Final Fantasy XIII-2
Arth's Final Fantasy XIII-2 Patch
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In the holiday spirit, I bequeath to you the results of a thought experiment I had: how can the gameplay in this game be improved? Here is what I have so far covering various facets of battle mechanics and party balancing. This is just for fun, so I'm not looking to debate anyone about this. It's just something I threw together and hopefully an interesting read for you. Restrictions on this hypothetical "patch": - There will be no discussion of enemy or battle design, or issues of difficulty. The purpose of these tweaks is to improve balance solely on the party's side of battle. - Ability changes are restricted to existing visual designs. That means no new abilities that would require new animations and no changes to animation speeds for any character or monster. - No altering the fundamentals of the battle system. The "spirit" of each role must be maintained and adherence to general design philosophy of abilities is observed. The concepts of the Paradigm Pack are preserved, so we are still only restricted to three monster slots. Remember that this is non-exhaustive, so it's just what I thought of first and would most like to see. There are also details missing where I don't really care to specify them because either they don't matter, I haven't thought them through, or I'm not interested. PART 1: CHANGES TO ROLE ABILITIES a. Commandos Remove Feeders, Chasers, Stagger: Wound and Stagger: Drain. Armor Breaker and Mind Piercer can be transferred freely. These two abilities provide advantages too large to be exclusive to only a handful of COMs. Jeopardize is no longer the bonus infusion ability, but a regular role ability and can be transferred. Adrenaline is the new bonus infusion ability and cannot be transferred. Ruinga cannot be transferred. Blindside now changes Attack/Ruin modifier to 1.5 if the target is Provoked by a Sentinel (so it's the Provoked version of a Chaser). It cannot be transferred. The new priority of enhancements is the following: Bloodthirsty > Blindside > Armor Breaker Blindside > Mind Piercer b. Ravagers None at this time. c. Sentinels All modifiers for Entrench and Vendetta are tripled. d. Saboteurs Remove Endless Nightmare. It's a useless ability. The modifiers for Wound and Woundga becomes 3.5 and 4.25 respectively if the target is staggered. Add back Slow and Slowga as debilitations that function identically to how they did in FFXIII. Specify a new physical ability, Gouge, using a basic physical attack animation. - The base damage modifier is 0.7 with no Wound damage - If the target has one debuff applied, the modifier becomes 2.0 - For each additional debuff applied after the first, the modifier changes by +0.1 (for a maximum modifier of 3.0 when 11 debuffs are applied: Deprotect, Deshell, Imperil, Poison, Curse, Slow, Pain, Fog, Debrave, Defaith, Daze) Specify two new role abilities that enhances Gouge and bypass Dispel immunity. 1) Augment Feeder: removes most recently applied augment and transfers it to the SAB (duration: 60 secs). Gouge damage modifier becomes 6.0 2) Defense Feeder: removes most recently applied defense and transfers it to the SAB (duration: 60 secs). Gouge damage modifier becomes 6.0 Reintroduce Stagger: Wound as a role ability that enhances Gouge. The damage modifier becomes 1.0 if the target is staggered. Base Wound damage is 100%. The enhancement priority for Gouge is: Stagger: Wound > Augment Feeder > Defense Feeder The SAB AI uses Gouge or Wound depending on stat bias (Strength or Magic) after all possible ailments have been inflicted. e. Synergists Vigilaga is an augment, not a defense (as it probably should be anyway). f. Medics The effects of Cheer are tripled. | |
PART 2: CHANGES TO PASSIVE ABILITIES Improved Debuffing, Improved Debilitation, and Augment Maintenance do not exist solely as red locks, thereby making them freely available for infusion transfer. Improved Counter and Improved Counter II modifiers are increased to 250% and 500% respectively. Remove Hindrance, Enfeeblement, and Jungle Law. Introduce a new passive, Role Amplification (I'm not thrilled with this name but whatever). The effect is the same as Pack Mentality, but is triggered when all three monsters of a Paradigm Pack are of the same role. PART 3: CHANGES TO CHARACTER CRYSTARIUMS a. Commando Serah learns Mind Piercer at Level 99. Noel learns Armor Breaker at Level 99. b. Ravager Serah learns Felflame at Level 98 and Felspark at Level 99. Noel learns Felfrost at Level 98 and Felgust at Level 99. c. Sentinel Both characters now learn Reprieve at Level 99. Serah's revised ability list: Provoke Challenge Vendetta Entrench Reprieve Noel's revised ability list: Provoke Steelguard Mediguard Element Guard Reprieve d. Saboteur Serah's revised ability list: Deprotect Deprotega Deshell Deshellga Imperil Imperilga Wound Woundga Dispel Dispelga Curse Cursega Pain Painga Fog Fogga Jinx Noel's revised ability list: Same as Serah's, but single-target variants only and no Jinx. Therefore, the only ailments that Serah and Noel do not have access to are Poison and Slow. e. Synergist Serah learns Enfire at Level 98 and Enthunder at Level 99. Noel learns Enfrost at Level 98 and Enaero at Level 99. f. Medic None at this time. | |
PART 4: CHANGES TO WEAPONS Introduce two new weapons for Serah with the following passives: Improved Debuffing II Improved Counter II Introduce two new weapons for Noel with the following passives: Improved Guard II Defense Maintenance II Arcus Chronica and In Paradisum carry the following passives: Break Damage Limit Improved Stagger Role Resonance PART 5: MONSTER BALANCING a. Commandos Chichu Max Optimized Strength: 1134 -> ~850 Bloodthirsty: No Blindside: No Ruinga: No Twilight Odin Max Optimized Strength: 1189 -> ~6000 Bloodthirsty: Yes Blindside: No Ruinga: Yes Learns Break Damage Limit [R] at Level 99. Lightning Bloodthirsty: No Blindside: Yes Ruinga: Yes Golden Chocobo Max Optimized Strength: 1000 -> ~1200 Bloodthirsty: Yes Blindside: Yes Ruinga: Yes Dreadnought Max Optimized Strength: 773 -> ~2000 Bloodthirsty: No Blindside: No Ruinga: No Narasimha Max Optimized Strength: 1118 -> ~1400 Bloodthirsty: Yes Blindside: No Ruinga: No Apkallu Bloodthirsty: No Blindside: Yes Ruinga: Yes Miniflan Max Optimized Magc: 1005 -> ~1400 Bloodthirsty: No Blindside: Yes Ruinga: Yes Cactuar Bloodthirsty: No Blindside: Yes Ruinga: Yes Cactuaroni Bloodthirsty: Yes Blindside: No Ruinga: Yes Lucidon Max Optimized Strength: 1158 -> ~2000 Bloodthirsty: No Blindside: No Ruinga: No Gilgamesh Max Optimized Strength: 1044 -> ~1200 Bloodthirsty: No Blindside: No Ruinga: Yes Typhon Max Optimized Magic: 994 -> ~2000 Bloodthirsty: No Blindside: No Ruinga: Yes b. Ravagers Tabasco Toad Learns Power Link [R] Spiceacilian Learns Mana Link [R] Bomb Feral Link changes to Friendly Fire (Faith, Enfire, Vigilance, Veil) Tempest Feral Link changes to Friendly Fire (Faith, Enaero, Vigilance, Veil) Cryohedron Feral Link changes to Friendly Fire (Faith, Enfrost, Vigilance, Veil) Cloudburst Feral Link changes to Elemental Overdrive c. Sentinels Goblin Chieftain Spirit Infusion no longer confers Bravery d. Saboteurs Samovira Becomes SYN, retains Feral Link Nabaat Gouge: Yes Augment Feeder: Yes Defense Feeder: Yes Stagger: Wound: No e. Synergists Gahongas Becomes SAB, retains Feral Link Learns Ironstrike [R] Purple Chocobo Does not learn Augment Maintenance II That's all I have for now. | |
can you add AI fixes? AI syn doesnt cast enfire.enaero,enfrost,enwater when enemy not weak to element. AI syn priotises the attack buff that matches enemy weakness so if weak vs magic then faith is cast or if normal physical but strong against magic then bravery is cast. AI syn doesnt wait for buffs to be flashing before casting endless blessing, instead it casts endless blessings whenever idle, I would also buff endless blessing to +15 sec duration. AI syn with boon tries to prioritise shorter duration buffs first so they get most advantage from boon effects. | |
Interesting read! I especially like how monster Sabs were attempted to be made more useful by giving them the nicer Com abilities. I also like how Serah and Noel gain the Fel- abilities and En- spells pertaining to their apparent element preference for -ras and -ga spells. I would've also liked to have seen more differentiation between Serah and Noel (beyond Serah gets Sab -gas, Noel gets Syn -gas; maybe Noel gets Pain, Serah gets Fog?) but admittedly that is more of a personal preference and not at all for the sake of balancing as you had intended. --- Divisibility by four? Ha! I mean, even perfect squares are divisible by four! Currently playing: Final Fantasy XIII. | |
I'm on the same boat as LewdDolphin21. As it stand, players would have no inclination in using SYN Serah or SAB Noel. How about a more even ability distribution for SAB and SYN? Saboteur Transfer Serah's Deshellga and Fogga over to Noel. Maybe even make it so that only Serah can use Deprotect/Deprotega while Noel can use Deshell/Deshellga? Synergist Transfer Noel's Shellga and Veilga over to Serah. | |
I agree that there should be a better way to balance Serah's and Noel's SAB/SYN, but I haven't spent enough time to come up with a "neat" enough solution, if you know what I mean. | |
Also, I'm fairly iffy on the Blindside change. I guess I don't really like the idea of completely altering an established mechanic. I do like the idea of a COM bonus against Provoked targets, but I didn't know what to call it other than ... Blindside. | |
I don't think Blindside need a change considering provoked foes generally doesn't target the blindsiding COM. So the Chasers have been entirely removed? How about moving it to Medic role, it's the only role without auto-abilities. Basically, it boosts Magic when the allies are afflicted with certain ailments. Give (slightly) more incentive to use the monster MED over Serah and Noel. | |
I was going to ask about Blindside, actually. Does it still only bolster the first hit? It's not really a Chaser analog if so. --- CWLSIV |
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