Coming Soon: Brave New World 2.0

UPDATE: the beta cycle for 2.0 has at this point drawn nearly to a close. There are a few outstanding issues and undelivered updates (listed in purple in the below changelog), but for the purposes of anyone who's been waiting for a finalized version, the current beta patch is pretty much that in all but name at this point (with an extra-special thanks to Bropedio for making it all happen). If you're interested in playing it, please check the pinned messages in the #Brave-New-World channel in our Discord server.

What's new in 2.0:

This sounds pretty fantastic, I'm especially glad to see all the new stuff Sabin is getting since I always considered him to be the weakest character in WoR.

Also happy about Dark getting buffed so X-Strago can magically turn his MP into dead monsters.

2 questions though, if the Omega Weapon is gone, will the Atma Weapon be buffed to be as strong as Omega?

And I think I saw you say somewhere that you were making FC into a multi-party dungeon in the next update. Are you still planning on doing that?

The Atma Weapon is already just as the Omega . The only current difference between them is a +25% HP boost.

And the FC thing definitely isn't happening yet.

Re boss experience.  In a quasi LLG I played a while back, I set the rule to not grind the Veldt, so I would turn on experience for boss fights to get the EP but not the Exp.  It forced me to be quite parsimonious about which spells I learned and strongly encouraged me to vary my party so all characters could get some EP.  I realize this is just one anecdote, but something to consider.

Is there any way currently in 1.9.0 or a way to implement being able to view the allocation of our current esper levels? I've been sloppily leveling my characters on my first playthrough of bnw and have lost track of what I've put into them so far. If stat growth that isn't HP/MP is purely tied to esper levels then I can probably figure out how I've been doing things by fully unequipping my characters and looking at the base stats in the printme.

Hopefully the dancing mad soundtrack mod will be compatible with 1.10. I know insidious had to make a patch to fix and EL bug with 1.9. I guess that'll depend on how the original bug was addressed and if 1.10 has significant changes to how it was coded.

I can't wait for the dual party forbidden continent. That'll really give me a reason to build more characters before transitioning to the WoR. If 1.10 is just around the corner I might put off my 1.9.0 game until it releases and focus on FFT KO for now.

You have to finagle it a bit, but one way you can figure out your EL spread is by removing all gear from a character (don't forget relics!) and then comparing what their current stats are vs their base stats. (character base stats are listed in the printme.)
For HP and MP you have an extra step, first you look at the HP/MP you would have at your level (also in the printme), then you add the character's extra base HP/MP to that number, and then compare that number against your current HP/MP. (Or subtract it by that number to see how much extra you're getting.)
Quick example of what I'm talking about, lets say I have a level 25 Terra with 890 HP and I wanna figure out how much of that is from EL, First I look at what HP I'd have at level 25 normally (680) then add her base HP to that (+60 for a total for 740) then subtract that from what her current HP is, 890 - 740 = 150, so I know she's getting an extra 150 HP from ELs which can be from 5 Unicorn ELs or 5 Phoenix ELs.

This can be made easier if you have access to the character planner in the unlockme. (named BNWCP)

A few other thoughts after a second read:

- What is the insta-kill rate for Demonsbane vs. undead foes?  Could lower that rather than take away it's holy elemental property, or give the Avenger some bonus property to make it more enticing.  Inherent counter is fitting for its name, but doesn't have to be that.

- Brushes seem like a little extra tweaking is needed as hitting twice is an annoyance for instances where the spell casts twice.  What if they instead just have the increased proc property (ala veils) and ignore defense (if this isn't already the case).  

- The Nirvana/Rogue/Sage loop makes sense, but it made me think more generally about who gets to use each.  Nirvana=Edgar, Sabin, Cyan; Rogue=Locke, Shadow; Sage=Locke, Mog, Strago.  However, there are eight human males (Ed, Sa, Cy, Lo, Sh, St, Se, Gau) plus Mog (Gogo is gender fluid), so maybe each relic should get 3 unique users.  Nirvana and Sage stay the same, while Gau and Setzer go Rogue (Locke loses it).

No haste proc on the Ross brush makes the name seem less appropriate. Picasso brush, maybe?

Stoked for this to drop. Great stuff, devs!

5 hours ago, SuperHario said:

- Brushes seem like a little extra tweaking is needed as hitting twice is an annoyance for instances where the spell casts twice.  What if they instead just have the increased proc property (ala veils) and ignore defense (if this isn't already the case). 

As annoying as it potentially is, this is probably the very first time in BNW's history where I feel like it's worthwhile to pursue Brush tactics with Relm in a serious manner (outside of extreme speed-run strats, * cough * Mishrak * cough *  : p ). X-Fight on Brushes can pair with the increased spellcast rate on Radiant Gown later in the game to increase total chance of seeing the buff come out at 75%. (Prior to Gown, X-Fight gives a 44% of seeing the spellcast).

5 hours ago, SuperHario said:

- The Nirvana/Rogue/Sage loop makes sense, but it made me think more generally about who gets to use each.  Nirvana=Edgar, Sabin, Cyan; Rogue=Locke, Shadow; Sage=Locke, Mog, Strago.  However, there are eight human males (Ed, Sa, Cy, Lo, Sh, St, Se, Gau) plus Mog (Gogo is gender fluid), so maybe each relic should get 3 unique users.  Nirvana and Sage stay the same, while Gau and Setzer go Rogue (Locke loses it).

This is a very interesting aesthetic. I, however, am utterly scared of a Rogue Setzer. Also, I'm not sure how are resident X-Locke lovers would feel about Sage Locke losing the Rogue Cloak. (Probably doesn't hurt his healing that much, but it's the elemental usage that I'm concerned about). Also, Gau's got Blizzard Orb, so Rogue Cloak is kinda redundant on him. Then again, I guess Blizzard Orb could be equipped by someone else or soemthing, iunno.

It's an interesting though, but I doubt it'll get anywhere.

12 hours ago, thzfunnymzn said:

X-Fight on Brushes can pair with the increased spellcast rate on Radiant Gown later in the game to increase total chance of seeing the buff come out at 75%. (Prior to Gown, X-Fight gives a 44% of seeing the spellcast).

OK, but you've said yourself that with respect to statuses, if you want protection, you must wear the relics and not rely on stamina.  Likewise, if you want the buff, you're likely to just cast it or wear a relic.  I've always used brushes as a free heal or to break muddle/sleep and viewed the proc as bonus.  That's why I feel like just giving brushes the increased proc rate off the bat is an easier solution.  The increased proc rate on radiant gown is still relevant for elemental rods.

If brushes need to be improved further, make them hit with full power from the back row or effectively make them remedies such that they cure most status ailments.

12 hours ago, thzfunnymzn said:

This is a very interesting aesthetic. I, however, am utterly scared of a Rogue Setzer. Also, I'm not sure how are resident X-Locke lovers would feel about Sage Locke losing the Rogue Cloak. (Probably doesn't hurt his healing that much, but it's the elemental usage that I'm concerned about). Also, Gau's got Blizzard Orb, so Rogue Cloak is kinda redundant on him. Then again, I guess Blizzard Orb could be equipped by someone else or soemthing, iunno.

Agreed on a Rogue Setzer with the free Slots and pause buffering to get nearly guaranteed spin of choice.  Could he become the Sage Stoner and Mog goes Rogue (since Dance is uncontrollable, it won't be quite as potent, and rod-swinging Mog definitely likes this).  Sage Setzer doesn't have X-Break or Quake, but X-Rerise is pretty nice, and gives a reason for The Bank to draw upon his account, especially with Starlet getting the +25% MP boost.  If this is done, Setzer would need one more high power black magic.  Best implementation of this is giving brushes Remedy-like ability (could different brushes cure different ailments?), and swapping out Remedy on Starlet for something, probably Meteor (shooting stars=meteors).  Bahamut can drop Meteor since you must get Startlet in order to have Relm; and could add something different to Bahamut if desired.

I forgot Blizzard Orb gives +25% Magic, I just checked the PrintMe and it wasn't in there.  A better option might be to give Gogo access to the Rogue Cloak (isn't found in the Triangle Island Cave?), instead of Gau.

So new setup would be Nirvana=Ed, Sa, Cy; Rogue=Sh, Mo, Go; Sage=Lo, St, Se.

Huh, I didn't realize the Radiant Gown still gave a bonus to brush proc rates.

EDIT: Turns out I had things flipped – it was the MP boost that had been removed a ways back, and the brush boost was added. Goes to show how little I use Brushes for their rider effects...

5 hours ago, SuperHario said:

OK, but you've said yourself that with respect to statuses, if you want protection, you must wear the relics and not rely on stamina.  Likewise, if you want the buff, you're likely to just cast it or wear a relic.  I've always used brushes as a free heal or to break muddle/sleep and viewed the proc as bonus.  That's why I feel like just giving brushes the increased proc rate off the bat is an easier solution.  The increased proc rate on radiant gown is still relevant for elemental rods.

If brushes need to be improved further, make them hit with full power from the back row or effectively make them remedies such that they cure most status ailments.

Err...

Elemental Rods have "increased spellcast rate" built in. "Increased spellcast rate" cannot stack, so equipping a Rod with Radiant Gown does not give you any higher of a spellcast rate.

This is why Brushes were given innate X-Fight. X-Fight does increase the spellcast rate right, but in such a manner that it can stack with "increased spellcast rate". X-Brush means that, since the brush is hitting twice, you get two chances for the spellcast to go off. So, effectively, instead of a 25% chance that increases to 50% with Radiant, it's a 44% chance that increases to 75% with Radiant. This should be enough to make the spellcast actually relevant, though you'd probably want spd Relm to truly capitalize on using brushes.

5 hours ago, SuperHario said:

Agreed on a Rogue Setzer with the free Slots and pause buffering to get nearly guaranteed spin of choice.  Could he become the Sage Stoner and Mog goes Rogue (since Dance is uncontrollable, it won't be quite as potent, and rod-swinging Mog definitely likes this).  Sage Setzer doesn't have X-Break or Quake, but X-Rerise is pretty nice, and gives a reason for The Bank to draw upon his account, especially with Starlet getting the +25% MP boost.  If this is done, Setzer would need one more high power black magic.  Best implementation of this is giving brushes Remedy-like ability (could different brushes cure different ailments?), and swapping out Remedy on Starlet for something, probably Meteor (shooting stars=meteors).  Bahamut can drop Meteor since you must get Startlet in order to have Relm; and could add something different to Bahamut if desired.

I forgot Blizzard Orb gives +25% Magic, I just checked the PrintMe and it wasn't in there.  A better option might be to give Gogo access to the Rogue Cloak (isn't found in the Triangle Island Cave?), instead of Gau.

So new setup would be Nirvana=Ed, Sa, Cy; Rogue=Sh, Mo, Go; Sage=Lo, St, Se.

Aesthetically, I'd honestly rather have Rogue Setzer than Sage Setzer. Mechanically, Sage Setzer wouldn't need any magic shuffling: X-Rerise and X-Bio are fine. Honestly would give me an excuse to ask for Blackjack to be nerfed again, since anyone who wants to leverage mag Setzer's offense could just be told to use X-Bio.

Aesthetically, I also prefer Sage Stone on Mog rather than Rogue Cloak. (Mog doesn't strike me as a rogue type). Mechanically, I can't put my finger on it, but Rogue Mog strikes me as a bad idea. Probably b/c I think it'd lead to all mag Mog's just being Blues / Suite Dancers and b/c of the loss of X-Magic utility (Haste, Float, Slow, Sap, Poison).

17 minutes ago, thzfunnymzn said:

Elemental Rods have "increased spellcast rate" built in.

Ah, forgot this too.  I thought auto-crit was their only innate boost.  It's been a while since I've played, maybe 1.10 will be my next run.

RE Rogue/Sage Mog/Setzer.  I don't really care either way, agreed that Sage Mog has more utility but Bank Setzer really has a hard time making use of all that MP; X-Setzer (SeXter, erp?) gives him a much more defined reason to exist.  As far as who fits the 'Rogue' character type, I'm not too fixated on the idea of 'classes' as any character can be spun to fit just about any persona.  Mog is Rogue b/c he's uncontrollable when he dances; Setzer is a Sage Cleric with all his white magic and inherent magical Slots ability.  In fact, he fits the role of Sage much more than Locke, who fits the role of Rogue being a thief, but I just didn't think getting rid of X-Locke would fly since he has such a deep magic selection.   In this scenario Rogue=Sh, Lo, Go; Sage=St, Mo, Se; note that the Sages now all have poison magic in common, so maybe this provides some justification as to why they can use it.

I'm just try to propose ideas that make (varying degrees of) sense, whether that be aesthetically, thematically, storyline-wise, to improve gameplay, whatever you want to call it.  I know they're not all going to be used, I just like putting them out there to see what sticks.  I did notice a few naming changes for 1.10 that I've mentioned in the past, so my proposals are not being ignored entirely, and I think that even if my ideas aren't used they're at least stimulating others thoughts to come up with their own innovations.

39 minutes ago, SuperHario said:

Ah, forgot this too.  I thought auto-crit was their only innate boost.  It's been a while since I've played, maybe 1.10 will be my next run.

RE Rogue/Sage Mog/Setzer.  I don't really care either way, agreed that Sage Mog has more utility but Bank Setzer really has a hard time making use of all that MP; X-Setzer (SeXter, erp?) gives him a much more defined reason to exist.  As far as who fits the 'Rogue' character type, I'm not too fixated on the idea of 'classes' as any character can be spun to fit just about any persona.  Mog is Rogue b/c he's uncontrollable when he dances; Setzer is a Sage Cleric with all his white magic and inherent magical Slots ability.  In fact, he fits the role of Sage much more than Locke, who fits the role of Rogue being a thief, but I just didn't think getting rid of X-Locke would fly since he has such a deep magic selection.   In this scenario Rogue=Sh, Lo, Go; Sage=St, Mo, Se; note that the Sages now all have poison magic in common, so maybe this provides some justification as to why they can use it.

I'm just try to propose ideas that make (varying degrees of) sense, whether that be aesthetically, thematically, storyline-wise, to improve gameplay, whatever you want to call it.  I know they're not all going to be used, I just like putting them out there to see what sticks.  I did notice a few naming changes for 1.10 that I've mentioned in the past, so my proposals are not being ignored entirely, and I think that even if my ideas aren't used they're at least stimulating others thoughts to come up with their own innovations.

You and me both are in the same boat of throwing out ideas and seeing what sticks. And I like the conversation you've stimulated.

Bank Setzer does have a defined reason to exist: bulk. Setzer's heals and offense are all either quite powerful or independent of the stats he can build, so it's feasible to simply build his HP until he's a giant undying blob. He won't burn MP particularly quickly unless it's a boss fight where one needs to spam Rerise and/or RegenX, true, but being a bulky healer is still a definitive role. 1.10 is introducing the Viper Darts to give him an attack to burn his MP on, though I'll grant that Sage Setzer is a bit more of an interesting way to do such.

Sage Setzer wouldn't need any further work to be a viable option for Setzer, whereas Sage Mog has needed constant work to be a useful option for Mog (his utility works, but his wind/earth offense is sketchy). X-Magic with Rerise, Bio, Doom, and Cures is a solid selection of magic.

X-Locke definitely ain't going anywhere. As for sharing poison magic in common, there is currently one thing all three Sages share in common: their offense is designed to be "Gobbles up huge amounts of MP but does huge damage". Dark, Fire 3, Break, Quake, all fit this theme. (Life 2 is also expensive).

Honestly, I'm semi-open to the idea of Rogue Setzer, but not with the current balance of Slots. Otoh, I think Sage Setzer is overall more interesting than Rogue Setzer. Rogue Setzer is mostly "moar numbers" with Blackjack / Go Fish, while also boosting Cure 3 (and Bio, but lolz). ....Rogue Setzer might've been interesting back when Slots were random?

Since everyone is throwing ideas out here, what would you think of Relm getting a brush that procs Image? Also I'm still throwing out my vote for the Gungnir to either get a +Stam bonus or get the "strong vs floating enemies" bonus.

Speaking of which, since you're taking out 5 weapons and adding the new wind rod, are there another 4 new weapons you'll be adding?

On 7/27/2018 at 7:58 PM, BTB said:

The Atma Weapon is already just as the Omega . The only current difference between them is a +25% HP boost.

And the FC thing definitely isn't happening yet.

Oh, got it, I thought Omega determined its BP from your HP and you MP and that Atma only used your HP.

The removal of items was because they were (generally) redundant.  They won’t be replaced probably. 

Also Image brush would probably be more strong than it ought to be.  Other examples of this were Rerise and to a lesser extent Regen and Haste. 

By itself it’s not a huge deal but adding it to the healing potential a brush has is a bit much. 

All of this looks really nice I don't have much to say, there is just one thing that bugs me a little :

Quote

 --> Eclipse ------- is learned much sooner and reverts to being magic-based (instead of stamina-based)

Why reverting Eclipse to Magic ? Considering Cyan's poor synergy with Magic, with no EL option to increase his Magic or MP (note : I don't ask for a Magic build option for Cyan tough) and the fact that you're going to lowered his Magic wouldn't that make Eclipse useless ? Considering that in current version it's already not an extremely good move in my opinion.

Well, I personally broke Poison Rods for the wallchange type bosses. I'll miss them when they're gone. 

Edit: By the way, why change the Red Jacket's fire immunity? 

3 hours ago, Nesouk said:

All of this looks really nice I don't have much to say, there is just one thing that bugs me a little :

Why reverting Eclipse to Magic ? Considering Cyan's poor synergy with Magic, with no EL option to increase his Magic or MP (note : I don't ask for a Magic build option for Cyan tough) and the fact that you're going to lowered his Magic wouldn't that make Eclipse useless ? Considering that in current version it's already not an extremely good move in my opinion.

Good question! I switched the Mutsunokami and Aero procs to being stamina based, and I didn't want both those and Eclipse keying off the same stat since they're his only two forms of AoE damage and one would basically overtake the other. And of the two, Eclipse is the one with a status debuff (blind).

If you look around the Printme, even in 1.9, you'll notice a trend of AoE blind attacks in particular not doing the greatest damage because the debuff itself is already pretty strong.
 

56 minutes ago, velsper said:

Well, I personally broke Poison Rods for the wallchange type bosses. I'll miss them when they're gone. 

Edit: By the way, why change the Red Jacket's fire immunity? 

Fire immunity was way too common for my liking and the only reason it was on there in the first place was in consideration of Merton. It was a fairly redundant effect on both Sabin (Tiger Mask) and Edgar (Force Armor) to begin with, anyhow.

I’ll miss the poison rod breaking as well actually. That was a helpful strat at least. 

Is there any chance of reintroducing the hand equips during battle. I know they dissappeared with the optimize euip option, i was just wondering if a solution had been found for this? It is literally the only complaint I have about this hack.

5 minutes ago, F-Bomb said:

Is there any chance of reintroducing the hand equips during battle. I know they dissappeared with the optimize euip option, i was just wondering if a solution had been found for this? It is literally the only complaint I have about this hack.

The equipping issue comes down to how the game handles the dual-wield and two-hand effects. Because BNW has them on weapons it makes it so that the swaps don't properly swap those effects around. If that part gets fixed then it'd be possible to implement. I believe BTB has talked about allowing it to be done but it taking a turn for the swap to happen

How exactly has the random encounter rate been smoothed out? Will it have on average more or less random encounters?

9 minutes ago, Echoherb said:

How exactly has the random encounter rate been smoothed out? Will it have on average more or less random encounters?

I'll let @seibaby explain it

Hello there BTB, it has been a long time since I touched this gem so I must ask: this update will take too long before being release? I got a lot in my table but this one takes priority

It's gonna bit a bit at least.

20 hours ago, F-Bomb said:

Is there any chance of reintroducing the hand equips during battle. I know they dissappeared with the optimize euip option, i was just wondering if a solution had been found for this? It is literally the only complaint I have about this hack.

There is a chance -- a CHANCE -- that I can get this working in a way that'll work for BNW. It's a question not only of whether I can get it to work at all, and then whether or not I can make it play nice with some of the existing patches. At least one of them already messes with a subroutine I'll be relying on. 

So. I make no promises, but there is an attempt being made.

On 31/07/2018 at 9:35 AM, BTB said:

Good question! I switched the Mutsunokami and Aero procs to being stamina based, and I didn't want both those and Eclipse keying off the same stat since they're his only two forms of AoE damage and one would basically overtake the other. And of the two, Eclipse is the one with a status debuff (blind).

Well I actually think now that I speak of Shadow in the other topic, but OK Mutsonokami's Aero being Stamina base is fine for Cyan but for Shadow wouldn't that make a pure Phantom's set up combine with the Kagenui a little to strong (not to mention C/C set up) ?

Evasion is halved for c/c so Shadow isn’t a good candidate for it really. It also won’t work with image (cover anyway). Kage + Mutsu will probably be strong and that’s a good thing imo. He needs a reason to be put on the front.

23 minutes ago, Mishrak said:

Evasion is halved for c/c so Shadow isn’t a good candidate for it really. It also won’t work with image (cover anyway). Kage + Mutsu will probably be strong and that’s a good thing imo. He needs a reason to be put on the front.

Everyone keep saying this but in my playthrough I was using him as C/C user and as a result once I get the Orochi he was the best physical damage dealer of my playthrough and was still evading a lot despite the malus ^^

His front row damage is among the very best, so that’s right on. C/C will work but he’s still fragile.  

Which is why he evade instead of tanking plus with Safe and the +25% HP Bonus from Hero Ring he will not die in one hit from most physical attack which let you time for healing him (if he doesn't end the fight by countering ^^), for a C/C set up with Orochi at best he can get 94 Evasion (before that you can the Countering Katana and up his Evasion to 104) which if we count the halved penality that be 47 still enough to make him dodge quite often, combine that with his natural speed so he acts quite a lot you get the Damage of his turns + the damage of his Counter (or you could let him deal damage through counter alone and use his actual turn to heal with item or support with Haste and Rerise) at the end of the day it deals quite a lot, I really see nothing wrong with using Shadow as a C/C.

Makes sense. Safe + 25% (which puts him around 1200 at 30) is sufficient to take a physical most of the time. And 47 is fairly mediocre evasion but also sufficient to dodge still. It’s cool that it still works tbh.  I don’t really see it as being too powerful when the player can combine the right stuff to be effective. 

1 minute ago, Mishrak said:

Makes sense. Safe + 25% (which puts him around 1200 at 30) is sufficient to take a physical most of the time. And 47 is fairly mediocre evasion but also sufficient to dodge still. It’s cool that it still works tbh.  I don’t really see it as being too powerful when the player can combine the right stuff to be effective. 

I didn't say it was to powerfull cause not everybody will take the risk of using Shadow that way and it definitly require some thought into it, my original argument was toward the Mutsonokami's Aero becoming Stamina base combine with him, fear this might be to powerfull as Shadow as a Vig+Stam option in his EL (so he can get quite high stam), Kagenui that can be equip with Mutsonokami to attack (so potential for 2 Aeros), the C/C set up being a thing (so potential for 2 Aeros through counter) and if the proc fails he still has a high vig to deal high damage (not to mention if you put a Power Glove or a Rogue Cloak in the mix).

Aero proc does have the dual wield penalty on it (but not x-fight), but yeah it will be a very good damage source.  An effective proc rate of 75% also is a huge boon. 

Doesn't Interceptor show up more often if his evade is low? And IIRC it also scales with stamina...hmm...

Oh, I've been actually lurking on here (and back on the ID forums) for some years now watching the development of BNW, but I never actually started a playthrough since I'd always want to wait for the next update...this mod has come so far it's incredible. I'm actually pumped up for 1.10 and that huge changelog, this time I'll definitely start playing, since I don't think I can wait anymore until 2.0

If I remember correctly I don't think Interceptor can show up if he is covering an ally, only if Shadow is the direct target.

What’s crazy is how much is gonna be in 1.10 that’s not in that changelog (yet). Namely all the stuff that’s about to happen to enemies. Wew.

This is already looking like the biggest release ever.

You can be certain that when it come up I will most certainly replay this mod ^^

On 8/1/2018 at 5:27 AM, BTB said:

I'll let @seibaby explain it

Short answer: it should raise the minimum amount of steps between random encounters while at the same time reducing the maximum number of steps. On paper, it should maintain the current average encounter rate, but in testing we noticed a decreased overall encounter rate.

Long answer: the encounter system works on a threat counter; each step increases the probability that a random encounter will happen on that step. Different areas in the game add different amounts to this threat counter, and each step a random number is generated and compared to the counter. If the counter is greater than the random number, an encounter happens. The patch increases the lower bound and decreases the upper bound of the random number.

Note that there was a bug in Think's RNG patch that may have affected the random encounter rate on the overworld. I bundled a fix for this in my patch, but no testing has been done to see the effects on the overworld encounter rate yet.

18 minutes ago, seibaby said:

Note that there was a bug in Think's RNG patch that may have affected the random encounter rate on the overworld. I bundled a fix for this in my patch, but no testing has been done to see the effects on the overworld encounter rate yet.

Was this fix in version 2 of the patch? Or is it something you've done for version 1.10?

It’s been an optional patch as of 1.9.  It’ll very likely be an official part of 1.10 if testing works out.

On 7/27/2018 at 2:39 PM, BTB said:

Rerise is now shown in the targeting menu with Safe and Shell

PogChamp

On 7/27/2018 at 2:39 PM, BTB said:

  --> Aurabolt ---- is now stronger and learned much earlier, but no longer ignores defense OR row

I don't understand the Row penalty here. Why do you need to be close to the enemy to shoot a giant beam of light at it?

On 7/27/2018 at 2:39 PM, BTB said:

--> Eclipse ------- is learned much sooner and reverts to being magic-based (instead of stamina-based)

Ew, I don't understand this either. Will Eclipse even be worth using now? Maybe just as a multi-enemy clearer for a very small section of the game.

Stamina Cyan keeps getting more and more awkward (I still have some complaints with the Cover/Counter system).

On 7/27/2018 at 2:39 PM, BTB said:

--> Blackjack - is stronger (power: 36 -> 45) and no longer sets Sap
    --> Trifecta ---- is stronger (power: 75 -> 90) and may set Sap (instead of Stop)
    --> Solitaire --- is weaker (power: 90 -> 75)

Basically a big buff to the character that I already consider the most powerful/useful in the game. Hmm.

On 7/27/2018 at 2:39 PM, BTB said:

--> Suplex --------- now sets Stop instead of Slow (as Sabin can now learn the Slow spell)

On 7/27/2018 at 2:39 PM, BTB said:

 • The Kusarigama has been reworked into a Zozo-era ninja weapon (sold at Jidoor) that does 2x damage to
   humans (i.e. Dadaluma) and can set Stop/Slow (as the Kagenui)

Good-bye Sabin, hello Cyan.

Everything else seems great, although I'm slightly concerned about lowing boss HP. Will have to see how it feels during a playthrough.

For the future, I think one of the next things I'd like to see is a Colosseum update. It's mostly skippable and kind of a downgrade from the vanilla game's Colosseum. It'd be nice to be able to get some more rare items without having to give up another rare item in exchange. For example, I'd like to have more than 1 Dragon Helm available. All that really does is get rid of the tedium of having to swap equipment every time you switch between groups. With the Skull Cap change(s) it seems like you're kinda going backwards from this though and making equipment even more restrictive which I'm not a big fan of.

@Reiker

So, Aurabolt respecting row is kind of a culmination of several factors. Sabin was designed to be a high-strength character regardless of build, but the fact that his main attack option for his stamina build ignored row effectively invalidated all of his physical options and Stam-WOW Sabin's offense game devolved into "spam Aurabolt". I've also spoken with several players and concluded that people who do backrow him are typically running him as a Mantra/Chakra bot and aren't even bothering with the Nirvana Band, so that build isn't necessarily losing much (although it does eventually get Sonic Boom as a long-range attack option). It's finally worth noting that Stam-WOW Sabin's Aurabolt damage is equal to or better than Slap-Chop Sabin's Suplex in the early game, so there's no need to sell the build as a defensive one until he picks up Mantra.

As for Eclipse, I think I already covered this one earlier, but it's because I switched the Mutsunokami/Kazekiri wind damage to stamina-based (keeping things thematic with having done the same to Sonic Boom), and I specifically did not want both those procs and Eclipse keying off of the same stat since they're Cyan's only "true" AoE options and they'd just end up stepping on each others' toes. The main effect of setting Eclipse back to "magic" damage is that it scales the same for either Cyan build, and I intend to push the blind effect as its primary benefit.

Blackjack is the only real "buff" to Slots, and it ultimately does depend at how reliably you can hit them. And it's still just MT damage - GP Toss is still the superior ST damage option by a significant margin.

The lowering of boss HP hasn't actually happened yet; I'm currently in the process of overhauling a LOT about enemies. If you want a more detailed response, I'd direct you to an article I recently posted on the site, specifically the section about "damage sponge" bosses.

The Colosseum is a tricky beast. Because of how it works, there's a thin - and often jagged - line between trades that make things more interesting and those that don't. I look at end-game equipment availability and make sure that the player will have everything they need no matter what, and then try to make as many interesting choices as possible within the constraints of the Colosseum setup. The Skull Cap is kind of an outlier here since it's a powerful piece of headgear that I only wanted there to be one of (and that one is in Kefka's Tower) - everything else should be a little bit more freely-available than before.

 

All right, I've gone ahead and updated the changelog with a few more notes, mainly the bits on enemy AI and repurposing the Auction House as a secondary Beginner's School along with a few new hacks that D and GrayShadows have come up with.

(Note: all tentative changes are in purple)

OH man swapping weapon is gonna be so good for Rod and Elemental Swords's user, maybe not for Sabin tough as I suppose that just like for Yang in FFIV 3D remake changing both of his claws will take 2 turns correct ?

No clue. As of yet, we're not even sure if the hack is doable. I'll let @GrayShadows field it.

Assuming I can get it to work, then yes, changing both claws would take two turns.

The most striking thing that caught my eye was the weapon/shield swap. That. Is. A. Godsend. Thank you my lord and savior, BTB. 

Edit: Hope this thing works.

Edit again: @GrayShadows is my lord and savior, screw @BTB. 

First post here, new user and a fan of Brave New World

I have to say thank you to BNW devs -and all those who helped them- for spending many years to create such an amazing hack, it has made one of the SNES classics much more better gameplay-wise and generally gave it -of what I think of as- one of the best combat systems I ever played, it's astounding how can a hack radically change a game for the great.

While I'm very content on BNW overall, I still have some little issues with it (mainly going back and forth to printme.xls so that I see spells/summons info, power and how would they work. Also I found some very harsh difficulty spikes, mostly ones in the very early hours like Poison casting rats when you only control Terra), As I typically checked progress, changes and improvements on BTW every now and then, I managed to notice that this version in particular has included some pretty strong hacks (Equipment stats on shops and weapon/shield changing during battle). So it got me thinking:

Would it be possible to include a bit more detailed descriptions of spells/summons ingame? Like their base power, additional effect and for the summons a whole description as the game don't show you what the summon actually does when used during battle (if it does show then I'm sorry for mentioning a dumb suggestion). Even if it's hard to include that now, I really hope to see it in BNW 1.11 or later versions.

Also can the difficulty curve be altered (mainly early WoB)? Because for normal encounters, the game generally eases when you get the espers (which is fine by me, because what I really like about BNW is that both you -the party- and the enemies are strong enough to defeat each other) and the hardest I experienced was the part where you control Terra the first time after she gets free from the mind control and that the rats can possibly cast Poison (deals a pretty hefty damage and it usually OHKO Terra if I'm not on full health) so in that part my life depends on whether the RNG spares me or not.

Shouldn't the rats only cast Poison if you're over leveled (like > lv 7 or so)? It's so the early enemies can still be relevant when you have to backtrack there later. You shouldn't need to grind levels so early as to encounter Poison as solo Terra.

2 hours ago, Wavefunction said:

Would it be possible to include a bit more detailed descriptions of spells/summons ingame? Like their base power, additional effect and for the summons a whole description as the game don't show you what the summon actually does when used during battle (if it does show then I'm sorry for mentioning a dumb suggestion). Even if it's hard to include that now, I really hope to see it in BNW 1.11 or later versions.

Generally speaking, no. One issue is that I have filled up every data bank I was given to work with, and expanding the ROM isn't the magic bullet people think it is since it doesn't necessarily create that space *where* you want it. Even if you could work around that, the second and more damning issue is a simple lack of real estate to display data on. As it stands, things are already pretty cramped, and I've rejected rage description patches for awhile on the grounds that there's no real way to fit all of the relevant data into the allotted space.

As far as including summon info in game, as far as I remember that was unfortunately removed when the Esper equip bonuses were added. The response is likely going to be something about space (either in the overall banks or for the individual frames... or both).

Regarding the difficulty, you mentioned the rats going at you when you only have Terra. Early game enemies will behave more aggressively when the party is higher level. This is so that they still do something noticeable on return trips. A few examples are Wild Rats, Leafers, Repo Man, and Mammoth. All of these monsters have 'extra' attacks that they'll start tossing out after you reach level 7. Advice on handling that would largely be to avoid grinding unless you find you really need it.

On 8/7/2018 at 8:44 PM, BTB said:

Aurabolt

Well there's also the problem that Aurabolt respecting row just doesn't make much sense. It could confuse new players, but... that's not a great argument when there's a lot of things in this mod that will confuse new players unless they constantly consult the documentation.

It seems like you don't like the idea of Stamina Sabin having an offensive option... which I'm okay with but what should he get instead? Most people seem to agree that the build is underpowered (although I quite like it). Maybe the Mantra changes are "enough" but... I'm kinda meh about it. Mantra's not great, a lot of other characters get better healing options that don't even really require you to dump ELs into a particular stat (Hello, Go Fish). The point of Stamina Sabin is to backrow him and use Chakra, which is fine but a bit one-dimensional. That's why I've been suggesting changes to Aurabolt, Fire Dance, and Sonic Boom in the past. I think I suggested at one point that Aurabolt is decent backrow Stamina damage (but obviously shouldn't compete with Strength Sabin attacks), Fire Dance be okay MT Stamina damage (although that's kinda boring, idk), and Sonic Boom be okay MT Stamina damage with some sort of status like Stop or Slow. The build's getting closer to some sort of hybrid utility/damage class which is cool, but the backrow Aurabolt thing is still weird to me. Ideally Vigor Sabin should be the one-dimensional just hits things hard build while Stamina Sabin is more flexible with your main attraction being Chakra. The question is, what do you give him to make him flexible but not overlap with other characters. The game's kinda limited and there's a very finite amount of abilities/effects to spread around 14 characters.

On 8/7/2018 at 8:44 PM, BTB said:

Eclipse

I've never really used Mutsunokami/Kazekiri so that's where my reservations are with this change. If I remember right, those weapons have a high chance to proc but it's not guaranteed right? Having a % chance of wasting your turn is pretty rough, and Cyan's not the speediest guy. But who knows, maybe with the right gear it could be super overpowered. Will have to test when 1.10 is out.

I guess it just seems weird to me to give one of the lowest Magic Power characters in the game a Magic based attack. Like, when would you ever choose to use Eclipse? I get that the point is the blind status, but that seems kinda meh. Why blind things when you can just kill them? I understood your intention behind the changes but it just seems like we're dumpstering Eclipse here.

On 8/7/2018 at 8:44 PM, BTB said:

Blackjack is the only real "buff" to Slots, and it ultimately does depend at how reliably you can hit them.

I consider Setzer the best character in the game so any buff to his main damage ability is a bit surprising to me.

On 8/7/2018 at 8:44 PM, BTB said:

The Colosseum

The Colosseum is one thing in BNW that I feel is better in the vanilla game. What I like about the vanilla Colosseum is that with a bit of strategy and experimenting with the trades, you can gain a real gear advantage. In the vanilla game you have several points in which you can go to the Colosseum and trade things around, for example the Elixir -> Rename Card -> Marvel Shoes trade. In BNW, I mostly ignore it.

It feels too restrictive. I understand you want to limit players but... what am I supposed to be using the Colosseum for? I basically just use it to turn the Atma Weapon into a Mirage Vest... not because I don't want to use the Atma Weapon, but because if I have to choose between one or the other I'm taking the Mirage Vest. Even if you want to do an Atma Weapon build it's not worth it because it's the only source of the Mirage Vest in the game. I don't like that sort of design. You can't even trade the Illumina and Apocalypse for some reason.

The Sage Stone > Nirvana Band > Rogue Cloak loop can be useful, but everything else tends to end up with a downgrade if you win. Lame.

99% of players just ignore the Colosseum (even in Vanilla, where it's useful) because it's a lot of time investment for little payoff even if you know what you're doing. I feel like it's one area where you could give "expert" players a bit more freedom to gain some additional power.

23 minutes ago, Reiker said:

I've never really used Mutsunokami/Kazekiri so that's where my reservations are with this change. If I remember right, those weapons have a high chance to proc but it's not guaranteed right? Having a % chance of wasting your turn is pretty rough, and Cyan's not the speediest guy. But who knows, maybe with the right gear it could be super overpowered. Will have to test when 1.10 is out.

I guess it just seems weird to me to give one of the lowest Magic Power characters in the game a Magic based attack. Like, when would you ever choose to use Eclipse? I get that the point is the blind status, but that seems kinda meh. Why blind things when you can just kill them? I understood your intention behind the changes but it just seems like we're dumpstering Eclipse here.

Well for Cyan there is Stamina Build with Cover/Counter which i think will be where Kazekiri/Mutsunokami will shine Yeah it's no guaranteed to Proc but on a C/C set up any counter could result in a Proc giving you a free AoE attack, and Stam Cyan is very hard to kill and will C/C pretty often so there's potential (al least when the ennemy isn't immune to Wind), this look really good for Cyan I'm concern however that Shadow might make Mutsunokami/Kazekiri more usefull than Cyan, I'm still worried that a Phantom Shadow with Mutsunokami + Kagenui + Rogue Cloak might be to powerfull (especially with a C/C set up that unlike Cyan Shadow can pull off with Mutsunokami and only Hero Ring as a relic thanks to Ninja Mask) but will have to test when new version cames out.

Updated the changelog again, most notably with some more rage changes (which have been affected by me working on - and also renaming quite a few - enemies) and put in mention of a few new hacks courtesy of Seibaby and Think. Also put in a note about a little save point we added before a certain optional boss fight...

On 7/27/2018 at 3:39 PM, BTB said:

 • Characters in the back row are now less likely to be targeted by enemy attacks (Think)

 • The "Defend" and "Row" commands now only consume half of a turn (Think)

Love these ideas. I feel like the half-turn setback would be appropriate for weapon/shield swapping too, if that gets implemented.

"Characters in back-row are now less likely to be targeted by enemy attacks"

Is this for physicals, magical, status, and misc?

Also, have you thought of making the "Wound" status happen at 1/4 max HP, instead of 1/16? Might allow Cover to actually help a character about to die from another attack, whereas 1/16 makes it difficult to get into the right range for such an event to happen without flat killing the character. Also, worried that this change AND the "Cover only covers back-row" might nerf Cover strats a little too much.

This change and the Cover change make a LOT of sense, but I am a little worried about it making the back-row too good again. Cover tanks helps make the front-row useful, but outside of Cover tanks, I'm a little worried, especially for a more glass-cannony friends. (Shadow's good enough anyways in the front-row, mostly more worried about later game vig Sabin, vig Cyan, and glass cannon Locke. Still, this is all just spitballing and pondering. The above paragraphy is more substantial)

12 hours ago, thzfunnymzn said:

"Characters in back-row are now less likely to be targeted by enemy attacks"

Is this for physicals, magical, status, and misc?

Also, have you thought of making the "Wound" status happen at 1/4 max HP, instead of 1/16? Might allow Cover to actually help a character about to die from another attack, whereas 1/16 makes it difficult to get into the right range for such an event to happen without flat killing the character. Also, worried that this change AND the "Cover only covers back-row" might nerf Cover strats a little too much.

This change and the Cover change make a LOT of sense, but I am a little worried about it making the back-row too good again. Cover tanks helps make the front-row useful, but outside of Cover tanks, I'm a little worried, especially for a more glass-cannony friends. (Shadow's good enough anyways in the front-row, mostly more worried about later game vig Sabin, vig Cyan, and glass cannon Locke. Still, this is all just spitballing and pondering. The above paragraphy is more substantial)

HMM make sense Cover working only on Back Row character might make Glass Canon harder to play, combine with the character in Back Row are less likely to get targeted could definitly nerf C/C strat tough on the other side that means the user of C/C set up which will be in the front row will get targetted more often, so that also mean more Counter as a result, and this will be true for Glass Canon at the front Row to if you can manage to make them survive a little might get more counter as a result plus when they will get hit they will most likely be Wounded and as a result thetTanky C/C will come into play, will have to test when the update comes out but I think that could be work around.

Front row characters getting targeted more means that, not C/C, but Counter all on its own, gets a slight buff, which I guess slightly pushes Cover to being an actually, ya' know, defensive technique (I guess?). IMO, this is a good thing, as too many people seem to be auto-associating the two concepts in their head, even though Counter has existed as a useful status for quite a long time before 1.9. Also, imo, Cover really should be a primarily defensive status for defending squishies, with C/C being a special set-up. A good special, mind you.

Back row seeing less of any ST attack is straight up great for Thamasa, Shadow, Gau, any bulky healer / supporter, as well as Dragoon & Dragon Cyan. OTOH, stam Cyan has incentive to C/C in the front-row (with either type of katana, now), and a few bulky healers can probably make decent use of Cover as well (Terra, Setzer). Front-row, however, I'm concerned, as way back in....1.6?.....the WT crew got the "damaged reduction from back row" nerfed. Used to take half damage in back row, which created too large a gap in bulk between front and back row, especially because front row offered no advantage except physical damage, which wasn't exactly out-damaging magical damage at the time.

Things are different now (Bushido is nuts, Cover exists, physical glass cannons seem more popular), but I'm still a little worried about the physical glass cannons as well as Sabin / Cyan in the front row. OTOH, bulky front-row units (primarily Celes and Edgar) love having a passive way to draw attention to them and away from the squishies, though they'll want some status relics if ST status attacks are also being drawn towards them. Guess it's an incentive to put HP/stam builds into the front row, a row traditionally only useful for vig builds, so it's overall a good thing. Just a little worried about how it'll interact with some of the squishier front-line units, and a little worried that back-row units might get away with too much. We'll see.

(Also, just noticed that extra attacks means Image / Reflect dispel slightly faster in the front row. Stealth nerf to Morph vig Terra, lulz. Not recommending anything be done, other than paying attention for what happens)

22 minutes ago, thzfunnymzn said:

Front row characters getting targeted more means that, not C/C, but Counter all on its own, gets a slight buff, which I guess slightly pushes Cover to being an actually, ya' know, defensive technique (I guess?). IMO, this is a good thing, as too many people seem to be auto-associating the two concepts in their head, even though Counter has existed as a useful status for quite a long time before 1.9. Also, imo, Cover really should be a primarily defensive status for defending squishies, with C/C being a special set-up. A good special, mind you.

Back row seeing less of any ST attack is straight up great for Thamasa, Shadow, Gau, any bulky healer / supporter, as well as Dragoon & Dragon Cyan. OTOH, stam Cyan has incentive to C/C in the front-row (with either type of katana, now), and a few bulky healers can probably make decent use of Cover as well (Terra, Setzer). Front-row, however, I'm concerned, as way back in....1.6?.....the WT crew got the "damaged reduction from back row" nerfed. Used to take half damage in back row, which created too large a gap in bulk between front and back row, especially because front row offered no advantage except physical damage, which wasn't exactly out-damaging magical damage at the time.

Things are different now (Bushido is nuts, Cover exists, physical glass cannons seem more popular), but I'm still a little worried about the physical glass cannons as well as Sabin / Cyan in the front row. OTOH, bulky front-row units (primarily Celes and Edgar) love having a passive way to draw attention to them and away from the squishies, though they'll want some status relics if ST status attacks are also being drawn towards them. Guess it's an incentive to put HP/stam builds into the front row, a row traditionally only useful for vig builds, so it's overall a good thing. Just a little worried about how it'll interact with some of the squishier front-line units, and a little worried that back-row units might get away with too much. We'll see.

(Also, just noticed that extra attacks means Image / Reflect dispel slightly faster in the front row. Stealth nerf to Morph vig Terra, lulz. Not recommending anything be done, other than paying attention for what happens)

Well I'm not worry about Stam Cyan (and to that extend Stam Edgar and Stam Locke) as he is so resistant + access to good defensive gear that there is really no need to make him in the Back Row might as well makes him help the glass canon in the front row, Sabin might suffer from that change indeed tough even in 1.6 when Back Row wasn't nerf I remember being fine with him in the front row even on WoR with Vigor build, Glass Canon will probably loves being on the Front for more damage and more chance to Counter so the way I see it :

-Front Row : Tanks and Glass Canons
-Back Row : Magic users in general and Dragoon

I admit that I too am worried that Back Row might get slightly to powerfull with that Back Row get less targeted thing, overall I think this might make Back Row to powerfull against physical especially if you cast Image on the Back Row user as you mention they will not get attack very often and so they might keep the image longuer, I think the problem is overall there is no disadvantages at being in the Back Row like the only malus is your physical damage is reduce but who will put a physical character in the back row so that malus is irrelevant while being in the front row means you're take more damage and now you getting targetted more often with the only advantages being C/C and full damage for physical attack, overall I actually think that the Back Row get less targetted thing is unecessary, this is already a system that is habitually use in J-RPG that has no row mechanic like the Dragon Quest games (where there is no row but character that are put in last spot are less likely to get targeted) so I have mix feeling about implement it in a row system. But again we will se when 1.10 comes out.

7 hours ago, Nesouk said:

I think the problem is overall there is no disadvantages at being in the Back Row like the only malus is your physical damage is reduce but who will put a physical character in the back row so that malus is irrelevant while being in the front row means you're take more damage and now you getting targetted more often.

I think you just pointed out the disadvantage of the back row yourself. Its disadvantage and its advantage are the same thing — the increased threat to your front liner(s). Before this proposed change, there was actually no disadvantage to the back row, but now there is.

Vig Sabin, Morph vig Terra, and Shadow (to a lesser extent), who all want that front row action, are now hurt when their buddies hide behind them. This makes the choice of putting your other squishes in the back row more significant. These glass cannon characters now demand at least one other front liner to share the responsibility, so this also adds one more variable to the party composition thought process — something I certainly appreciate.

The only part that concerns me a little is the inability for front-liners to Cover one another, but I'm willing to see how this plays out before I cry too hard about that one.

Hey there! I'm loving the mod so far, but am concerned about the low max lvl cap and wanted to hear why you decided on that design choice.

I've always been of the mindset that an RPG should never create artificial difficulty through caps - - especially end game it should be left up to the player whether or not to grind heavily and make the game easier. Making something hard simply because you can't progress further is great for forcing use of strategy (and that's probably what you're going for here), but it takes away that grind freedom. 

Any chance you'd consider adding an option to increase the cap? Thanks again for all your hard work! 

20 minutes ago, FoppyOmega said:

Hey there! I'm loving the mod so far, but am concerned about the low max lvl cap and wanted to hear why you decided on that design choice.

I've always been of the mindset that an RPG should never create artificial difficulty through caps - - especially end game it should be left up to the player whether or not to grind heavily and make the game easier. Making something hard simply because you can't progress further is great for forcing use of strategy (and that's probably what you're going for here), but it takes away that grind freedom. 

Any chance you'd consider adding an option to increase the cap? Thanks again for all your hard work! 

The answer to this one is pretty easy: working with smaller numbers is exponentially easier than larger ones, and balancing within a smaller range of possible levels is easier than with a larger one. I didn't "lower the cap" so much as I just shrank the total range I was working with - consider level 50 in BNW the equivalent of 99 in vanilla.

Although the level cap is advertised as 50, players will generally never see it. I'm a firm believer in that the player should never *see* the invisible boundaries, so to speak, so you're generally not going to get very far into the "soft" cap that starts at the late 30's.

Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems like all this update is doing is reducing HP/MP gains past level 30 to make those ELs more important. I can see it being a tough balancing act for those ELs since those stats naturally increase as you level, and other stats don't, so you can essentially get "extra" HP/MP ELs by leveling. The game is balanced to be beatable at level 30, and you still definitely gain power by leveling past 30, so I don't think it's that big of a deal. It's not an actual cap. I think the highest any of my characters ever got was like 34.

Overall I think the cover/row changes are pretty good. I always found the row anti-synergies kinda awkward, for example Stamina Cyan's attacks (Dragon/Eclipse) aren't affected by row, so naturally you'd want him in the back row, but you can't cover from the back row; you can do C/C but the counter attacks are based on Vigor and you're in a Stamina build. The new katana changes seem to partially address that (the wind damage proc is affected by row, right?), although we're introducing a new anti-synergy with Aurabolt.

But like I mentioned I like the row change. Remember that this whole system only affects physical attacks that respect row, which honestly in the grand scheme of things aren't the worst attacks you'll be facing anyways.

I'm still trying to pin down Stamina Sabin's role. Traditionally you just stick him in the back row and spam Chakra in a party with 3 mages. This is a pretty squishy setup, and you usually make up for it with Golem/Zoneseek/Shield. But I wonder if there's a potential to give Sabin something to do in the front row and use him as a coverbot. I guess that's supposed to be Aurabolt now, but meh... maybe if Mantra gave Sabin the Image status or something? Shrug.

Just like all the usual RPGs, that level cap is only something you'll achieve if you are some sort of completionist.  Even to defeat the games hardest enemies, you only need to be in your mid 30s.  Should you reach the early 40s, you'll find the entire game including bosses a cakewalk.  It'll basically be like walking through the vanilla version with the Genji Glove/Offering combo on one character.

One thing I've always disliked about most vanilla versions of games is the fact that the final bosses don't scale and are designed with to be about 2/3 of the cap, so if the cap is 99, they're around 60-70, but superbosses tend to make players level into the 80s or 90s (for most players, especially on initial playthrough).  So if you like doing the superbosses, either you finish the game and reload the save before finishing and then do the superbosses, or just grind and take on the superbosses first, then accept the fact that you'll steamroll the final bosses.

...and that is why we don't do superbosses.

@Reiker

RE: Stamina Sabin, it's basically Chakra/Mantra, to be perfectly honest. The new Mantra formula is a fairly notable buff.

I'd like to see superbosses someday. Nothing is forcing you to over-level for any fight.

And right, I understand that Mantra and Chakra are Sabin's Stamina abilities. I mentioned those. My point is that there's some interesting potential to give him some sort of better-defined protector role since he has anti-synergy with actual tanks like Cyan (doesn't need MP), and has synergy with defensively weak characters (mages who need MP).

The problem with Mantra is that the characters that you'll want with Sabin all have their own healing spells, and then you can just use Chakra to restore the MP. It is a slight buff since it gives you more flexibility, ie. you need to heal and Terra is at full MP, you can use Ultima and Mantra instead of Cure and Chakra to get some more damage in. And that's still only if Sabin isn't too low since Mantra doesn't heal him.

52 minutes ago, BTB said:

The answer to this one is pretty easy: working with smaller numbers is exponentially easier than larger ones, and balancing within a smaller range of possible levels is easier than with a larger one. I didn't "lower the cap" so much as I just shrank the total range I was working with - consider level 50 in BNW the equivalent of 99 in vanilla.

Although the level cap is advertised as 50, players will generally never see it. I'm a firm believer in that the player should never *see* the invisible boundaries, so to speak, so you're generally not going to get very far into the "soft" cap that starts at the late 30's.

Okay awesome, thanks for the explanation. I saw 50 and assumed most players would hit the cap, but sounds like you guys definitely know what you're doing. I'll play through before asking anything else.

@Reiker

I think you are making a mistake in conceiving of support Sabin only as stam Sabin. Support Sabin is actually Stray (stam) + Terrato (HP). If you want a protector Sabin, go heavy on the Terrato. Chakra still functions perfectly fine even on a heavy Terrato build - if Terrato Sabin's Chakra can do some major heavy-lifting and prove itself quite awesome in a Nowea Hard Type game (what I just did), then it's perfectly viable in a normal game. So, if you want a Protector Sabin, build heavy Terrato, use Mantra / Chakra, probably do some C/C Ocean Claw stuff to keep Sabin alive.

Honestly, Chakra is still the main selling point of support Sabin. If you ain't using Chakra, you have no business using support Sabin; please use vig Sabin instead. That said, Chakra's got a lot of stealth buffs since....1.7 or 1.8? Osmose is only half as strong as it used to be in the early days, meaning that Relm actually appreciates Figaro Support now without being strictly dependent on it like an X-Sage would. C/C with auto-crit on a lower MP character (Phantom Celes, Mog) can guzzle through MP; said C/C builds are also bulky front-row, Cover users, meaning that they all ready synergize well with squishy mages (Strago & Relm). 1.10's change to Strago's Dark pushes X-Dark more towards being high power but high MP (see: other X-Sages); while Strago does have X-Osmose, unlike the other Sages, X-Sage Strago, like Relm, should actually appreciate Figaro Support now. Also, it is still the case the Figaro Support is helpful / critical for a Rerise spamming Shadow or non-Bank Setzer (should hopefully see more use, now that Chakra is supporting more attackers as well as some tanks).

So while Chakra ain't any stronger (it shouldn't be), there's a lot more areas where it's useful now. Honestly, my only two disappointments right now a) support Sabin cannot support Merton spam while also benefiting from it's premier fire-absorb healing strat (he needs Lazy Shell just to get immunity; Edgar, meanwhile, can equip a Flame-/Multi-guard), and b) X-Mog, as an attacker, is still subpar and has gotten even worse (higher MP costs for no gain), so it's highly unlikely he'll find use when players have the shiny new X-Dark to abuse for big magical damage. (Note: as a supporter, Sage Stone on Mog grants X-Haste alongside other minor utility. Potentially useful for a Dancer Mog who wants extra party utility. But as an attacker, outside of Poison weaknesses, Sage Mog is very subpar).

For Aurabolt, something I think you're missing is that Aurabolt is an early- / mid-game move. It's battle power is simply not high enough for it to remain functional past Daryl's Tomb. Aurabolt is primarily there to keep stam Sabin functional until he learns Mantra. I will grant that, imo, it does look very weird that support Sabin grows like that. Imo, it'd look cleaner if support Sabin replaced Aurabolt or Sonic Boom with one other utility / healing Dance, leaving the stamina damage Blitz to be learned sometime in the WoR. He'd have an early-game utility, mid-game, and late game. But that's an aside, not a balance argument I really want to bring to the table right now (it was discussed previously) since I know BTB isn't up for it, and it doesn't change the fact that, even now, Aurabolt is more meant as filler until support Sabin really grows into his own in the WoR.

The new Mantra does mean Sabin can function as a decent healer prior to Chakra, as well as giving you some flexibility to heal with Sabin while your mage blows something up later in the game. Also, 1.9 and 1.10 have given some MP guzzles that don't have good heals, notably, X-Sage Strago, c/c Rod Mog, and Phantom Celes (new Mantra is better than unboosted Cure 2). True, Terra and Relm have Cure 3, but Terra is no longer the only character who appreciates Figaro Support.

***

I just defended support Sabin. Things are definitely different from how they were in the old days.

3 hours ago, SirNewtonFig said:

I think you just pointed out the disadvantage of the back row yourself. Its disadvantage and its advantage are the same thing — the increased threat to your front liner(s). Before this proposed change, there was actually no disadvantage to the back row, but now there is.

Vig Sabin, Morph vig Terra, and Shadow (to a lesser extent), who all want that front row action, are now hurt when their buddies hide behind them. This makes the choice of putting your other squishes in the back row more significant. These glass cannon characters now demand at least one other front liner to share the responsibility, so this also adds one more variable to the party composition thought process — something I certainly appreciate.

The only part that concerns me a little is the inability for front-liners to Cover one another, but I'm willing to see how this plays out before I cry too hard about that one.

Fair point altough I mostly use a tank and Glass on Front and 2 caster behind I already never let a glass canon alone in the front row so this will change nothing for me on that par ^^.

2 hours ago, hypernova said:

One thing I've always disliked about most vanilla versions of games is the fact that the final bosses don't scale and are designed with to be about 2/3 of the cap, so if the cap is 99, they're around 60-70, but superbosses tend to make players level into the 80s or 90s (for most players, especially on initial playthrough).  So if you like doing the superbosses, either you finish the game and reload the save before finishing and then do the superbosses, or just grind and take on the superbosses first, then accept the fact that you'll steamroll the final bosses.

That's why I think it's cool when games make their superboss unlockable only after you finish the story or better when they make the Superboss an hiden version of the Final Boss only if you complete sidequestes (like Star Ocean 2 or The Last Remnant), superboss are meant to just be optionnal challenge for hardcore player (mostly) so I think best to handle is making so they are only available after the final boss so that the player don't worry about that during the main play and it stay what it should be a bonus after completing the game. That being said with the vast number of bosses already in FFVI BNW doesn't need any.

Why do people keep replying to me as if they didn't read anything I wrote. Oh well.

I did read and specifically addressed points made in your posts.

You complained about not knowing what stam Sabin's role is. I set the ground for expanding the concept of stam Sabin to support Sabin (HP and stamina), which opens the door for support Sabin's the focus more on bulk, with potential for Cover (Terrato) rather than raw Chakra numbers (stamina).

You complained about not knowing what Sabin's role is because of how weird Aurabolt looks in 1.10. I explained and partially agreed on what Aurabolt's purpose is and how it meshes with the overall role of what support Sabin is.

You complained about Mantra's utility. I explained and partially agreed on what Mantra's new utility is, as well as showcasing examples of who support Sabin can support who don't have (major) healing capabilities, thus showing that Mantra isn't quite as redundant as it used to be when Sabin mostly supported Terra & Relm.

You complained that support Sabin's traditional role is rather niche. I showcased examples in 1.9 and 1.10 of where support Sabin's traditional "Chakrabot" role has greatly improved, primarily through new strategies to support rather than increased numbers.

I answered your posts. I agreed with your Colosseum complaints. Please, do not sweep everything around as if "no one actually read my posts." Please, explain what specific issues you are having, why you are having them, why you think they are problems, and how it is that no one is seeing your point.

Any chance of the Auction House ever returning in any way shape or form? 

So, I didn't reply with a long breakdown of your post because I was just spitballing some random gameplay / balance ideas while I was bored at work, and your response was a bit aggressive and I didn't want to turn something that was supposed to be pretty casual into an argument.

11 hours ago, thzfunnymzn said:

If you ain't using Chakra, you have no business using support Sabin; please use vig Sabin instead.

I felt this was pretty condescending considering you are now the second person to try to explain to me that Chakra is the point of Stam Sabin, despite the fact that I myself mentioned that a few times already. It's especially confusing since I'm one of the few people here who defends and uses Stam Sabin.

Once again, I understand that Chakra is the point of Stam Sabin, however my point is that "spam one ability over and over" isn't super interesting, and the build has some potential for some additional support synergies, which I mentioned. I've even said before that I'm okay with "spam Chakra" being Sabin's role because it can be quite powerful, but there's been whole threads about people not liking Stamina Sabin and thinking he was under-powered, so I thought this was a reasonable place to address those concerns.

6 hours ago, thzfunnymzn said:

You complained about not knowing what stam Sabin's role is.

6 hours ago, thzfunnymzn said:

You complained about Mantra's utility

6 hours ago, thzfunnymzn said:

You complained that support Sabin's traditional role is rather niche.

If casually providing some gameplay ideas / suggestions is considered complaining now, then I give up on the internet.

Anyways, I didn't say I didn't know what Sabin's role was. I said it had potential to be expanded. I didn't complain that Mantra was bad, I said it was a bit redundant in the type of group you'd run Sabin in. And Sabin's role is one-dimensional, and I mentioned that I'm okay with that, but again there's potential to expand the role.

These types of posts are exhausting to make and for others to read (which is why I tried to avoid it), so let's try to keep things constructive.

1 hour ago, Reiker said:

snip

Hmm....

I was rather aggressive with you because I perceived your previous post as very passive-aggressive. While there was redundancy in what I posted, a couple of points I made did address issues you brought up in in this post. Namely: Terrato Sabin can serve the Protector role while providing Chakra / Mantra support, and Mantra not necessarily being redundant with Chakra team because several of the recipients of Chakra don't have good party healing (X-Strago, c/c Illumina, c/c Punisher, Rerise spam Shadow).

Still, my apologies for my aggressive attitude.

Just a thought, the new row mechanics can potentially be a buff to c/c characters that have lower stamina or attack power, like stam edgar. Being more likely to be attacked in the front row will make the lower stamina hurt less and make defense matter more for c/c characters. This also means you could do a sort of "soft tank" by having a character be the only person in the front row but not having cover, this would work well with phantom shadow I think, since his evasion is penalized and he can't use image while covering. I'm still not sure how I feel about only covering backrow characters though, I think it would be better with thzfuzzymzn's idea to make HP-Critical happen at 1/4th hp. In addition to making cover function better at saving low HP guys it would also make desperation attacks proc more frequently. I've personally only ever had a desperation attack go off once in BNW, and it was with sabin in the colosseum.

Edit: I also have a couple of questions about some of the new stuff. If you have a shield or a weapon that gives an auto status, like hero shield or aegis shield, do you lose it when you switch it out? And does strago and relm's aero rod auto-crit like the other rods do?

Updated the changelog again. Clarified some of the tentative/unclear points about enemy stats and behavior, finalized all of the rage changes (hopefully), and swapped around the Poison/Bio (now "Sap") spells.

If you'd let me. I'd like to borrow your elemental resistance/immunity/absorption idea to my game also, it just makes sense to me, @BTB.

You're free to whatever ideas you get from BNW, my friend.

Yeah, I'll steal some and just...credit you for it...I'm a good thief.

On 8/18/2018 at 8:55 PM, Echoherb said:

Any chance of the Auction House ever returning in any way shape or form? 

Not as an auction house. It will be repurposed to an advanced beginner school in 1.10, so the one in Narshe doesn’t have to get replaced. 

Changelog updated again. Of note is the re-branding of the "poison" element to disassociate itself from the status of the same name (which tended to cause confusion) and move it toward being a "dark" counterpart to the holy element, moving Crusader to a cash gate instead of a boss gate along with swapping Holy and Merton on it and Alexandr, and some changes to the Bio Blaster (now available later) and Flash (now weaker since the "Blind" status will be much more effective). Raze also gets weaker and loses the "dark" element, thus making it more of an all-purpose midgame damager until Dark shows up.

Also of note are some buffs to Break and Quake to make up for their increases MP costs along with the fact that "standard" enemy magic defense will be lower in the coming update (although bosses will tend toward the current value, so this is an overall buff in that regard).

24 minutes ago, BTB said:

Raze also gets weaker and loses the "dark" element

Raze loses the "dark" element

Just when I thought Strago was going to be out of my main rotation for once, they pull him back in.

More changelog updates. Alexandr and Crusader are being swapped (details inside), Merton becomes a fire/"dark" elemental spell (instead of fire/wind), and shop edits are elaborated upon.

4 hours ago, BTB said:

More changelog updates. Alexandr and Crusader are being swapped (details inside), Merton becomes a fire/"dark" elemental spell (instead of fire/wind), and shop edits are elaborated upon.

 Doesn’t that mess with the lazy shell immunities?

Yeah, I dropped the idea of the Lazy Shell being a mass prevention tool for everyone.

On the other hand, setting it to "dark" damage means that the Ghost Ring is a prevention relic that anyone can use. If you're going to go gimmick, go big or go home.

21 hours ago, BTB said:

Yeah, I dropped the idea of the Lazy Shell being a mass prevention tool for everyone.

On the other hand, setting it to "dark" damage means that the Ghost Ring is a prevention relic that anyone can use. If you're going to go gimmick, go big or go home.

Any chance on the addition or replacement of a spell? Through testing I found that the Warp Whistle retains its effect without the Warp Spell being present in the spell list (both in and outside of battle), so the Warp Spell is unnecessary and can be reworked into something else. I posted a couple of ideas in the Experimental magic build thread for possible Stamina options for Relm and Edgar since atm their Stamina builds are more gimmicky than useful, at least in 1.9.

3 hours ago, GamingFiend said:

Any chance on the addition or replacement of a spell? Through testing I found that the Warp Whistle retains its effect without the Warp Spell being present in the spell list (both in and outside of battle), so the Warp Spell is unnecessary and can be reworked into something else. I posted a couple of ideas in the Experimental magic build thread for possible Stamina options for Relm and Edgar since atm their Stamina builds are more gimmicky than useful, at least in 1.9.

I'll personally chime in that I'm hoping more for Stamina to actually get a truly solid universal use, instead of having a bunch of minor uses all dependent upon stamina-based damage/heals & HP ELs to glue them together. (C/C being the one exception to this rule). Current idea I'm hoping on is individual statuses / status attacks having a variable amount of "how much stamina is needed to evade this status" (stamina is checked against 1..max instead of a hard 1..128 check), so that stamina can function as "status dodge" stat without requiring endgame-extreme stamina stacking to actually function in that regard.

Just joined to say keep up the good work. Looking forward to trying the mod after this release. 

Just to be clear, Crusader is now gotten after beating wrexsoul and is usable by both Cyan and Celes? I wanted to do another playthrough and try to abuse merton, should be fun with two merton users.

On 9/3/2018 at 0:17 PM, dissident said:

Just joined to say keep up the good work. Looking forward to trying the mod after this release. 

Thank you!

44 minutes ago, scrapmettle said:

Just to be clear, Crusader is now gotten after beating wrexsoul and is usable by both Cyan and Celes? I wanted to do another playthrough and try to abuse merton, should be fun with two merton users.

That is correct, yes. And Crusader also has Demi/Quartr while Alexandr now only has Holy.

On 7/27/2018 at 3:39 PM, BTB said:

Characters in the back row are now less likely to be targeted by enemy attacks (Think)

I keep thinking about this modification, and I'm curious about the numbers on it. What's the plan for the extent this will have on the probability of being targeted?

1 hour ago, SirNewtonFig said:

I keep thinking about this modification, and I'm curious about the numbers on it. What's the plan for the extent this will have on the probability of being targeted?

It won't be TOO significant - just enough to be worth considering. I'll let Think talk about it, though, since he's the one working the logic.

ANYWAY... more changelog updates. Big one as of now is an update to the Regen formula which relies less on the character's max HP. It's a minor change for most characters, but it's a significant buff to high stamina squishies (Relm/Strago) and a huge kick in the nuts to 25 Terrato Sabin. Also of note is switching the 3/16 step on Earth Blues to Wind Slash so that it's no longer a wasted turn in boss fights, some elaboration on WHICH bosses are getting their HP slashed, and some other stuff I can't remember.

Seriously, the changelog is fucking 30 kb of raw text right now. My changelog needs a changelog. Fuck me.

9 hours ago, BTB said:

ANYWAY... more changelog updates. Big one as of now is an update to the Regen formula which relies less on the character's max HP. It's a minor change for most characters, but it's a significant buff to high stamina squishies (Relm/Strago) and a huge kick in the nuts to 25 Terrato Sabin.

Ooh, Letha's not going to be happy about that one!

It always felt a little weird that HP did almost as much for Regen as Stamina when Regen ticks are the closest thing to a "main effect" that Stamina has.  I'm glad that's being changed.

Dude, Letha busted a nut over the regen change. Something about Stamina Strago being "your new god..."

Wow, he sure jumped ship fast.

Well, this playthrough I'm wrapping up was a good time to lean hard on non-Stamina builds in order to really enjoy the C&C/Regen hilarity in the next update. I can't wait for Strago.

Forgot to mention this suggestion and was reminded by its inclusion as an optional difficulty modifier in DQXI:

Any thoughts about adding a modifier to reduce experience gained by a fight if you over-level the monsters you are fighting? Could be based on monster level vs. party average or vs. highest level character in the party, depending on what you exactly wanted to achieve. Should be a good way to reduce the complaint of over-leveling and encourage switching characters.

I was curious if it'd be possible to use the Woolsey Uncensored Mod with the "Vanilla" version of this mod, and if not would it be a difficult task to make it work?

32 minutes ago, Mugenhagen said:

I was curious if it'd be possible to use the Woolsey Uncensored Mod with the "Vanilla" version of this mod, and if not would it be a difficult task to make it work?

Unfortunately, the way BNW modified the rom moved a lot of shit around compared to vanilla, especially related to the dialogue, making this very difficult to do, and definitely not something you can do yourself without some significant hacking. My suggestion would be to wait until 1.10, because it will include a Woolsey-ish dialogue patch that will be compatible with BNW.

8 hours ago, Deschain said:

Unfortunately, the way BNW modified the rom moved a lot of shit around compared to vanilla, especially related to the dialogue, making this very difficult to do, and definitely not something you can do yourself without some significant hacking. My suggestion would be to wait until 1.10, because it will include a Woolsey-ish dialogue patch that will be compatible with BNW.

I'm pretty sure that TWUE also runs on an expanded rom, which BNW is not.

The rom expansion moves the text to an entirely different location IIRC.

Based on these listed patch notes, my only complaints so far are thus:

-The Reflect/Rflect change.  I liked how it worked on a timer.  (|=^(
-Death Ward/Quartz Charm no longer blocks instant death.  Arg.
-Royal Jacket is no longer fireproof.
-Big frowny face to Ribbon nerf.

I also understand this is done in the name of balance.

Mind you, this is a small list compared to the stuff I liked changed or didn't object to being changed.

Reflect working on a timer made it entirely pointless as a deliberate defensive effect since you never knew when it was going to wear off and it would often do so before being of much use. Changing it to behave like Image guarantees that it will defend against at least something before going away.

A timer could potentially overpower reflect if enemies happen to scream at a magic wall all day until it runs out. Infinite runtime with a few hits to live seems the most balanced.

Updated the changerog yet again. This should be the last of any major updates: note the (tentative) updates to status display and the status screen along with finally doing something about how difficult running from fights became following the introduction of nATB. Also, as part of our ongoing efforts to scale back on needlessly-hidden things, Relm will now come equipped with the Memento Ring. Finally, some terminology changes will seek to make things easier to understand: spell points ("magic points" in vanilla) will now be called esper points, while what is currently called esper points will be rebranded as esperXP.

There are a few more additions yet to go into this list, but that should be it for anything particularly noteworthy.

Fantastic work, @BTB.

Are you still looking at that Leviathan mod in WoR you told me about that one night?

-Doorbellco

That's way off in the future. 2.0 material, for sure.

So, progress report time! I've been quiet for awhile as I've been working on overhauling enemy AI from the ground up - a process which ate up about a year of BNW's initial development time. I am glad to say that has been COMPLETELY finished and I am very excited to see how the results play out in beta testing! I have updated the changelog for now; presently, we are waiting for just a few more hacks from outside sources, and all I have left to do is finish updating enemy stats (about a day's work, though I dunno when I'll have that day) before I have a working ROM to fire off to Synchysi.

Things are definitely starting to come along!

Awesome news. Begrudgingly decided to put my playthrough of 1.9 on hold even though I had just started it out when I happened upon the announcement of 1.10 and that it would be a major update, despite waiting for 1.9 for an eternity too. At least I ought to have a ton of new stuff to discover, seeing as my last complete playthrough was with 1.7 IIRC... 

Now that I think about it, I bet it'll feel like a totally different game. I wouldn't wanna spoil myself too much, and I've gathered some bits and pieces myself by lurking around here anyways (such as the on-equip esper bonus being a new thing) but could I bother someone knowledgeable to hype me up a bit before the release and give a crash course on the biggest changes that have come along in recent versions and/or some of the new cool stuff&features that I have to look forward to, coming off from 1.7? I know I could just plow through the changelogs but I've never been into knowing every bit of detail about a game beforehand and there's just so much stuff. I'm mostly after the juiciest tidbits.

Hmm since 1.7 the biggest changes if I recall are :

-Espers having equipment bonus.

-The ways buffs are display. That comes in 1.8 IIRC, basically there's now a window that tells you what buff your character currently have (as with the glowing you couldn't tell if all buffs were set), except for Reraise which is indicate by the ATB turning green instead of white and Haste which is still through Red glowing.

-Furthermore Scan now displays what statut the ennemy have.

-Stamina now play a role in the Cover and Counter, basically you can no longer Cover from the Back Row, and Stamina give you a chance to Cover allies even if they aren't on Near-Death statuts. Same with Counter Stamina now affect the odd of countering, hence the popular Cover/Counter combo in 1.9. From what is writting this gonna be nerf a little for 1.10 ^^.

-Life (not Life 2) Spell (as well as Rerise) have been made more potent, now it revive the character with around 250 to 500HP and Phenix Downs only Revive with 1HP.

-Gau can now Leap anywhere (meaning no more time consuming grind in the Veldt), as long as you encounter a formation for which he can Leap (if he can't the Leap ability will simply be disable).

And I think these are the biggest changes, the rest is mostly bug fixing and rebalancing, I would suggest grabing the 1.9's Readme and see the Version's Change part, everything is listed here ^^

It's been a while since I last posted. Sorry that I haven't said my thanks months ago, because I appreciate the answers I got.

I noticed the changelog mentioning Desperation Attacks. Were they in the romhack? Because in my 2 playthroughs of BNW (1.6.4 and 1.8.6) I didn't encounter a single use of Desperation Attacks (maybe I wasn't lucky enough). So what I'm asking is how Desperation Attacks in BNW are different from the original FF6? I tried looking in the printme and I didn't see any of them.

They're in BNW and function the same as in vanilla.

First of all, Happy New Year everyone. May your 2019 be pleasant and C.H.U.D.-free (or may it be loaded with C.H.U.D.s if you're into that sort of thing. I don't judge.)

And now on to Brave New World. Back in 2011, when Synchysi and I started working on our humble little project, we initially envisioned a release date of that Thanksgiving, and then later that Christmas. But then I started working on enemy AI and the first public release of Brave New World was in May of 2013.

What I'm trying to say is that shit takes awhile.

I've been working more or less non-stop on this update for the last nine months or so, and the lion's share of that has been on a very long-overdue look back over enemies and their behavior. Armed with a damage calculator (a LOT of 1.9's enemy stats are pure guesswork, believe it or not) and 6 years' worth of design theory and player feedback, I've done a thorough re-balancing act that Synchysi and I have been talking about doing for years. This overhaul is so significant, in fact, that it along with the largest changelog by far of any update we've done in the past is telling me that version 1.10 (a name that was already causing some confusion) really shouldn't ever exist.

This is 2.0.

It's not exactly the handful of expansion ideas that we had in mind as far as additional content goes (a future version 3.0 isn't exactly off of the table), but make no mistake that everything going into this update will make it a brand new game.

So where are we at now?

My work on this update is now finished and has been shipped off to Synchysi. He has some assembly work to do, as well as putting together the two dozen or so other hacks that have been provided by outside sources. Every significant contributor to Brave New World over the last eight years has pitched in something for this update and it's going to be *huge*.

And it's gonna need some testing.

So while Synchysi gets a beta patch ready, I've put together two lists of things for testers to look for. The first is a list of definitive provables (i.e. here's my proof that the Earth is round) - shit to check off so long as it is verified working - while the second is a list of unprovables (i.e. does God exist?) to keep a constant eye out for since they can't really be definitively *DIS*proved.

Got it? Good. Here we go.

DEFINITIVE PROVABLES

___ Does the shop preview hack display properly?
___ Does the Max HP/ATB view toggle work correctly in battle?
___ Do spells display their colored "dot" in battle? (Do the dots look ok?)
___ Do status auras display properly? (check with multiple statuses)
___ Do Regen/Rerise display properly in the targeting menu?
___ Do Slow/Haste/Stop display properly in the ATB bar?
___ Does Reflect properly wear off randomly when activated and not on a timer?
___ Does the Ribbon properly defend against Stop?
___ Is the tombstone puzzle correct? (Note: please try every possible "wrong" combination)
___ Does the Chainsaw death proc use the "cleave" animation ?
___ Do the Doomsbane/Tarot (anti-undead) death procs use the "X-kill" animation?
___ Does the Doomstick X-Zone proc heal undead enemies?
___ Does absorbing a spell with Runic remove the "vanish" status from Celes/Gogo?
___ Do ground-based attacks (i.e. Quake) clear the "vanish" status from floating targets?
___ Does Seraph grant immunity to "condemned" (easiest test subject: Wrexsoul)
___ Do Glare and Blow Fish miss targets with the "vanish" status?
___ Can Mog/Gogo cover allies while dancing?
___ Does dying to the Guardian (as Leo) result in a game over?
___ Do enemies properly respond to MP damage? (easiest test subject: Soul Train)
___ Does the chest at Ebot's Rock require to be fed its booty all at once?
___ What happens if you feed the chest, it moves, you leave, and come back?
___ Does Shadow's name appear correctly as an opponent at the Colosseum?
___ If Shadow is dead, does the opponent for the Kagenui display properly?
___ Does the "wait" option for the Apocyllumina work as intended?
___ Can you purchase Alexandr at the Fanatic's Tower without incident?
___ Do the Crusader, Alexandr, and Ragnarok espers have the correct settings/users?
___ Does GP Toss do the correct amount of damage (test single and multi-target)?
___ Does ??? do the correct amount of damage?
___ Does Mantra heal for the correct amount?
___ Does the Kusarigama properly cast net AND do additional damage to human targets?
___ Do the Viper Darts still do auto-crits with Daryl's Soul equipped?
___ Does the Imp spell work out of battle?
___ Does the Imp status still affect healing items (namely Phoenix Down)?
___ Does an Imped enemy healed by harvester get its regular sprite back?
___ Do SOS Safe/Shell/Haste relics proc the correct spells?
___ Does Phunbaba attack again right away if you do Mobliz after getting the Falcon?
___ Can Gau use "Leap" in the final battle?
___ Can the Soul Train be properly MP killed?
___ Do bosses correctly give exp./EP?
___ Can an enemy who counters melee attacks counter a counter-attack from your characters?

SHIT TO KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR

___ Random encounters that are too difficult
___ Colosseum encounters that are too difficult
___ Enemies that hit themselves
___ Enemy formations that look fucked up in pincer attacks
___ Typos in the dialogue
___ Blank text boxes
___ Beginner's (or Advanced) School dialogue that needs clarification or needs to be added
___ Enemy or item names that don't match up with the Printme (a lot of things were renamed)
___ Anything else that seems fucked up

I'll make a special note about that first item on the second list: enemy behavior is a *major* aspect of this update. The goal is for it to be more obvious when enemy attack patterns shift, which in turn should make it easier to figure out WHY they shifted. Under ordinary circumstances, enemies will be less aggressive than they are in the current version of Brave New World; when triggered, they will become much worse. The idea is to identify those tiggers and work around them.

SO, if you get your ass kicked in a fight - and you will - the first thing is to figure out why. What was it that killed you? Is it behavior that you can figure out how to prevent? If no, then post about it. If yes, then it's (clearly) functioning as intended.

I wet my pants... 

Can't wait anymore, jumped straight to reading through some changelogs and I like what I see. It's pretty exciting to see just how much stuff there is to fix and tune in pursuit of perfection. But alas, it seems my worst fears are coming true:

• Lowered the HP of many enemies and several bosses who were deemed to have more than necessary

    --> Notable nerfs include Tentacles, Chesticle, Hidon, Inferno (a scripting error had previously
          caused him to have 40,000 more HP than intended), Guardian, Kaiser, and final Kefka

Argh, I find it so hard to believe that I'm the odd one out when it comes to enjoying long&difficult boss fights in these "supermods" as I like to call them... Especially since there's more strategic options and it incentivizes to explore the whole game, complete every quest and battle because you know there will actually be a worthy challenge that's gonna put all that epic gear, levels, builds&the party that you've built to the ultimate test. 

I really hope walking over even more bosses than last time won't ruin the otherwise wondrous experience for me, but what can you do. 

To be fair tough the boss mentions regarding the HP for the most part, they were able to use all their abilities multiple time already before being done, so I think there's room to keep the challenge while reducing their HP a little + Their behavior will probably be better and so I'm confident their HP have been adjusted to their new AI.

Anyway I'm going to copy/paste all the things to watch for and wait for the Beta ^^.

9 minutes ago, Hapanpappa said:

Argh, I find it so hard to believe that I'm the odd one out when it comes to enjoying long&difficult boss fights in these "supermods" as I like to call them... Especially since there's more strategic options and it incentivizes to explore the whole game, complete every quest and battle because you know there will actually be a worthy challenge that's gonna put all that epic gear, levels, builds&the party that you've built to the ultimate test. 

Difficulty is like a penis: just because it's long does not mean that it's hard, and there's a very important distinction between those two things. None of those battles are becoming any less challenging, merely less repetitive. 

37 minutes ago, BTB said:

Difficulty is like a penis: just because it's long does not mean that it's hard, and there's a very important distinction between those two things. None of those battles are becoming any less challenging, merely less repetitive. 

Indeed; I do appreciate this sentiment as well, having had profound debates irl going to silly lengths&detail regarding this topic. It's a balancing act for sure. And I'd like to believe that just because it's shorter doesn't mean it's easier, even though this has usually been the case in rpgs, in my experience at least... I mean if nothing else, longer could mean more chances to make a mistake, more resource management required and so on. But I'll just take your word for it since you know the fine details best. I'll be optimistic. 

The key to a good, interesting boss battle is for it to be DYNAMIC. The thing I look for when I watch streams is when a fight becomes repetitive - when any challenge it has to offer has ceased and the player is just in a loop of performing the same actions over and over waiting for the fight to end. That is the specific thing to be avoided and something that was given a great amount of consideration in this update.

I won't be so full of myself as to say that's what I've accomplished, but it is what I was aiming for

Then how do you feel about fights with multiple stages rather than just having a single pattern or puzzle to be solved? As mentioned, it's been such a long while since my last playthrough so I don't really remember if you had any of those in BNW but surely that would be a way to make fights both longer AND dynamic so the 2 dimensions work in unison to create a multifaceted challenge that requires both short- and longterm planning? Because I interpret your words as indicating that BNW bosses are more about that one riddle - albeit complex, no doubt - that you have to solve and after that, there's not much at all except boredom. In that case, I wholeheartedly agree with shaving off some of the fight length.

Well BNW does has a multiple phase boss with Atma Weapon, which transition to a second phase after buffing and basically use all new moves, Yeti going to Pissy Boss Mod and Final Kefka starting to use Goner can be consider multiple stages, problem is writting such fight would be complex I assume and from what I understand BNW AI script is almost fully use.

1 hour ago, Hapanpappa said:

Then how do you feel about fights with multiple stages rather than just having a single pattern or puzzle to be solved? As mentioned, it's been such a long while since my last playthrough so I don't really remember if you had any of those in BNW but surely that would be a way to make fights both longer AND dynamic so the 2 dimensions work in unison to create a multifaceted challenge that requires both short- and longterm planning? Because I interpret your words as indicating that BNW bosses are more about that one riddle - albeit complex, no doubt - that you have to solve and after that, there's not much at all except boredom. In that case, I wholeheartedly agree with shaving off some of the fight length.

Multiple phases is not problematic in and of itself. The issue becomes when the fight simply becomes more difficult without changing in an appreciable manner. A bad example of this is the goddess fights in 1.9, who simply just start using stronger attacks halfway through the fight. A GOOD example would be Atma Weapon, who still becomes more difficult in the second phase but also meaningfully changes up what is making the fight so difficult. Another example would be Guardian, who has more HP than most any other boss but is not really problematic because the fight has several distinct phases that are each difficult in a completely different way.

On 1/12/2019 at 10:44 AM, Hapanpappa said:

Argh, I find it so hard to believe that I'm the odd one out when it comes to enjoying long&difficult boss fights in these "supermods" as I like to call them... Especially since there's more strategic options and it incentivizes to explore the whole game, complete every quest and battle because you know there will actually be a worthy challenge that's gonna put all that epic gear, levels, builds&the party that you've built to the ultimate test. 

Nah, I've been saying the same thing. I'm also hoping that BNW doesn't become too easy. It's a tough balancing act because I want to recommend BNW to new time FF6 players and I don't want people to be put off by difficulty, yet I don't think BNW (1.9) is difficult at all. Hell, I've seen people seriously say that vanilla FF6 is a hard game. How do you win when people are that bad at a simple game? And those are usually the first people to start complaining. I've never even noticed that Inferno had "bugged" HP, fights have always seemed pretty normal and tense in BNW, as opposed to normal classic RPGs where the boss falls over as soon as you start figuring out the fight.

I do agree that fights tend to devolve into a "rhythm" of using the same abilities on your characters for a few minutes straight, but I'd rather that be fixed with more dynamic scripting as opposed to just slashing HP values.

Maybe at some point it might be worth branching off a "normal" version of BNW and a "hard" version of BNW. I realize that there's a hard mode mod for BNW already, but "enemies have doubled speed" just isn't a very interesting difficulty mechanic vs. different scripting.

1 hour ago, Reiker said:

I do agree that fights tend to devolve into a "rhythm" of using the same abilities on your characters for a few minutes straight, but I'd rather that be fixed with more dynamic scripting as opposed to just slashing HP values.

That's actually what's been happening in most cases, I just really haven't been discussing it much because I don't want to give anything away. The bosses who got HP cuts were the ones who REALLY needed it.

Yeah don't get me wrong, I have faith that you guys have done a good job with this, but I won't know until I get to play through 2.0.

2 hours ago, Reiker said:

Maybe at some point it might be worth branching off a "normal" version of BNW and a "hard" version of BNW. I realize that there's a hard mode mod for BNW already, but "enemies have doubled speed" just isn't a very interesting difficulty mechanic vs. different scripting.

Hopefully this isn't something that's just out of the ballpark of what bnb&co are willing to do at some point. I'd be the first in line lobbing for a hard difficulty here, precisely because it's such a good mod and those are the ones where you really want to push it to the limit, as it were. Not to bash on the mod you mentioned but BNW could probably stand to have a hard more with just a tad more consideration and planning put into it than doubling enemy stats. 

Pac Man is a great game to this day because you can play it several ways. You can play for score, leading the ghosts into the corners so you can eat them all with one power pellet. You can play for progress, ignoring the ghosts and focus on clearing the table. You can self impose challenges like stop moving after eating a power pellet so you don’t get the bonus points and extra lives. 

An RPG is boring if there’s one way to play it. If there’s really only one optimal build and anything else is wasting your time. BNW is very successful at this with the Esper system. Bosses are where this can come to roost, though. If there’s only one solution to the boss, it’s a bad boss. 

pac man sucks

The problem is: how do you make stuff harder in a jrpg?  

More damage?  This means more ohko stuff and party wipes that are entirely rng and unmitigateable. Or if they are mitigateanle, it forces the player into a “do this or you can’t proceed” situation. 

More hp?  As has been mentioned, more hp doesn’t necessarily make harder. It also wastes the players time once they figure out the gimmick. 

More speed is at least a little interesting as it punishes bad decisions without completely upending the balance. It’s not perfect though.

The best way is probably via dynamic AI scripting, but it’s a fine line to toe.

12 hours ago, Mishrak said:

The best way is probably via dynamic AI scripting, but it’s a fine line to toe.

This is what I'm shooting for with Kaiser

Daymn... Kaiser seems like the most appropriate choice here; secretly hoping to see him elevated to superboss levels as he originally was probably meant to be in FF6. I feel like BNW has room to have one superboss that you really have to work to beat.

I greatly dislike the concept of a superboss, because the unspoken implication is that you have one boss in a game that's interesting and worth fighting, while everything else is boring garbage that is made even easier after the "optional" superboss has been defeated. That's not really how I roll.

I picked up a the 1.9.0 version of this and absolutely love what you have done! I hope I can provide some good insight on how my personal experience (and possibly others) can be improved.

• Please keep translations as faithful, clean, and new player friendly as possible.
  • This is the kind of game I use to teach my nephews to read. A good clean translation makes that job easier. Aside from that your translation work is spot on! Great job! I'm constantly roaring with laughter on my end. Clean New World for the win! (Guess that makes me a coward :P)
• Some Notes on Difficulty
  • Some wonderful things have been done to improve monster and character diversity. Superb job! I want each character to feel useful and important. That being said, I don't enjoy the death count it is taking me to learn new things (not to mention the RNG deaths). Here are a couple thoughts on how to make the experience less painful for a new player like me.
    • Limit how often you make a mob completely invincible to certain damage types. Instead make them resistant to half or quarter the amount of damage. Monsters should generally (only) be invincible to a damage type if it is at least somewhat visibly apparent to help prepare the player instead of punishing them for something they couldn't possibly have known.
    • Sometimes it is still fun to brute force a fight even if it isn't the best option. I don't want to take away from your diversity but I do want to encourage that sense of awesomeness that one feels in doing a difficult thing, as I did in FFX when I was first able to use Tidus to kill Flans.
    • Mobs that are invincible (though admittedly sometimes necessary) are not fun. And I would extend this to elemental immunities. Every little bit of damage helps and it is much nicer to say in our minds "Ah! He has resistances to fire!" instead of "Well, those spell points went for nothing."
  • Party Wipes are not fun and death by RNG should be done away with as much as possible. I was only able to get a couple hours into the game before I just had to take a break. I couldn't level/grind at all (probably purposeful) because every two to three encounters I was getting wiped and often it was completely unpreventable.
    • I recommend making mobs have 25-33% of their main damage type. If I make a mistake I want to say "Ouch, that hurt!" And then crawl back to town and buy more dried meat. Often I found myself saying, "Whelp, gotta save again cause I'm probably going to die next encounter." (Saving every encounter is not that fun) or  while going through a dungeon, "Darn! Lost everything from those last three encounters and I have to start the whole cave over!" Players want to feel rewarded for their time and effort. Even if it is just a little bit. Having it all taken away over and over again is kind of punishing.
    • Make the player hurt! Make the player work hard! Make the player try new things or suffer pain! These are all challenges to the player and encourage him/her to be better. But try not to make the player feel robbed or cheated out of their time and that their "work" was for nothing.

I hope you take this bit if criticism as well as possible. These are the only things that I can see that seem to be holding me back from having the enjoyable experience I believe you guys want me to have. It really is a great job you are doing and I am finding this version MUCH more fun than that of the original game.

You are my heroes. Definitely sharing this with my oldschool friends. Thank you for all your hard work!

“Invincible enemies”

Everything has a weakness.  There aren’t any invincible enemies outside of scripted events.

“Completely unpreventable”

I have a hard time believing that to be the case. I don’t know your playstyle but almost everything can be mitigated even if only a little bit. 

“Party wipes and death by RNG”

I’m not sure what you mean by death by rng. If you mean occasionally enemies doing a different attack you didn’t expect (condors are a nice culprit), then observe the enemy and see if you can do something to stop it. In the case of condors you need to kill them quickly.  

True party wipes are pretty rare. One big potential is Flare Star but only Atma uses this.  Make sure you’re paying attention to what row characters are in. 

A lot of this is changing for 2.0 but a lot of what you’re listing as criticism I think is actually just you misunderstanding what’s actually happening in the game. 

On 1/17/2019 at 7:02 PM, RogueYun said:

*Snip*

Glad you're enjoying everything!

So, first of all... most everything you said about difficulty are things that I've already been thinking and the next update addresses it. The game's code doesn't allow enemies to take only half damage from elements - it's all or nothing, but I cut WAY back on the elemental immunities that made little sense and/or felt tacked on.

The translation, well... I guess a lot of it comes down to what we were trying to do. I can't in good faith say that our goal was to make a more faithful version of the original Japanese, because we didn't We went in a different direction with a lot of things, and it's totally okay if that's not what you're after. Most Players will point immediately to the humor for this, but take for example the scene when you're re-recruiting Setzer. In the original Japanese, it's really just kind of... bland. Brave New World makes Setzer very depressed and very much an asshole, and I had a lot of fun writing that scene.

A lot of people assume that Clean New World was written out of spite, when in fact the opposite is actually true. I wrote Clean New World as a personal "thank you" to our own @thzfunnymzn so that he could play the game with his sister. What *would* have been done out of spite - and why I never did it - was the "vanilla" translation that Deschain did for us that will be included in 2.0. I personally have a distaste for it, but appreciate the intent behind its creation and the effort that went into it.

Anyway, that's my take on it. Thanks again for playing and taking the time to write in your thoughts.

You want the player to have to work hard and hurt as you say but party wipes are too much? What's the other option here then, I wonder - not dying or wiping to new things you weren't prepared for seems like the opposite of having to work hard. RNG also seems like a weird way to describe that. Rather, you were just insufficiently prepared. I do agree on the elemental immunity point, though; too bad the game's code is limiting in that respect.

I had a massively different experience going into this the first time. I had enough faith in the developers to assume the challenge is fair so there's always ways around everything if you're willing to pay attention and try different things. Calling RNG and unfair difficulty is a misguided way to react to dying.

RNG fuckery does still exist in Brave New World as it is. We've been trying to phase it out, but it's a difficult thing to do mainly for the reasons that Mishrak brought up.

A "true" RNG death is when absolutely nothing you could have done would have prevented it - the cranes are a pretty good example of this and a very good example of why I decided to trash the "back attack" damage bonus for pincer attacks in 2.0. The wrong sequence of enemy attacks in a pincer situation can kill any party that isn't overleveled or over-armored, which leads us to the tricky part of the argument. It's not *completely* unavoidable in the technical sense, but it's practically unavoidable through anything other than grinding or luck. These are the situations that we are seeking to eliminate.

Updated the beta testing list in this post.

The only time I experienced a wipe, that seemed RNG is when Final Kefka throw me 2 Goners back to back, didn't have the time to heal between the 2 (despite being in Haste), this has happened only once tough so I don't know if I did something wrong that triggers it, and even then the wipe could have been avoid with Reraise but I don't like using Reraise ^^".

Goner is used exclusively as a counter-attack, so yes you definitely triggered it.

What trigger Goner ?

Cranes is one of those fights that’s a little unfair if you’re not prepared for it ahead of time. Which a blind player won’t be obviously.  It is fairly easy to mitigate the damage if you are prepared but the back attack damage bonus going away will help a lot. 

I didn't have trouble with the Cranes the first time, I say first time going blind I had more trouble with Number 128 as because of Celes leaving I didn't have any healer, and barely any items and of course I didn't know his weakness, and it was 1.6 so cover was less good.

7 hours ago, Nesouk said:

What trigger Goner ?

Anything does. Kefka's counter script occurs in "phases" rather than being specific to attack types.

Really excited to play this mod again! I think the last version I played was 1.6 but I lost my save before I could finish it.

I'm definitely going to wait for 2.0, but do you know when it'll be ready more or less? Days, weeks, months? A beta is fine too.

Soon (tm)

As a beta looms nearer, I'm going to supplement my list of things to look for with a few things I want specific feedback on.

__ Random encounters and enemy behavior (obviously), as well as boss fights (double obviously)
__ Hints about beating bosses from NPC - did you notice any? Did you TAKE that advice?
__ Watch out for erroneous "EP gain" messages that appear after the Battle of Narshe, but before you get espers: we need save data to examine this bug
__ Play with Setzer's Dice; does the damage suck? Do we need to fuck with the odds any?
__ Give us a few basic level benchmarks, specifically for the FC and the end of the game. I'm curious to see how often players will overlevel without deliberately grinding

On the topic of Final Kefka, I had one fight (in 1.9) in which he just... never used Goner at all.  That just feels weird.  I like the random counter aspect, as it's scary and chaotic like the horrible man himself, but maybe there could be a guaranteed cast at some HP threshold so the player always sees / has to deal with it?

The odds of Goner never showing up at all are ludicrously low, actually.

Things I am most looking forward to in 2.0 (Which btw I totally called the name of which)

 • Repurposed the Auction House in Jidoor as an "Advanced" Beginner's School - Very small change but I like imagining my friends playing BNW for the first time and NOT getting overwhelmed by the Beginner's School right off the bat. (especially since the mod doesn't come into it's own and distinguish itself heavily from Vanilla till Mt. Koltz imo)

• Completely rewrote enemy AI with a heavy focus on more predictable behavior in random encounters that
   should be easier to exploit and more interesting/dynamic boss battles - I can only talk about this one so much despite the details given because I can't tell EXACTLY how this will change the flow of the game until I actually play it but this sounds like the most exciting change so far. I have always preferred difficulty to come from planning and improvising as opposed to stat buffs. VERY excited for this change.

• Added a minimum number of steps between battles, slightly lowering the overall rate  - This is potentially fantastic. I just hope the change is noticeable. If at all possible, I will try and lower it even further. I need my walking simulator.

 • The "rflect" status now behaves like "image" instead of being on a timer - I hate Reflect in all games. This gives me a viable reason to use it.

 • Updated the "Status Display" hack to include "cycling" auras and be more intuitive  - I was comfortable with how it was in 1.9 but this sounds pretty lit.

Everything else is incredibly minor but there is so much of it that I feel it will really change how the game plays so I am bundling it all into one.

I guess I am really just excited about everything and this post was practically pointless. Oh well.

Any prediction for the launch of 2.0?

We made a policy of not delivering ETAs when we missed our initial launch prediction by a year and a half.

On 1/24/2019 at 11:11 AM, Mishrak said:

Soon (tm)

This is worth waiting a year and a half for, though.

Well, Synchysi has all of the patches sorted out so now we're just in the process of alpha testing to make sure there are no crashes find as many crashes as we can and fix them first.

In the meantime, I think y'all have waited long enough... how about some official 2.0 documentation for ya:

http://btb2.free.fr/mods/ff6/Readme.txt
http://btb2.free.fr/mods/ff6/Printme.xls
http://btb2.free.fr/mods/ff6/Unlockme.rar

(Note that the Unlockme is complete save for updated screenshots, which we obviously can't get yet! It does contain a LOT of other goodies, though - check out the BNWCP!)

Also, one last little surprise for y'all... @Deschain and his Mrs. have been working on a graphical version of the Readme in the style of the original manual. It's very much a WIP at this point (again, screenshots), but it's looking damn good from what I've been seeing.

Wow! Thanks a lot, this will make the wait much easier.

The new Unlockme has a small error.  Very low chance of an actual spoiler in the spoiler tag below, but just in case:

Overall I like a lot of the organizational changes and a lot of the cleaning up.  The change of "bad coding" to "shit coding" made me crack a smile.

I would still strongly advise removing the suggestion of a rape joke on line 540.  That shit is just not acceptable.

Thanks for all your hard work.

Well, I'll be damned... thanks, I'll fix it.

Can I give a suggestion? Recently I tried FF6 - the eternal crystals... while the hack is absolutely unbalanced to the point of Reeeeeeeeeee, it had a cool feature, Locke could throw knives.

To me, it makes perfectly sense that a thief treasure hunter can throw a knife, and given that a lot of enemies carry mithryl knives, and stealing refills Locke's atb, it can be a very nice strategy to steal an enemy's knife and then "give it back" to the owner LOL.

Also it makes sense due to Locke's dual wield that gives him something in common with Shadow, the only issue would be making Shurikens and scrolls inaccesible to Locke cause he's not a ninja.

That would risk making Locke OP in early area especially in Zozo where you can steal Butterfly an Knife that deals Double damage on human.... in an area fill with Human type ennemies, also on a diversity subject Throw is what make Shadow unique so personnaly I wouldn't like another character to be able to do it (even more if it's just to do it with less options), plus Shadow can already does that to an extent equip him with the Switchblades that gives him a chance to steal and you can already do what you describe.

Plus, where would you put the Throw command?

Sooo... On the name of "diversity" Shadow can imitate Locke by stealing, but Locke can't imitate Shadow by throwing knives, a kind of weapons he's adept with?

Yeah, your logic is flawless

12 minutes ago, SWhite said:

Sooo... On the name of "diversity" Shadow can imitate Locke by stealing, but Locke can't imitate Shadow by throwing knives, a kind of weapons he's adept with?

 

Yeah, your logic is flawless

Shadow can but you need a special weapon that isn't that good outside of that so that's handicaping Shadow, plus he doesn't get the free turn afterward if I recall correctly so it's not really recommended to use Shadow that way as it kind of nerf him for no real benefit. Also being good at swinging a Knife doesn't mean you are good at throwing them properly.

As an expert on the matter, I can assure you dual wielding knives/swords is way more difficult than throwing a knife

Very few martial artist choose that option due to how difficult/impractical it is, so it's logicak to think that a dual wielder might be able to effectively throw

2 hours ago, SWhite said:

Can I give a suggestion? Recently I tried FF6 - the eternal crystals... while the hack is absolutely unbalanced to the point of Reeeeeeeeeee, it had a cool feature, Locke could throw knives.

To me, it makes perfectly sense that a thief treasure hunter can throw a knife, and given that a lot of enemies carry mithryl knives, and stealing refills Locke's atb, it can be a very nice strategy to steal an enemy's knife and then "give it back" to the owner LOL.

Also it makes sense due to Locke's dual wield that gives him something in common with Shadow, the only issue would be making Shurikens and scrolls inaccesible to Locke cause he's not a ninja.

That's definitely a neat idea, but I can't really figure out a good way to implement it mechanically.

On 2/11/2019 at 10:20 AM, Miasmir said:

The new Unlockme has a small error.  Very low chance of an actual spoiler in the spoiler tag below, but just in case:

  Reveal hidden contents

Line 680: One reference to the Wrexsoul drop has not been updated to the new drop

Overall I like a lot of the organizational changes and a lot of the cleaning up.  The change of "bad coding" to "shit coding" made me crack a smile.

I would still strongly advise removing the suggestion of a rape joke on line 540.  That shit is just not acceptable.

Thanks for all your hard work.

Hey, thanks for mentioning the r*pe joke thing.  There have been a few things like that in past versions of this hack (namely IIRC there was some "tentacle" related content with the Ultros fight in the mountains, and some stuff with Edgar I felt didn't add much to the story/wasn't particularly funny, but did make me super uncomfortable) but I'm always afraid to bring stuff like that up in gaming communities because like, "edgelord"-y humor is so much the norm still.

Quick question: I'm playng BNW 1.9.0, when the 2.0 will be released, will I just need to repatch my game and keep playing from where I was, or will I have to start a new game?

2.0 will not be compatible with save files from older versions.

I think you will have to restart to see the full range of changes. Stats and spell lists are being tweaked, and those changes won't automatically apply to an existing save. Not sure if any new item(s) come at the expense of retiring old ones, but that sort of thing can cause weird results too. Any treasure locations being shuffled around could cause you to miss certain items (or receive unintended extras) as well.

It's generally a good idea to start over if you want the intended experience, unless it's a minor/patch update that doesn't adjust any of these sort of properties.

There’s a lot of new stuff coming in. A lot. Trying to use a 1.9 save will likely softlock or generate all kinds of weird item combinations. It won’t be playable.  

I remember when I reload a save file of of 1.8 with 1.9 all kind of weird stuff happened like characters having spells they aren't suppose to have, Gau having 25 EL while I barely played him...etc..

Yeah, I mean, all it takes is for the address of something recorded in the save data to change in the new version to cause mayhem. Just imagine that the location of a whole bank of counters shifts by a few positions, and suddenly Shadow's speed becomes Gau's Vigor, or your GP becomes someone's EP. Or the location of spells or items change, and now Cyan's Holy (which he shouldn't even have now to begin with) becomes Goner or something, and his Mutsunokami becomes a Ribbon. I have no idea how the ROM or savedata are organized, so these are just contrived examples, obviously. I'd be curious to know what sort of things are recorded in the savedata that could cause softlock upon load in the new version though, I find that kinda neat.

For a more tangible example, 2.0 changes the addresses of quite a number of spells, so a lot of those will be in the wrong spaces if you try to load a 1.9 save file.

Just an update to anyone who doesn't hang around in our Discord... the beta is still forthcoming, pending getting all of the very many external hacks tetrised into place and some initial checks to make sure nothing is making the game crash. Hopefully it won't be too much longer - thanks everyone for your patience.

If you are interested in joining the beta, please hop into our Discord and request the tester role - you'll be notified when the beta is released and the role can be used to report issues/concerns and communicate with the other testers.

Where can I find a link to the Discord?

Click the "Chat" link above.

I noticed that the updated ReadMe no longer lists the following bug as a "known issue", but also does not mention it as being fixed in the version history:
 

Quote

Physical Rage attacks that set sleep (Raven and Eye Goo) will reportedly always miss on enemies
with large sprites; this one is particularly difficult to nail down due to its transient nature
and tendency to randomly fix itself in the process of troubleshooting it

I only ask because I recently stumbled onto the cause of the bug, and wanted to share it (in case it hasn't already been fixed). I believe it happens in the subroutine that adds the "miss when protected from instant death" flag to any monster special effect with the "death" status. I don't have the address for BNW handy, but in vanilla, the address where BNW jumps to the new subroutine is C2/334B. In the BNW (1.9) subroutine, the status byte is checked for #80, and if set, it adds the "miss when protected from instant death" flag. The problem is, the status byte stored in the accumulator could be any of the 4 status bytes (indexed by X). That means any attack with Death, Sleep, Reflect, or Float will miss targets immune to instant death.

7 hours ago, Bropedio said:

I noticed that the updated ReadMe no longer lists the following bug as a "known issue", but also does not mention it as being fixed in the version history:
 

I only ask because I recently stumbled onto the cause of the bug, and wanted to share it (in case it hasn't already been fixed). I believe it happens in the subroutine that adds the "miss when protected from instant death" flag to any monster special effect with the "death" status. I don't have the address for BNW handy, but in vanilla, the address where BNW jumps to the new subroutine is C2/334B. In the BNW (1.9) subroutine, the status byte is checked for #80, and if set, it adds the "miss when protected from instant death" flag. The problem is, the status byte stored in the accumulator could be any of the 4 status bytes (indexed by X). That means any attack with Death, Sleep, Reflect, or Float will miss targets immune to instant death.

Well, if that's the case, it should be pretty easily checkable since instant death and sleep are different immunity packages. I can't say for sure thinking back to 1.9 if that's the entire issue or if it seems like there's something else... definitely something to add to the testing notes, though!

Btw... who IS Owzer, anyway?

1 hour ago, SarahShinespark said:

Btw... who IS Owzer, anyway?

An incredibly rich and overweight Jidooran noble who looks like a clothed Jabba the Hutt, likes showing off his collections of 'art' to people in order to socialize and impress, and doesn't mind underaged girls hanging around his place (especially if doing work for him) for long periods of time. That the underaged girl in question draws mostly nude artwork (coughStarletcough) makes things even better in Owzer's eyes.

So basically your standard noble with too much time and money, along with Relm being Relm (and of the two, there's an honest question about which one is skeevier here given that neither underaged girls or nudity showed up as part of things until Relm became involved).

So, I know things have been quiet here lately, but a surprising amount of eleventh-hour shit has managed to find its way into 2.0, resulting in a rather massive update required to the documentation. The changelog in the initial post has been updated and that is FINAL - anyone who puts in something new that ISN'T one of the purple (not yet delivered) entries is getting an ass full of pipewrench.

On 7/27/2019 at 8:07 PM, BTB said:

So, I know things have been quiet here lately, but a surprising amount of eleventh-hour shit has managed to find its way into 2.0, resulting in a rather massive update required to the documentation. The changelog in the initial post has been updated and that is FINAL - anyone who puts in something new that ISN'T one of the purple (not yet delivered) entries is getting an ass full of pipewrench.

I never played any ff6 hacks this will be my first one , i guess I'll wait to start with 2.0

Idk what it is all about since I've only played the original game with different translations patches

1 hour ago, Lelfol said:

I never played any ff6 hacks this will be my first one , i guess I'll wait to start with 2.0

Idk what it is all about since I've only played the original game with different translations patches

Might I suggest the Readme: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/160253567012306945/606189399725572096/2.0_files.rar

On 7/17/2019 at 3:25 AM, GLH said:

An incredibly rich and overweight Jidooran noble who looks like a clothed Jabba the Hut

OMG I totally forgot about him! I haven't gotten to Relm in WoR in so long I thought the mansion was Dancho's ? 

On 7/27/2019 at 7:07 PM, BTB said:

The changelog in the initial post has been updated and that is FINAL - anyone who puts in something new that ISN'T one of the purple (not yet delivered) entries is getting an ass full of pipewrench.

OH MY GOD.

"Enemies disabled by status effects can no longer counter-attack on death"

"Green Cherries will now cancel any action that the target has queued (-Bropedio)" -Sounds like a low level way to fight bosses lol

"Status-setting attacks now provide more feedback if that status attempt fails (-Bropedio)

    --> If the target resists the status with stamina, a "FAIL" message is displayed

    --> If the target is immune to the status, a "NULL" message is displayed"

-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

"Shops can now display the "full" stats of of equipment prior to purchase (-dn)

 • The equip menu now displays full item descriptions as the inventory screen does (-GrayShadows)

 • The rage menu now displays the attacks on each rage (-dn)"

Enemy names "Doggo" and "Rhydon" ?

"Version 2.0 (August 31, 2019)" ?

4 hours ago, Lelfol said:

I never played any ff6 hacks this will be my first one , i guess I'll wait to start with 2.0

Idk what it is all about since I've only played the original game with different translations patches

Let's just say you'll be entering... a brave new world.

7 minutes ago, SarahShinespark said:

"Green Cherries will now cancel any action that the target has queued (-Bropedio)" -Sounds like a low level way to fight bosses lol

Actually, the issue (If I recall correctly) is that the queued action results in the Rage status being set again. This causes the Rage 'status' to be reapplied and Gau keeps doin' his thing.

10 hours ago, BTB said:

Might I suggest the Readme: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/160253567012306945/606189399725572096/2.0_files.rar

That's a lot of work done haha, the esper bonus system alone would already make me wanna play this.

I'll be basically a new game for me

Here's a little preview of that equip screen hack GrayShadows is working on:

I've been following this since back on Insanely Difficult and boy, I can't wait for this update.

I know it's tough to put a date, but do you have a hopeful ETA for release? 

7 minutes ago, blitzkingjecht said:

I've been following this since back on Insanely Difficult and boy, I can't wait for this update.

 

I know it's tough to put a date, but do you have a hopeful ETA for release? 

Not really. Best I can tell you is that the current beta is the final version in all but name.

I appreciate the update and look forward to when it is released!

Well, the unified equip screen is now in and you'll notice a very distinct lack of purple entries (not yet delivered) in the changelog in the initial post.

In other news, I've recently posted an article about good boss design in RPGs, specifically discussing Atma Weapon and Kaiser's 2.0 rewrite. It's not TOO spoilery for the latter as what I discuss is mostly limited to what you are given as a hint from a random NPC on how to beat Kaiser (information without which the fight is something out of the tenth circle of Hell).

Where are the new WoB and WoR Exp, EP and GP farming spots? Doesn't seem to be in the deserts anymore >.>

The deserts are still the best all-around grinding spots.

Hi, i love your mod, it's a much more funny game now.

At the moment, i'm trying the 2.0 beta and i've finished the 1.9 in the past. I'm using the beta testing list to find problems on the PSP emulator Snes9xTYLme, and for now the checklist is ok. 

I'm at the begin of the Kefka's tower now, so quite at the end, and i'd like to report some of my wishes and considerations, for what they're worth:

• The second boss battle in Narshe is too much simple. What about a nerf to moogles weapons?
• a bit more health for phantom train and KingBehemoth please
• WEAPON,the enemy in the ancient caste, is too much rare. It is the most beautiful fight in that dungeon, and there is not a real boss there, so why not spamming WEAPON inside the castle like there is no tomorrow? 
• zombie protect to the memento ring, please (That is not dead, which can rise again).
• Gogo is pink in Cyan’s dream (when you must find your friends).
• Crusader is now useless…at all (auto-reflect? mhe…give me 25% of hp or power! a status defense at least. Come on, it’s Crusader!).
• i think steal is a bit too nerf, especially for Locke (in WOR, Shadow with switchblade can easily do the job). You can obtain only consumable items from steal and some hidden equipment, so why not using the ffx system? you can steal only consumable and hidden, yes, but you can do this multiple times in a battle, with scaling rates of success.
• In the same way, rare steals are such a pain. is there any possibility to create a new relic, only for Locke, to steal only rare items(just like ffx! god…i love that game)? 
• interceptor, the dog, is quite rare. i know that someone else asked the same question, but i want to try again: is it possible to create a new relic for shadow to increase the chances to use the dog?
• is it possible to add a weak knife with Mute status (the traditional Mage masher)?
• what do you think about the implementation of the right and left hand system in the equipment menu (bonus for the main hand of the character, just like ffIV)? 
• it’s just a wish, but it would be very nice if someone created a patch for Celes with Maria dress in the unlockme.

just my 2 cents...nothing more.

Does anyone know if the game emulates flawlessly on the 3DS? 

On 10/7/2019 at 5:05 PM, Nomjitsu said:

Does anyone know if the game emulates flawlessly on the 3DS? 

The BNW mod is a heavily modified version for the FF6 SNES Rom. So you need an SNES emulator and FF6 (originally called FF3 when it was brought to the USA) Rom of some sort for BNW to work.

On 10/7/2019 at 5:05 PM, Nomjitsu said:

Does anyone know if the game emulates flawlessly on the 3DS? 

It depends, but in my experience the game ran mostly fine on a NEW 3DS using the default emulator, sound emulation was a bit off from what I remember but the game itself seemed to play fine. (And I think there's some slowdown with certain spell effects like Mantra.)
So no not flawless, but definitely playable.

Does this work on Canoe on an SNES Classic out of the box or would I need to run it in a RetroArch core?

5 hours ago, rwbonesy said:

Does this work on Canoe on an SNES Classic out of the box or would I need to run it in a RetroArch core?

Yes it works on canoe out of the box. You may want to disable controller shortcuts as it may cause some graphical glitches at the sealed gate. Other than that it works fine.

This is a message to all the Gau friends out there.  If you're listening, Gau and I need a little counciling.

See, it all started when I thought to myself "you know, I never use Gau.  I know he's been all shined and polished up since vanilla and I've seen some forum posters swear he is OP if only you learn to use him... So you know what?  I'll give him a chance!"

And I gave him a chance.  I gave him a chance all the way through the Magitek Factory with his best bud Sabin and he got KOed a lot but everything was going just fine.  Until the mine cart ride.  Which I just died on five times in a row, playing what I thought were more and more conservative strategies: Locke on heal (shiv) and Life/Fire2, Sabin on Fire Dance and Black Belt/counters, and Gau trying his best with Conjurer for Rerise but he keeps throwing Frazzle instead.  Wipe after wipe.  And no chance to go back and pick someone I know how to use.

So, any advice, thou Gau whisperer?  Can someone show me how I'm mishandling the wild child (or the party comp) and help me save this file?  I, as an FFVI veteran, of course don't have a backup save.

(Edit: this is 2.0 RC27-P, if it matters.)

Have you try any offensive rage instead of defensive ? IIRC the Rain Man Rage you can get on the World Map before Vector works wonder in Magitek Factory and Mine Caret.

1 advise with Gau would be to always carry Green Cherries which allows you to cancel a Rage to do another one if you need to change strategy midway, Gau can pretty much adapt to any situation, you really need to learn which Rage does what (consult the Printme for that). One problem with Gau is if you really want to get the maximum out of him you need to invest a lot of time in learning Rage (thankfully WAAAAAAY less time than in Vanilla thanks to the number of Rages being reduce and the possibility to Leap outside of Veldt).

Hey, thanks Nesouk!  Fortunately I had Rain Man, and that was great advice: Bolt2 let Gau one-shot a MagRoader (sometimes before it one-shotted Gau with Wheelie) and clear the arms on Number 128 pretty quickly, which made the whole thing more manageable.  In hindsight I was also making the mistake of having everyone kitted out in rogue gear, so no one could take a significant number of hits and stay standing.  Once I put tankier gear on Locke and gave him a Knight Cape, I could keep Gau alive most of the time and use Sabin for targeted damage or support as necessary. 

This is a good example of what I like so much about this revision of FFVI: there are actual build options that let you really take advantage of the combinatorial possibilities of the huge character roster.  

BTW, listing what the actions are in the Rage menu is a huge quality-of-life improvement, thanks whoever made that happen.  

How's progress? Are we looking at a 2020 release?

BTBLast Sunday at 5:13 PM

Ok, since this is being asked at least once per day now, the current state of the 2.0 beta (see pinned posts below this one) is essentially finished as far as the end-user is concerned. It is still in beta because this current version and many before it were produced by Bropedio, an outside coder with no access to the Brave New World source, and the final version will need all of his work formally integrated with our own. This is a long process that has taken longer than expected. We have no expected timeframe for completion, but the current beta is stable and can safely be considered "final" for the casual player.

what work is bropedio adding?

At the moment, nothing. How much HAS he added since he started? WAY too much to list.

I'm not worried: Even if this takes until December next year it will be worth the wait. @BTB and @Synchysi are doing god's deed along several people and good content takes time

The explanations are still a bit confusing. What content is Bropedia working on? What will change between the currently available 2.0 beta and the final release version?

Is it just the purple stuff?

 --> The basement level of the Ancient Castle is no longer hidden  (I don't really know what this means)

• Restored Crusader's full vanilla sprite 

These things don't seem to be important enough to hold up a release, maybe put em in as 2.1 later?

That's not it. The issue is that the current beta is a patch on TOP of BNW code rather than integrated in. There are somewhere in the neighborhood of 170 direct conflicts with Bro's code and the source.

I'll guess I'll ask it like this. What are all of the differences between the current version and the release version? I think I asked this before and the answer was "virtually nothing." And if that's the case I guess I don't understand the difference between the current beta and the full release if there won't be any noticeable change on the player's end. You could call the fully integrated version 2.1 or something. Shrug.

Also if the Woolsey patch is still happening, I'm assuming that won't be until full release or is that available now too?

Also maybe consider releasing the stable beta version as 2.0b or something like that? Not a big deal either way, but if it's stable and playable then I don't really see a good reason not to release it outside of the discord.

January 1, 2020:

Brave New World 2.0