not data totally dissimilar to what I've experienced before. Using stamina for its defensive effects is questionable when you can get mostly the same thing from equips / skills (Harvester) and simply increase your other stats. A little less defensive of a character, but not significantly, a the result if a character far more versatile.

For Unicorn Edgar, I agree he should be a pure tank. I agree that relying mostly on status support and some healing/damage is a fine design. In design, his only major problem is a severe lack of stamina by which to actually, well, tank! However, in practice, the sheer versatility of other Cover tank builds - versatility in both damage output, healing, and other utility - will make Unicorn's life difficult, especially if he doesn't have a significant advantage in bulk or Cover%. Also, his other major supprting build, Siren Edgar, has a huge advantage even in status control / party support, AND can summon Golem (for a brief period), AND throw out Safe. Also, there's this elephant in the room called "Image spam", which further makes it questionable how much resources should be devoted to a pure tanking build. (Golem, thankfully, seems to have been nerfed enough to not also be a problem, but let's not completely ignore him either, lest we overlook something).

Let's also not forget that Gungnir is endgame only. There's still a big midgame (WoR) where Unicorn Edgar needs to function.

***

I wish to respond to GamingFiend later, but I don't have time. Suffice to say, I'm more willing than Mishrak to tier the characters, and I definitely agree that stam Relm is inherently inferior to mag Relm, for much of the same reasons that GamingFiend listed.

Some people are bringing up the worry of making Edgar too good. I agree with that. No further comment right now, not enough time. My statements on stamina still stand.

Just gonna throw this out there, but random encounter rate gets a little crazy at times. Two steps is not enough.

4 hours ago, GeradFigaro said:

Just gonna throw this out there, but random encounter rate gets a little crazy at times. Two steps is not enough.

...I'm not having this issue at all. Infact no one has been having this sort of issue. So there's likely something funky going on with your end of things. The issue now is figuring out where and why.

First, have you applied the encounter patch? If not, it can be found HERE. The patch will be automatically applied to 1.9.1 and/or 2.0 should no other major problems pop up (meaning you won't need to apply the encounter patch next update), but if you have not used this patch here, you should apply it to fix your problem.

Second, do you know if your ROM file is headered or unheadered? A lot of newbies aren't aware that there are two different types of roms, and applying the wrong patch types can create issues. So if you have a headered ROM (something you can check with some various modding tools for FF6), you need to use headered patches, and vice versa with unheadered roms/patches.

Hopefully this reply of mine will help you solve the issues you are having here with that.

It's not just him. I remember having a case or two of nastily high encounter rate when playing Nowea Hard Type.

The encounter rate is what it is, if you get an unlucky streak of RNG you might have a string of encounters all within a handful of steps. It should never be less than two steps though, so if that happens, something is indeed wrong.

The overall encounter rate should be something like five encounters per 100 steps or so; I forget exactly. Applying my encounter patch should raise the floor a bit, as well as lowering the encounter rate somewhat. I'm uncertain whether BTB intends to include it in the next update in its current state.

It should never be less than two, but keyword there is should. I did have probably 8? 1-step encounters in a row. It’s in one of the highlighted vods during the end of the IMTRF segment.  This was unpatched too.

The encounter rate patch didn’t appear to be working correctly from my experience. 

9 hours ago, seibaby said:

The encounter rate is what it is, if you get an unlucky streak of RNG you might have a string of encounters all within a handful of steps. It should never be less than two steps though, so if that happens, something is indeed wrong.

The overall encounter rate should be something like five encounters per 100 steps or so; I forget exactly. Applying my encounter patch should raise the floor a bit, as well as lowering the encounter rate somewhat. I'm uncertain whether BTB intends to include it in the next update in its current state.

 

I asked you about it in Discord the other day because the last I heard from testing of your patch, it wasn't working.

On 15/05/2018 at 2:12 PM, GLH said:

...I'm not having this issue at all. Infact no one has been having this sort of issue. So there's likely something funky going on with your end of things. The issue now is figuring out where and why.

I have it but didn't mention it cause it is a common thing in old J-RPG to have a sometime insane encounter rate.

Altough I remember during my playthrough after the Magitek Factory and just before joining Setzer and the Cranes I had a very crazy encounter rate couldn't make one step without having an encounter dunno if it was bad luck or a glitch.

On 15/05/2018 at 2:12 PM, GLH said:

...I'm not having this issue at all. Infact no one has been having this sort of issue. So there's likely something funky going on with your end of things. The issue now is figuring out where and why.

I have it but didn't mention it cause it is a common thing in old J-RPG to have a sometime insane encounter rate.

Altough I remember during my playthrough after the Magitek Factory and just before joining Setzer and the Cranes I had a very crazy encounter rate couldn't make one step without having an encounter dunno if it was bad luck or a glitch.

As far as I know, it works but not as intended. Nowea and I tested it and it does seem to raise the floor, but like I said, it doesn't preserve the original encounter rate.

On 5/15/2018 at 8:12 AM, GLH said:

...I'm not having this issue at all. Infact no one has been having this sort of issue. So there's likely something funky going on with your end of things. The issue now is figuring out where and why.

First, have you applied the encounter patch? If not, it can be found HERE. The patch will be automatically applied to 1.9.1 and/or 2.0 should no other major problems pop up (meaning you won't need to apply the encounter patch next update), but if you have not used this patch here, you should apply it to fix your problem.

Second, do you know if your ROM file is headered or unheadered? A lot of newbies aren't aware that there are two different types of roms, and applying the wrong patch types can create issues. So if you have a headered ROM (something you can check with some various modding tools for FF6), you need to use headered patches, and vice versa with unheadered roms/patches.

Hopefully this reply of mine will help you solve the issues you are having here with that.

I didn’t know about the encounter patch. Thanks for helping me out. I’ll give it a try, though it sounds like it still doesn’t totally correct things. Strange, I didn’t feel overleveled going into the battle against Kefka in Narshe. Are things balanced with the incorrect encounter rate in mind?

If devs are looking for enhancement ideas, setting encounter rate would be a huge QoL improvement. Maybe just a simple “high med low” in the config menu. The battles are very interesting, and I love to see how every enemy is changed from the original game, but sometimes I just want to get from point A to point B and not have to waste time on wave after wave of weak enemies that are no threat. 

The patch seems to have helped. Thanks for the suggestion. 

Got up through the opera. I really like how the new script communicates the intent of the story much better. There is ONE line I think should be changed though. Many players bring the Figaro Bros along to the Opera. When the party recruits Setzer, Celes takes a two headed coin from Edgar and uses it to fleece Setzer. Sabin realizes that it’s the coin Edgar used in their bet, and his response is “What the hell, Edgar?” Sabin should not sound angry. This is supposed to be more of an “oh shit, Edgar lost on purpose so I could have my freedom” revelation. Maybe instead of what the hell, something like “oh my god” or even the original “brother, don’t tell me...”. Sabin already respects Edgar, and now he realizes that Edgar sacrificed his freedom so that Sabin could live the way he wanted.   This is his most emotional moment in the game. 

On 5/17/2018 at 0:09 AM, seibaby said:

As far as I know, it works but not as intended. Nowea and I tested it and it does seem to raise the floor, but like I said, it doesn't preserve the original encounter rate.

@Mishrak

I believe you had a different experience with this, yes?

All I remember is the last time I used it I got several 2 step encounters in a row near Thamasa on the overworld.  It shouldn't have been possible from my understanding.

Is there a reason Hidon has about ten million HP?

Just 120,000k. I addressed him during the last round of boss HP tweaking by lowering his magic defense, so the fight goes by quicker if you take advantage of his fire/holy weaknesses.

(Since he's no longer undead, I should probably remove his poison immunity so that Raze will be effective.)

There’s a lot to like about this mod, at least in WoB, but I don’t know what you’re thinking with numbers like that. A lot of these WoR bosses are taking me upwards of a half hour to beat (or worse if I die). I hate to say it, but I’m actually getting bored, and I love FF6. It’s just every single enemy has SO MUCH HP.

I’m noticing that a lot of fights and even random encounters are designed around the assumption that the player is bringing the optimal team, which completely defeats the purpose of locking the characters into “classes” and limiting what they can do. I don’t want to take the long trek through Phoenix Cave, Narshe, etc just because I didn’t know ahead of time that an elemental dragon would be one-shotting my party, or as is more often the case, my characters can *survive* against the boss, but don’t have the right spells or abilities to hit weaknesses, so the fight takes forever. Atma is another example, where if you don’t bring float it’s basically unwinnable, and if you don’t bring rerise, you’re at the mercy of RNG whether mind blast and a follow up will wipe you. And if you don’t know that ahead of time, you get to go through the floating continent twice. It was a really bad way to cap off the WoB, and it’s really disappointing to see that it is a theme in WoR. 

HP nerfs have happened several times already. Most dragons are either 90/120 (I think), the only ones in KT that are 160 are the goddesses and Kefka (Atma?). Conversely, pdef and mdef has been nerfed twice in there, meaning you can hit harder.

If fights are taking this long, that tells me you haven’t found the enemy’s weakness yet. Or you’re just sticking with fight as the main damage option even when it’s not really doing much damage. 

Edit:

Everything has a weakness to exploit.

See my edit above about weaknesses. 

1 hour ago, GeradFigaro said:

There’s a lot to like about this mod, at least in WoB, but I don’t know what you’re thinking with numbers like that. A lot of these WoR bosses are taking me upwards of a half hour to beat (or worse if I die). I hate to say it, but I’m actually getting bored, and I love FF6. It’s just every single enemy has SO MUCH HP.

I’m noticing that a lot of fights and even random encounters are designed around the assumption that the player is bringing the optimal team, which completely defeats the purpose of locking the characters into “classes” and limiting what they can do. I don’t want to take the long trek through Phoenix Cave, Narshe, etc just because I didn’t know ahead of time that an elemental dragon would be one-shotting my party, or as is more often the case, my characters can *survive* against the boss, but don’t have the right spells or abilities to hit weaknesses, so the fight takes forever. Atma is another example, where if you don’t bring float it’s basically unwinnable, and if you don’t bring rerise, you’re at the mercy of RNG whether mind blast and a follow up will wipe you. And if you don’t know that ahead of time, you get to go through the floating continent twice. It was a really bad way to cap off the WoB, and it’s really disappointing to see that it is a theme in WoR. 

Shadow learns float and is forced to be in your party?

(He also learns Rerise if you found the Memento Ring from an NPC's hint earlier in the game)

None of that is particularly true. While it’s common in many older rpgs to not give you a heads up about what you’re about to deal with, if you’re a blind player and entering a Fire Dungeon it would make sense to get some fire protection before you go there.  If you aren’t blind you know there’s a fire dragon.

The game is inherently designed such that lots of parties are viable and good, provided you’re even half decent at building a team (even if you aren’t).

You aren’t at the mercy of Mindblast if you use status protection relics. And everyone has access to float with consumables. Just saying. 

1 hour ago, GeradFigaro said:

I’m noticing that a lot of fights and even random encounters are designed around the assumption that the player is bringing the optimal team, which completely defeats the purpose of locking the characters into “classes” and limiting what they can do.

This is not at all true; I designed encounters with every *potential* character in mind and specifically avoided to the best of my ability there being a "best" choice. Any characters which are forced will have that reflected in the stage design, such as there always being monsters with Runicable attacks when Celes is mandatory. In fact, this is one of the main things I was trying to prove when I was streaming Brave New World - I was letting the chat dictate my party comp.

So, to defend @GeradFigaro a bit:

Atma DOES force you to either

• Buy status immunity relics for everyone
• Bring Mog for Harvester
• Spam Rerise, probably with at least two people. Of the four options, two cannot use Rerise without a hidden relic

Without any of these, defeating Atma's second phase does come down to rng. While there's a lot going on that make him overwhelming (Flare Star, Mind Blast, Glare, re-buffing himself), I think one key problem is that there are simply very few ways to handle Mind Blast. (Ya'll know my shpiel on status defense in this game boiling down to relics & Harvester instead of stamina. This is perhaps the defining proof of my stance.) New players simply have no way to know that they must buy lots of status immunity relics back on Tzen or bring along Mog; I certainly didn't the first time, and Atma wiped me four times. OTOH, once I knew his gimmick (status immunities), he's been a chump ever since, excepting for when I decide to dork around with him. Myria's a chump too now.

Atma (and Myria), in this way, are like some of the dragons (looking at you, Fire and Ice). They're gear checks. If you've got the right armor or relics, he's a chump. Otherwise, he's likely a Game Over. Other bosses are easier with the right set-up, but it's not quite so night-and-day as it is with these guys.

As far as I see, that seems to be Gerad's main complaint when it comes to "an optimal party being required", and it's a complaint that I and others have made before.

***

On the issue of Hidon, much as I dislike him losing his undead theme, I think becoming susceptible to Raze with a low mg.def might help a lot in taking him down quickly. Strago is forced here, will finally have some proper means of offense against the guy (haha, Blaze), and it'll do even more damage than a weakness normally does.

OTOH, Gerad, one reason BTB has given for making bosses bulky is so that they have time to properly execute their full AI script, possibly execute it multiple times in the fight. This is to avoid any fight becoming rng-based. Too much HP is a common complaint, and Hidon's been one of the traditional jerks about it. Hopefully Raze hurting the guy will fix that somewhat.

....

...

***

Actually, @BTB, since Hidon is no longer undead, might I suggest another weakness besides the all-too-common Fire element, as well as Celes' Holy? Perhaps something tailored to Strago, such as Water or Poison? Poison element has the same effect of making Raze useful and while also rewarding X-Dark use for those who went to Ancient Castle first. It's Strago's enemy, let him beat Hidon up. That, and Fire weakness with low mg.def is just begging for Locke to murder Hidon with X-Fire3, when this ought to be the battle where Strago's X-Magic shines, not Locke's.

How about none of the above, and I have reflect on everyone instead.  Aside from Full Power, Meteo, Flare Star, Quartr, MindBlast, and Purge, everything else either misses due to Float, or gets reflected back at him.  Quartr can't kill you, Purge is only an annoyance, and only in phase 1.  Full Power is only used to counter attack, and in the 2nd phase.  Flare Star happens only once in the fight.  So the only real threat is Meteo and MindBlast.

Admittedly I still have at least one status protection relic one each character, but I do use both reflect rings now every time I fight Atmaweapon.  It's become my go-to strategy because it's so powerful.  You get to reflect Grav Bomb, Flare, Lifeshaver, Glare, Raze, and Rasp. There are many turns where the only thing Atmaweapon can do to you is hit you with a standard physical attack (which he has a random chance of doing in addition to his spell).  Typically my party is Terra Locke Setzer for the FC.  Not because they're the best party for it (although very good at it), but because I actively avoid getting levels in the WoB to capitalize on everyone's level being increased to level 18 at the start of WoR.  Terra gets lots of Unicorn to be tanky, Locke gets Ramuh to be my damage dealer, and Setzer brings Go Fish to bypass reflect and heal the party.

OK, so, uh, add Reflect to the list of strategies for handling Atma. >_> Probably better than Rerise spam anyways. Though you're still using status immune relics. : p

RE Hidon:

Since Hidon is no longer undead, the fire and holy weaknesses don’t really fit thematically.  Nor does a water weakness seem appropriate since we have to assume Hidon is amphibious considering it lived in a submerged Ebots Rock.  Thus for Strago to be most effective, a poison or ice weakness would work, but maybe Hidon has inherent Shell?  (It does sorta look like Hidon is equipped with some sort of exoskeleton.)  Then poison attacks do essentially normal damage to stay on par with defense ignoring spells (cough, Relm, cough), which juxtaposes nicely with Hidon using powerful defense ignoring attacks.

14 hours ago, GeradFigaro said:

There’s a lot to like about this mod, at least in WoB, but I don’t know what you’re thinking with numbers like that. A lot of these WoR bosses are taking me upwards of a half hour to beat (or worse if I die). I hate to say it, but I’m actually getting bored, and I love FF6. It’s just every single enemy has SO MUCH HP.

I’m noticing that a lot of fights and even random encounters are designed around the assumption that the player is bringing the optimal team, which completely defeats the purpose of locking the characters into “classes” and limiting what they can do. I don’t want to take the long trek through Phoenix Cave, Narshe, etc just because I didn’t know ahead of time that an elemental dragon would be one-shotting my party, or as is more often the case, my characters can *survive* against the boss, but don’t have the right spells or abilities to hit weaknesses, so the fight takes forever. Atma is another example, where if you don’t bring float it’s basically unwinnable, and if you don’t bring rerise, you’re at the mercy of RNG whether mind blast and a follow up will wipe you. And if you don’t know that ahead of time, you get to go through the floating continent twice. It was a really bad way to cap off the WoB, and it’s really disappointing to see that it is a theme in WoR. 

To be fair the only boss I found uneccessary long was Hiddon (which is my least favorite boss in this mod because he is neither interesting or hard and has just to many HP making the fight unecessary long), regarding Atma never need Float personnaly (Quake can be counter with Runic or you can heal from it) neither Rerise (Actually I didn't use rerise at all in my playthrough so it's definitly possible to beat the entire mod without it), tough I do agree that Mind Blast makes Atma kind of a random boss depending of how often he uses it and what statuts it inflict I would avocate maybe making Mind Blast as a counter when he lost a certain amount of HP (like every 20% HP he lost) would make Mind Blast less random as well as giving the player clue that he is getting closer to victory, in my first playthrough tough I only lost once against Atma (think I had Vig Sabin, Stam Cyan and Mag Celes) but I think every character can contribute to his fight in one way or another.

I don't think the mod assume taking optimal party everytime of course some party will do better in certain situation than an other party but I don't think I happen a single time to get in a situation where I was thinking it was impossible to go through with a party I had there is some situations however where I had to seat back carefully thinking about what I had at my disposal and how I could use it, but this is basically like any RPG if you're not optimal you will need to be more tactical and considere what you can do with the party you have.

13 hours ago, SuperHario said:

RE Hidon:

Since Hidon is no longer undead, the fire and holy weaknesses don’t really fit thematically.  Nor does a water weakness seem appropriate since we have to assume Hidon is amphibious considering it lived in a submerged Ebots Rock.  Thus for Strago to be most effective, a poison or ice weakness would work, but maybe Hidon has inherent Shell?  (It does sorta look like Hidon is equipped with some sort of exoskeleton.)  Then poison attacks do essentially normal damage to stay on par with defense ignoring spells (cough, Relm, cough), which juxtaposes nicely with Hidon using powerful defense ignoring attacks.

I could see Poison weakness without low mg.def. Probably necessary to prevent X-Dark from being too strong. Shell seems unnecessary. Raze and X-Dark should easily overpower Flare with just a Poison weakness. X-Dark may very well break the damage cap. Granted, Relm can very well use the Punisher rod to also do strong damage (and Mog can use X-Bio), but that's probably a bit more niche than Strago just flinging a strong magical attack.

Was I the only one confused by the new choices in the Zozo clock puzzle?  We all knew it as 06:10:50.  On a normal clock, that would be VI, II, X.  Not VI, X, L (or whatever it was).  Who's ever seen a clock label every single tick mark?  It was about two weeks ago I did the clock puzzle, but I think I'm remembering that correctly.  Forgive me if I'm not.

Edit:

Are the 8 dragons designed to be fought at a later time once you've amassed a good deal of some of the better equipment?  Earth destroyed me early in the WOR, kinda expected it.  I probably got through nearly all the fire dragon later on by wasting it with Ice3 for 4k each time with Celes along with the constant sap and sporadic other damage via Sabin blitzes and counters, but eventually a Southern Cross wiped me.  I probably spent about 30 minutes on it.  (Low-mid 20s, but I have NOT spent any ELs yet.  Trying to amass them all before spending the points.)

Not at all. X is Roman numeral for 10, L for 50. Seemed simple. Most clocks I see ain't in roman numerals, so no, it didn't confuse me.

But when a clock is pointing at 10 minutes, it's pointing at II, not X.  Was the solution still 06:10:50?  I didn't pay too much attention to the NPCs, and just decided to see if the same numbers worked...which they sort of did.

Huh, that's a good point — clocks are numbered 1-12, not 1-60 (unless they have both labels, I suppose?). Though it hadn't occurred to me to try answering the puzzle that way, since in vanilla you chose 6, 10, 50 rather than 6, 2, 10. 

11 hours ago, hypernova said:

 

Are the 8 dragons designed to be fought at a later time once you've amassed a good deal of some of the better equipment?  Earth destroyed me early in the WOR, kinda expected it.  I probably got through nearly all the fire dragon later on by wasting it with Ice3 for 4k each time with Celes along with the constant sap and sporadic other damage via Sabin blitzes and counters, but eventually a Southern Cross wiped me.  I probably spent about 30 minutes on it.  (Low-mid 20s, but I have NOT spent any ELs yet.  Trying to amass them all before spending the points.)

The dragons are optional, so they are definitely designed that if you want to fight them at the time you encounter them, you will need a very good strategy and equipment setup. Southern Cross will 100% wipe you if you don't have fire resistance. 

I would really recommend just spending your ELs, they are a huge component of your effectiveness in battle and if you want to change your mind later, you can respec at the Colosseum (although respeccing anyone but the first four characters is very expensive.)

You are at a noticeable disadvantage with not having spent ELs. Even a handful of HP ELs will go a good way into making you more effective in combat.

Fire Dragon virtually requires Fire gear because of S.Cross.

Oh, I'm aware I'm at a disadvantage.  Sabin & Celes were able to withstand a Blow Fish, Edgar and Terra cannot due to HP.  I either gave people the limited fire resistance I have (Tiger Mask) or Shell in some form or another for the fire attacks...figured none of the 4 could equip Ifrit.  Like I said, I think I was very close.  I had to have dished out 60-80k in damage, and survived half a dozen Southern Crosses, but the last one was just too much.  I'll probably just grab Locke and continue on then come back later.

The Dragons are optional...As if.  That's downright blasphemy.    Who would play this mod, and not play it to completion at least once to see all the changes from vanilla?

Sounds like you'll kick the dragon's butt once you come properly prepared with equipment and ELs.

All this talk of nerfing bosses and people complaining about the difficulty actually has me worried that the awesome bossfights of yore will fall flat and underwhelm me when I start a new playthrough in the near future. I never felt the fights were too long for a second.

If it dragged on or I had trouble I simply changed my strategy and that was the whole fun of it. And I'm not a hardcore player or a BNW veteran with only that single playthrough completed 1-2 years ago. Do the veterans also agree that the nerfs were actually called for and it wasn't just done at the whim of some lazy people who expect to steamroll bosses vanilla style without doing any strategizing whatsoever?

Not trying to sound like an ass but the heart and soul of the mods on these forums have always been the challenging and epic boss fights, for me at least... Seems weird to jeopardise that challenge that people are looking for when they come to these mods in the first place.

3 hours ago, Hapanpappa said:

All this talk of nerfing bosses and people complaining about the difficulty actually has me worried that the awesome bossfights of yore will fall flat and underwhelm me when I start a new playthrough in the near future. I never felt the fights were too long for a second.

If it dragged on or I had trouble I simply changed my strategy and that was the whole fun of it. And I'm not a hardcore player or a BNW veteran with only that single playthrough completed 1-2 years ago. Do the veterans also agree that the nerfs were actually called for and it wasn't just done at the whim of some lazy people who expect to steamroll bosses vanilla style without doing any strategizing whatsoever?

Not trying to sound like an ass but the heart and soul of the mods on these forums have always been the challenging and epic boss fights, for me at least... Seems weird to jeopardise that challenge that people are looking for when they come to these mods in the first place.

You can rest assured that no one balancing BNW is interested in nerfs that make the game easier for its own sake. Any nerfs are either to make a fight more fun (there's nothing interesting in spending 5 more minutes on a boss than necessary once you've already figured out how to beat it) or to make sure the fight is properly balanced. However, I also don't think any fights have been nerfed in the past two years. If you're referring to Vargas, he hasn't been nerfed, but if he were, it would be because his difficulty is higher than he should be the options available to you at the time, since you don't have espers yet. But still, most of the proposals here to make him "easier" simply involve giving the player more information, not decreasing his difficulty.

5 hours ago, Deschain said:

You can rest assured that no one balancing BNW is interested in nerfs that make the game easier for its own sake. Any nerfs are either to make a fight more fun (there's nothing interesting in spending 5 more minutes on a boss than necessary once you've already figured out how to beat it) or to make sure the fight is properly balanced. However, I also don't think any fights have been nerfed in the past two years. If you're referring to Vargas, he hasn't been nerfed, but if he were, it would be because his difficulty is higher than he should be the options available to you at the time, since you don't have espers yet. But still, most of the proposals here to make him "easier" simply involve giving the player more information, not decreasing his difficulty.

I referred to messages on the previous page mentioning nerfs to hidon and dragons, hence my opening statement. Though to be clear, my post was nothing more than me jumping to a conclusion based on those few remarks.

Hidon is pretty infamous for being very fat (tanky, bulky, high HP, etc), yet doing nothing with that fat. As an example, I had difficulty with the Soul Fires with my team in NHT just the other day because they're so fat. I couldn't rush a victory, I had trouble keeping momentum going with their attacks, and things could quickly get out of hand, and they just wouldn't die!

Hidon, otoh, isn't hard because of his bulk. Once you've got his buddies under control with a good healer around, he's just a wall of HP that isn't very threatening. So the problem lies in a non-threatening script. I've thrown out a 2.0 suggestion for making Ebot's Rock as a whole a time-based dungeon, like the Imperial Banquet was, so that we see the concept again in the WoR and make Ebot's Rock / Hidon more interesting in general. (Also taking @SuperHario's suggestion of a poison-weak Hidon, though with normal mg.def, but that's another issue really). But that's just one of many possibilities. The real problem is that Hidon isn't that difficult, so his high HP feels like a chore rather than a serious obstacle to overcome.

The dragons are different, as some of them are difficult (Holy, Ice, Earth), so nerfing their HP does cheapen an otherwise difficult boss fight. Same with the Warring Triad. I wasn't a fan of the nerf to HP on dragons, but then again, I also think the dragons, in general, need to be looked over, because some of them are boring (Fire, Water, Poison). Warring Triad at least had their bulk nerfed in more interesting ways (low defenses), but, again, not a fan, as they weren't boring.

12 hours ago, thzfunnymzn said:

Hidon is pretty infamous for being very fat (tanky, bulky, high HP, etc), yet doing nothing with that fat. As an example, I had difficulty with the Soul Fires with my team in NHT just the other day because they're so fat. I couldn't rush a victory, I had trouble keeping momentum going with their attacks, and things could quickly get out of hand, and they just wouldn't die!

Hidon, otoh, isn't hard because of his bulk. Once you've got his buddies under control with a good healer around, he's just a wall of HP that isn't very threatening. So the problem lies in a non-threatening script. I've thrown out a 2.0 suggestion for making Ebot's Rock as a whole a time-based dungeon, like the Imperial Banquet was, so that we see the concept again in the WoR and make Ebot's Rock / Hidon more interesting in general. (Also taking @SuperHario's suggestion of a poison-weak Hidon, though with normal mg.def, but that's another issue really). But that's just one of many possibilities. The real problem is that Hidon isn't that difficult, so his high HP feels like a chore rather than a serious obstacle to overcome.

The dragons are different, as some of them are difficult (Holy, Ice, Earth), so nerfing their HP does cheapen an otherwise difficult boss fight. Same with the Warring Triad. I wasn't a fan of the nerf to HP on dragons, but then again, I also think the dragons, in general, need to be looked over, because some of them are boring (Fire, Water, Poison). Warring Triad at least had their bulk nerfed in more interesting ways (low defenses), but, again, not a fan, as they weren't boring.

I can certainly see why in a case like hidon it gets toned down if most people feel it's just a chore. I must simply be in the minority. And it took me a few tries to beat him too, I remember a few surprises towards the end that I wasn't prepared for at all with my underleveled party so essentially I fought the entire length of the battle at least thrice and still didn't get battle fatigue. Maybe I'm just weird.

With regards to the dragons, I appreciate the honest thoughts - my question now is, when were they nerfed? I hope it was before I did my playthrough. Maybe about 1.5 years ago give or take. I'd be reeeally bummed if they've been made easier since.. Especially when considering that, if I've understood right, this current version will be the definitive version for years to come until 2.0 eventually happens or something. 

Hate to get hung up on this stuff but difficult bosses really are the lifeblood of mods for me. Some bosses were super disappointing already back then, although I've been given valid reasons as to why doomgaze and phunbaba are super easy for example. The warring triad are Gods; why in the world would you ever make them easier? Especially when at that point in the game you have endless options and tools at your disposal to experiment with. Now imagine if you're experienced and know how to gear up - you just walk over the most grand and epic enemies in the climax of the game.

1 hour ago, Hapanpappa said:

The warring triad are Gods; why in the world would you ever make them easier? Especially when at that point in the game you have endless options and tools at your disposal to experiment with. Now imagine if you're experienced and know how to gear up - you just walk over the most grand and epic enemies in the climax of the game.

Longer boss fights aren't necessarily harder. Just to use arbitrary numbers: If a boss takes 25 minutes for the average player to kill, but the player has already seen the full boss script and survived it multiple times within 10 minutes it's very unlikely that the remaining 15 minutes are going to result in a game over. The player would have already figured out the patterns (even if only on an intuitive level) and so it's just going through the motions until the boss falls down. (For multi-phase bosses, just tweak times appropriately and change the concept to being 'per phase)

In this situation, changing the fight to take 10-15 minutes is not going to have a significant impact on the difficulty of the fight. You are 'really' over-focused on "fight length = difficulty"

Each boss is a puzzle. You have your set of characters/abilities/gear and have to find a way to solve the puzzle within the constraints that you're currently under. Once you've solved the puzzle that is any individual boss it more or less comes down to execution. If your solution isn't a good one it's clearly going to be harder to execute, but still... From a broad standpoint these changes are more or less making it take less time for the confirmation of "You solved the puzzle!" to appear.

If you want to have things harder for yourself, why not go for something more substantial than HP sponges? Why not try a LLG or simply being lower levels or using weird character builds or even putting Nowea Hard Type on so enemies will still get all the turns you want them to get even though they die faster? 

2 hours ago, Nowea said:

Longer boss fights aren't necessarily harder. Just to use arbitrary numbers: If a boss takes 25 minutes for the average player to kill, but the player has already seen the full boss script and survived it multiple times within 10 minutes it's very unlikely that the remaining 15 minutes are going to result in a game over. The player would have already figured out the patterns (even if only on an intuitive level) and so it's just going through the motions until the boss falls down. (For multi-phase bosses, just tweak times appropriately and change the concept to being 'per phase)

In this situation, changing the fight to take 10-15 minutes is not going to have a significant impact on the difficulty of the fight. You are 'really' over-focused on "fight length = difficulty"

Eh, fight length seems like a natural extension or product of higher difficulty, at least when it comes to rpg's with tactical elements. However discussing the philosophy of it further is beside the point, I think. Your words on the matter make it seem like nothing has been done to cheapen the challenge, or in other words, fight length/hp had nothing to do with the challenge these bosses offered. I'm not sure if that's the case either. Assuming nobody had difficulties with these fights past the first 5 minutes and they were simply a boring timesink for most people, then your thoughts would ring more true.. But I remain a bit skeptical, since the impression I've gotten from the replies to my initial question that I directed at veterans hasn't been a unanimous "none of the bosses are any easier than before, the fights were all a drag so it was a net positive to reduce their hp/defense".

It's not that I want to artificially make things harder for myself, I'm asking whether the sweet spot in boss difficulty that I once experienced has been tampered with and whether it was done for right/compelling reasons.

25 minutes ago, Hapanpappa said:

Eh, fight length seems like a natural extension or product of higher difficulty, at least when it comes to rpg's with tactical elements.

Assuming nobody had difficulties with these fights past the first 5 minutes and they were simply a boring timesink for most people, then your thoughts would ring more true.. 

Suppose an ideal strategy for boss fight X exists. By increasing the duration of this encounter, all other factors being equal, following the same ideal strategy will still yield the same challenge — it simply imposes a higher tax on expendable resources (MP, recovery items).

Thus, arbitrary increase in battle duration (which is in practice identical to already having a battle that is too long in duration) will only serve, at worst, to encourage additional grinding (either for more levels/ELs for MP growth, or money for consumables). At best, it will cause the set of viable strategies to gravitate towards the ideal solution. This runs counter to BNW's design philosophy.

* The above argument assumes that boss fight X is already longer in duration than certain limited-duration buffs, such as Golem, that can trivialize certain challenge elements for their duration. In such a remote case, yeah, more duration does change the challenge.

31 minutes ago, SirNewtonFig said:

Suppose an ideal strategy for boss fight X exists. By increasing the duration of this encounter, all other factors being equal, following the same ideal strategy will still yield the same challenge — it simply imposes a higher tax on expendable resources (MP, recovery items).

Thus, arbitrary increase in battle duration (which is in practice identical to already having a battle that is too long in duration) will only serve, at worst, to encourage additional grinding (either for more levels/ELs for MP growth, or money for consumables). At best, it will cause the set of viable strategies to gravitate towards the ideal solution. This runs counter to BNW's design philosophy.

* The above argument assumes that boss fight X is already longer in duration than certain limited-duration buffs, such as Golem, that can trivialize certain challenge elements for their duration. In such a remote case, yeah, more duration does change the challenge.

I agree.

8 hours ago, Hapanpappa said:

Assuming nobody had difficulties with these fights past the first 5 minutes and they were simply a boring timesink for most people, then your thoughts would ring more true..

Hmm...

Hidon is definitely an example of the fight being over after the first 5 minutes. Hidon is "Clear Hidonites, See Lores, Clear all but one Hidonite, Kill Hidon." Four phases, except the first 3 go quickly while the last one is extended way past the stage that it's interesting. Therefore, Hidon has more HP than necessary.

Some of the dragons are the same way, especially Water and Poison (or Fire, once you've gotten Fire gear).

There's more ambiguity when it comes to the Warring Triad or harder dragons (Holy, Earth, Ice). Another complicating factor is that, by the Warring Triad, I expect that even many new players may stop sitting on their piles of Ethers & X-Potions and start using them, meaning that the available resources to consider tactically (number of puzzle-solving tools) for the Triad increases. Iunno quite how that fits in, but it seemed important to mention. >_>

I don't know about the other bosses, but it almost sounds like part of the problem with Hidon is that players aren't given a good reason to keep killing off the Hidonites throughout the whole fight after the first time, probably not something directly damage related but something strong enough that just getting damaged by Black Omen would be preferred.
I don't know what exactly though, like maybe he starts using Rasp a bunch if the Hidonites are left alive for so long, and that timer gets reset after clearing them, so if you try to just leave one alive your MP starts getting drained away but if you keep on top of clearing them you don't lose as much of your resources over the course of the fight. (Or something along those lines anyway.)

5 hours ago, thzfunnymzn said:

Hmm...

Hidon is definitely an example of the fight being over after the first 5 minutes. Hidon is "Clear Hidonites, See Lores, Clear all but one Hidonite, Kill Hidon." Four phases, except the first 3 go quickly while the last one is extended way past the stage that it's interesting. Therefore, Hidon has more HP than necessary.

Not to mention that if you have Relm or Gogo you can use Sketch on Hidon to use Black Omen which will make Strago learn it and so skipping the first phase which make the fight even less interesting. 

13 hours ago, A Dummy said:

I don't know about the other bosses, but it almost sounds like part of the problem with Hidon is that players aren't given a good reason to keep killing off the Hidonites throughout the whole fight after the first time, probably not something directly damage related but something strong enough that just getting damaged by Black Omen would be preferred.
I don't know what exactly though, like maybe he starts using Rasp a bunch if the Hidonites are left alive for so long, and that timer gets reset after clearing them, so if you try to just leave one alive your MP starts getting drained away but if you keep on top of clearing them you don't lose as much of your resources over the course of the fight. (Or something along those lines anyway.)

Yeah, problem here is that it's too easy to keep Hidonites under control. Leave all but one alive works too well. Even barring that, the player should have really strong AoE options by now, making it still a relatively simple task to clear them as they respawn.

About the hidonites: Why don't just make them respawn after a set amount of turns like number 128 and his pals?

Everyone is bad mouthing the mod and it's discouraging me from starting a new game. Should I wait until this mod cleans up a bit or is it worth playing? 

Brave New World is actually a really good game.

We nitpick because we love it.

1 hour ago, Nomjitsu said:

Everyone is bad mouthing the mod and it's discouraging me from starting a new game. Should I wait until this mod cleans up a bit or is it worth playing? 

Who's everyone?

BNW is probably the cleanest mod out there, at least in my books(relative to the base game), and one of the most well-loved&popular, as indicated by download rates. Also with an active community, as indicated by these forums. All in all, you'll be hard-pressed to find a mod with better overarching quality - there's nothing you ought to be 'waiting' for. 

12 hours ago, Nomjitsu said:

Everyone is bad mouthing the mod and it's discouraging me from starting a new game. Should I wait until this mod cleans up a bit or is it worth playing? 

You know that something that actually piss me off a bit not only for BNW but for other things so I will put it this way : It's NOT because you love a game/mod that you have to act like a blind fanboy and say that everything is OK.

Of course BNW isn't perfect (nothing is really) it has some problem but it's still the best FFVI (if not the best FF mod) mod to date in my opinion.

Nobody who shows up to badmouth BNW sticks around. All you're seeing here is the sort of feedback that has kept it under ongoing development and has continued to help improve it for the last five years.

Sorry for coming off as offensive. I've been lurking for years in anticipation for every update that comes out, especially the esper bank addition which is really amazing, I'm seriously grateful. I've read the readme from start to finish many times like they're literally bedtime stories. The new update's cover/counter is something I used to love equipping on Cloud from FF7 except it's going to be way more interesting in FF6 due to the game's various character personalities that handle C/C in their own way. I only have the patience to play the game once hence my morbid curiosity. I enjoy envisioning all the changes from every update I read without requiring a vast amount of time to test them all for myself, therefore, eventually, I will play the game when I feel it has reached its utmost balance to my liking. The brilliance of the mod's constant balance inventions leaves me hanging in anticipated drooling, there's just so many cool new things worth waiting for. 

Nah, you didn't come off as offensive.

I have been quietly working on a new update these last few weeks and it's looking to be a major one. I'm hoping to have a tentative changelog to post in the near future, but no clue how long it will take given that I wish to include a number of patches that are currently in testing.

Ahhhhhh that's what I'm talking about! Whelp, thus again I wait in the lurking shadows, drooling more so than ever, holding in my patience furthermore. Despite not playing the mod I'm really getting a kick out of reading and envisioning each new update. 

Might want to consider playing the next update, and then maybe, a few years down the road, consider another go, if stuff has changed enough. Or wait for that magical 2.0 that will appear in the year 21XX. Little balance stuff just keeps happening: I remember Zzonk's FFI mod being under constant balance tweak development for 9 years, so I wouldn't hold my breath on little "balance tweaks" ending anytime soon, though the core game will remain the same.

I can't find that FF1 mod anywhere, got a link?

Should be on romhacking.net. Look for Final Fantasy Zzonk, hack of the original NES game. Could also dig through the GameFAQs forums of the old NES FF1 for it as well.

On 7/3/2018 at 10:39 PM, BTB said:

Nah, you didn't come off as offensive.

I have been quietly working on a new update these last few weeks and it's looking to be a major one. I'm hoping to have a tentative changelog to post in the near future, but no clue how long it will take given that I wish to include a number of patches that are currently in testing.

Is there any sort of ETA on this? Are we talking weeks or months?

We learned our lesson a long time ago about giving out ETAs. There's a lot being done and no expectation for when it'll be done at this point.

Is Terra supposed to have lower base stats than Celes?

Yes.

Finished this game over the weekend.  Good fun.  I ended up never utilizing the ELs.  My final levels were in the 30s for everyone.  By the time I got into the WOR, I figured I should wait until I gather the rest of the Espers.  Then once I grabbed them all I was nearly complete, so I figured I might as well make it slightly more of a challenge.  Used Celes, Locke, Cyan, and Edgar for the final battles.  Celes and Locke helped keep the HP maxed out while Cyan used Eclipse on the first two tiers (while back rowed) and Tempest on the last two tiers (front row).  Edgar did his damage with the Jump (and Dragon Helm, of course).  The attackers did backup healing and revival when necessary until everyone was back on their feet.

Loved the new dragon sprite that was used.  Was not expecting that!

I'm not sure if things just got easier, but the first few dragons I faced seemed like their AIs changed as they lost HP, but the others didn't really seem to change all that much.  Might have just been me.

I liked the minimized Rage list, though I still tended to lean towards just a few of them.  (Conjurer, Adamantite, Dragon, Behemoth)

Strago's Lore list seems ... worthless almost.  He has 2 water based Lores, 2 fire based Lores (one with added poison).  Nothing ice (yes, Shiva), no bolt.  No wind or earth.  Raid didn't work half the time for the MP.

Ninja type enemies were just plain douchebags.  Counter disappear and chuck swords quickly for OHKOs.

I was definitely disappointed that some of the hardest bosses had no item rewards upon their defeat, including the statues.

Had to look up how to get the ???.  I really thought I had to do something akin to Shadow's dreams based on what the kid says in Thamasa.  Never did end up using it, though, since I was at the end.

I do agree with others that Relm is over-the-top in her language.  She's 10, and where in that village would she have learned to talk like that?  Nobody else seems to...

Definitely love the concept this mod brings to the game.  It indeed made things harder, but not impossibly difficult.

Thank you for the great mod.  I had actually made my own mod years ago (difficulty and dialogue, not the extent and mechanics like this), and this one is up there for me too!

First off thanks for the great mod. I beat this game at least 20x as a kid, and i am going through it again now using your mod and i just want to say that i really love the changes done to the combat system, that the "classes" are more defined and that the general difficulty is so much higher. I have died a few times but that doesnt bother me, i enjoy the challenge. I am currently at the part where Figaro takes you under the mountains, in pursuit of Esper Terra who flew off to Zozo. My only hesitation going forward is that i hope the mod doesnt make "magic" god mode if you know what i mean? Making just Terra or Celes the heavy magic users who can use the Ice3/Bolt3/Fire3/Cure3/Ultima/Meteor/Merton and everyone else is confined to their "Class role" [with magic being at best Cure2/Ice 2 etc with no meteor or ultima] would be great, though Strago i suppose would make sense to be given Meteor and Life/Cure 3 since he is a mage. I didnt see much info on that posted, though its not a game breaker either way. Anyways, i mostly just wanted to give the thumbs up the mod author here...

3 hours ago, peon said:

My only hesitation going forward is that i hope the mod doesnt make "magic" god mode if you know what i mean? Making just Terra or Celes the heavy magic users who can use the Ice3/Bolt3/Fire3/Cure3/Ultima/Meteor/Merton and everyone else is confined to their "Class role" [with magic being at best Cure2/Ice 2 etc with no meteor or ultima] would be great, though Strago i suppose would make sense to be given Meteor and Life/Cure 3 since he is a mage. I didnt see much info on that posted, though its not a game breaker either way. Anyways, i mostly just wanted to give the thumbs up the mod author here...

If you're really curious what each character is capable of, there's a Character Discussion subforum at the top of the BNW board – though I encourage you to wait until you're mostly finished your first run to dive in there in earnest.

You needn't worry too much – the characters who end up with the really potent spells you mention are limited, and most characters with access to any of those only get a couple of them at most. Pretty much everyone has ways of contributing outside of Magic spam in this mod; and even those capable of Magic spam, with a couple of late-game exceptions, still need to pay heed to elemental affinities, magic defense, and MP management to be effective.

Also, don't underestimate the effectiveness of non-capstone spells in this mod like Ice2, Cure2, Bio, and especially status spells like Haste, Slow, Shell, Sleep, etc. Unlike in vanilla, any one of these can contribute quite meaningfully even later on.

On 18/07/2018 at 9:50 AM, peon said:

My only hesitation going forward is that i hope the mod doesnt make "magic" god mode if you know what i mean? Making just Terra or Celes the heavy magic users who can use the Ice3/Bolt3/Fire3/Cure3/Ultima/Meteor/Merton and everyone else is confined to their "Class role" [with magic being at best Cure2/Ice 2 etc with no meteor or ultima] would be great, though Strago i suppose would make sense to be given Meteor and Life/Cure 3 since he is a mage. I didnt see much info on that posted, though its not a game breaker either way. Anyways, i mostly just wanted to give the thumbs up the mod author here...

It doesn't magic while still strong with Magic-Focused character is no longer God Mode, the mod is balance and magic doesn't overshadow physical attacks or character's unique abilities thanks to various change that were made.

Thanks for the info guys, and ill check out the character section once i do a full run through of the game, and maybe post some critiques while im at it.

When dealing with enemies with weaknesses of the big 3 (fire, ice, bolt) Terra will be your go-to.  Morph plus weakness exploit and that's your 9999 dealer.  Throw in Sabin's Chakra, and you've got an unlimited mana spring for her as well.

I forgot to mention one of the biggest things I liked about this mod.  Speed means something.  The nATB system that was designed is great.  Locke/Shadow/Gau being speed demons actually had utility.  In addition, the status spells were useful as well.  Imp, berserk, slow, even stop.  Fighting new monsters meant you had to find out what they were susceptible to in order to make fights easier.  ex. Double Diablos in KT can be deadly if you don't exploit their weakness.  Other monsters were manageable the way they were, but things were made even easier if you hit them with statuses.

Like others said, don't underestimate your level 2 spells.  Cure2 is especially useful at nearly all times.

6 hours ago, hypernova said:

I forgot to mention one of the biggest things I liked about this mod.  Speed means something.  The nATB system that was designed is great.  Locke/Shadow/Gau being speed demons actually had utility.  In addition, the status spells were useful as well.  Imp, berserk, slow, even stop.  Fighting new monsters meant you had to find out what they were susceptible to in order to make fights easier.  ex. Double Diablos in KT can be deadly if you don't exploit their weakness.  Other monsters were manageable the way they were, but things were made even easier if you hit them with statuses.

I must confess that outside of Slow and Sap (and some special case like Mute of Phunbaba) I actually almost never use statut effect ^^", there is actually a lot of stuff I didn't use at all (like Reraise which I didn't use a single time during my playthrough cause I kept forgetting about it ^^).

Another year, another playthrough of BNW!

I last played on 1.6.4 or something, so I'm looking forward to checking out the changes made since. I'll be playing on my recently modded SNES Classic, so I may actually need to print that printme, which will be a new experience. Making that my desktop wallpaper with a fairly tiny emulator window has been my FF6 environment since 2013. Glad to see you still get some mileage out of pimping that blog post(I'm so happy that's still your website).

Oh, yeah, BNW has come a long way since the pre-1.7 days. And this next update is shaping up to be pretty huge, as well.

One thing I'm finally doing is redesigning the Printme so that it actually looks... like, decent when you print it out >.>

And yeah, man, you were the first person to ever write about BNW. Can't forget that!

Aw, it's a shame that the new update is coming out just as I wrap up playing 1.9. The changes on it look nice, at least. I'll have something to play down the line. 

On 7/30/2018 at 0:54 AM, velsper said:

Aw, it's a shame that the new update is coming out just as I wrap up playing 1.9. The changes on it look nice, at least. I'll have something to play down the line. 

1.10 does look really nice. I personally can't wait for the two-party floating continent (e: which is not a part of 1.10). That's the dopest thing I've ever heard.

e: Thanks for that, BTB. I forgot to add that since it won't be in 1.10, it isn't as big of a deal to miss out on 1.10 as it would have been if the 2-part FC were included. I think while writing that line I realized how much is actually getting changed in 1.10 and decided not to include it.

Just so we're clear, the 2-party Floating Continent is not happening in 1.10. That's going to require a LOT more work from the community as a whole, as none of us have any experience with map editing.

Im still trekking along on this mod, i now have all of the sidequests done in the game so i am onto Kefka's tower sometime in the next few days...The only nitpicks i have so far is that Magi-Master in the cultist tower is a wimp, the mobs leading up to him are far more dangerous than he is. I know the gimmick is to scan him and all, but still, hes a total wimp. My party is lvl 30 to level 31, i intentionally avoided him when i was levels 24'ish or so thinking he would wupp my behind, but i could have taken him then or even at level 20. Doom-Gaze also seemed rather easy when i did him @ levels 26 or so. My other nitpick is the Kagenui knife that Shadow can use, he is a beast with that since it procs so much and it has such a high innate damage as it is. Maybe change the proc to a Slow or SlowX instead? It gives 2x more attacks so even with a lesser proc it seems like it would still be best in slot for him.

I too agree on Magimaster being disappointing, he was so easy especially when you got a good RNG on what element he choose (on my playthrough he kept being vulnerable to Ice which was the best element I could exploit). Kagenui makes Shadow a beast especially when you combine it with weapon that can proc (Magic Katanas/Sakura) or the Orochi end game, and I will keep saying it Shadow with Kagenui + Orochi with Cover/Counter set up combine with a very high physical Evasion is just awesome.

I was wondering if the "The End" text can get edited to just say the password.  Would still wind up less immersion killing than what happened in the ending scenario. 

I had some horrific RNG on Number 024, with one Storm Blade's procs being the bulk of my offense(yay for Dragoon Seal's proc bonus). Hopefully Magimaster proves less stubborn without being too easy. Speaking of Storm Blade, I'm gonna miss that goofy sword when it's phased out.

So much has changed since 1.7.4 that I never did look up a full changelog, but I'm enjoying the game even more than last time, if that metric has any value.

The wallchange bosses are going to be getting a bit of an overhaul. I was particularly unhappy with them in my last playthrough.

I'm stalled somewhere late into the game's optional content(such is my wont with JRPGs), but I hope to finish it before 1.10 is available for download so I can jump right in. I don't have the firmest grasp of the details that have changed since I last played, but it plays better than ever, and certain rough patches I had in the past didn't catch my notice, so I will assume they were smoothed out(I'm certainly no smarter).

I've noticed that there are a good handful of people who contribute to this project these days besides BTB and Synchysi, and I would like to thank them for their work on this very enjoyable mod. Also, I don't think I ever mentioned it, and I know there's been at least some snark about it on the internet, but I love the Iron Maiden references. I'm more of a Priest guy myself, but I'm not seeing any losing picks here.

Hey, playing the latest BNW release as my first modded console game ever and I have to say I love it so far.

FF VI was the right game for younger me, while BNW is the right game for older me, so thanks for everyone's dedication.

I have some feedback!

I found two items that are unlisted in the spreadsheet, a magic bone(Gau and maybe Umaro weapon) that I stole while fleeing the floating continent from that pixie witch, and a mystery egg(equipable by every except maybe gogo and Umaro) that I stole in Zozo from the giant....Gigas?  Whatever his name is.   I can't tell what the egg even does. ?

Also, it's really weird that characters can still parry/dodge while stopped or are asleep.  I would rather have them get auto hit, and to take a dodge penalty while blind, and perhaps even while slowed if they don't already.   I doubt it would impact balance enough to make it unplayable.  If it is changed, I'd still like to see interceptor blocking.

It also wouldn't be unreasonable to have interceptor blocking for both Relm and Shadow if they were in the same party, and would make the interceptor actually perform takedown when Shadow reaches his dodging potential.

1 hour ago, NGPGamer said:

*Snip*

Hey, glad you're enjoying things.

There are several items in the game that aren't mentioned in the Printme - think of them as "secrets"

The "dodging while asleep" thing is a weird bug from vanilla that rears its head every now and then here. Thankfully, it's pretty rare from my experience.

If Shadow dies on the Floating Continent, he actually moves over to Relm in BNW instead of just being inactive for the rest of the game. Otherwise, he sticks with Shadow.

On 2/10/2019 at 0:27 PM, BTB said:

Hey, glad you're enjoying things.

There are several items in the game that aren't mentioned in the Printme - think of them as "secrets"

The "dodging while asleep" thing is a weird bug from vanilla that rears its head every now and then here. Thankfully, it's pretty rare from my experience.

If Shadow dies on the Floating Continent, he actually moves over to Relm in BNW instead of just being inactive for the rest of the game. Otherwise, he sticks with Shadow.

It occurs to me that, given the nature of this game having 2 more characters than you necessarily "need", an "optimal" run is one where you let Shadow die, isn't it?  Assuming every character is viable, and having 12 characters is effectively the same as having 14, having one character get a significant upgrade by losing another one seems like a definitively stronger move.

Obviously I'm talking pure numbers here; I would never let my good good ninja friend die like that.

It really depends on preference and playstyle. As someone who ranks Shadow in the top 50% of the cast easily, I'd consider it foolish to sacrifice him for a relatively minor buff to Relm. Meanwhile, as someone who struggles to make effective use of Gau in the endgame, he and Umaro are an easy pass for the final gauntlet. I'd try it in the interest of self-challenge, but otherwise Shadow is a shoe-in.

In short, Shadow + regular Relm >> Interceptor Relm + Gau, IMO.

8 hours ago, MorteTheSkull said:

It occurs to me that, given the nature of this game having 2 more characters than you necessarily "need", an "optimal" run is one where you let Shadow die, isn't it?  Assuming every character is viable, and having 12 characters is effectively the same as having 14, having one character get a significant upgrade by losing another one seems like a definitively stronger move.

Obviously I'm talking pure numbers here; I would never let my good good ninja friend die like that.

It's something that I've thought about before - one of the reasons that Shadow is top-tier DPS and good support.