Huh, this site isn't dead/unreachable for once.
Well, neither am I.
So here's a
more complete version if someone is interested.
Main features:
*) increased battle fluidity: no more waiting to take turns, ATB gauge is almost instant and can be stored for future multi-turns
*) ability to save up turns now and take them later
*) greater influence over amount of battles and their challenge
*) less inventory management: auto-heal after victory, re-usable consumables
*) high customization in jobs, gear and abilities
*) job levels have high longterm impact
*) new additional job abilities
*) rename party members
*) more tactical depth with elements, i.e. influence with status effect chances, even against bosses
Detail Overview:
general battle changes:
-battle frequency is now dependant on the former battle speed setting; 6 - rare, 3 - vanilla rate, 1 - grind mode
-challenge level can now be adjusted in the config: affects enemy damage, defense, HP and speed
-ATB is now instantaneous
-if MP is 100 or above the wait phase between turns can be skipped by using 100 MP
-defending and guarding restore 100 MP
-MP at battle start is set to 10 unless certain abilities are equipped or specific jobs were levelled
-MP damage that exceeds current MP now gets added to ATB until next turn
-near death is now 25% HP or less (instead of 12.5%), abilities like cover trigger accordingly
-backrow modifier is now 75% instead of 50%
Stat changes:
-strength reduces equipment burden
-agility increases accuracy and evade
-agility and magic partially bypass enemy magic evade
-changed HP/MP progression
-HP gain softcaps at Lv30, 1600 base HP compared to 2000 at Lv99
-damage softcaps at Lv35
-equipped skills add stat bonuses instead of increasing the minimum stat level
-most abilities provide stat bonuses when equipped; passive abilities, especially innate ones, provide higher stats
Job changes, general:
-choice between "Normal" and "Single" Mode in config, details below
-required ABP for job up only depends on number of current total job level
-stat influence of being in a certain job has been turned down
-each Job level up grants stat bonuses to the character
-each Job has now 7 levels
-a character can at most have 70 job levels
-all Jobs have one Job-related Slot plus 3 free slots
-!Fight and !Item are optional
-innate abilities are active for all jobs once unlocked
-Caution, Preemptive, Berserk, Cover and Counter are no longer innate
-Berserker is no longer auto-berserk
-every job can equip every item
Job changes, Normal Mode:
-similar to vanilla FF5
-each character is restricted by which jobs they can use, e.g. Bartz can normally never be a Chemist
-each character has access to a total of 15 jobs once the jobs are unlocked
-each job is banned on at least one character
-it is no longer possible to change back to Freelancer
-wearing a Sage Stone unlocks ALL jobs on that character, even if not yet aquired
-having 1 or more ABP in a banned job without an equipped Sage Stone makes the character suffer from incurable Old status
Job changes, Single Mode:
-comparable to FF1
-you get access to all jobs after the first boss
-once a non-freelancer job is chosen for a character (gained 1 ABP in it), it cannot be changed anymore
-exp gain is doubled, abp gain is halved (rounded up)
-Single Mode is not accessible when a character has two or more jobs with at least 1 ABP each
-changing from Single Mode to Normal Mode is always possible
Weapon changes:
-Knives now properly use (STR+AGL)/2 instead of STR/2 + (high byte)(AGL/2)
-Chicken Knife now uses (STR+AGL)/2 instead of STR+AGL
-Chicken Knife now has 20 attack at 0 escapes and goes up by 2 per escape, caps at 90 attack power; for non-weapon purposes attack power is 0
-BraveBlade starts at 100 attack and goes down by 1 per escape
-BraveBlade loses attack for ALL purposes on escaping not only for regular attacks, e.g. also for Goblin Punch
-Lances can be used with Double Grip
-Rods and Staves now use (STR+MAG)/2 instead of STR; attack value is no longer random between 0 and 2x attack power
-all weapons have now a base element, e.g. most swords deal fire damage, this stacks with the effect of spellblade
-weapons that had a element in vanilla are still "auto-spellblade", meaning using a spellblade effect overwrites the special property
-unarmed attack power increases by VIT/2
-increased accuracy of Blood Sword from 25 to 65
Equip changes:
-instead of helm, armor and relic you can now equip 3 relics
-all pieces of equipment are elemental and contrbute to elemental strength and weaknesses of the character
-relics add a mix of resistances and weaknesses
-relics increase attack power of weapons and spells of matching element by +10% (additive with each other and character bonus)
-if you are both weak and resistant to an element it becomes neutral
-shields remove their listed element from weaknesses, this step applies after weakness and resistance wipe each other out
-armors can now increase eva% instead of only shields, this stacks with AGL and is capped at 70%
-armors can now also increase base HP (profits from VIT)
Item changes:
-consumables like Potion, Ether, Antidote and mixing ingredients are no longer used up
-their effectiveness increases with stack size, 1x Potion heals for 50 HP, 99x Potion heals 1250 HP
-using !Item, !Mix, !Throw, !Drink puts those abilities on cooldown until it can be used again, stronger items require longer cooldown
-Elixir, Phoenix Down and status removal items get shorter cooldowns with bigger stacks
-breaking Rods does not give a cooldown and still destroys the weapon
-when defending remaining cooldown gets reduced by 25%
-added Bombs that deal constant damage to all enemies, power based on stack size
Element changes:
-hitting a weakness now only reduces effective defense by 25% instead of ignoring it entirely
-hitting a resistance now reduces atk power by 25% and increases effective defense by 50% (formerly was just -50% attack power)
-hitting a immunity now reduces atk power by 50% and increases effective defense by 50% (formerly was auto-miss)
-defending targets have no elemental weakness
-each character has two elements for which they increase attack power of weapons and spells by +10% (additive with relic bonus)
-Bartz empowers wind and lightning elemental attacks
-Lenna empowers water and ice elemental attacks
-Galuf empowers earth and holy elemental attacks
-Faris empowers fire and poison elemental attacks
Ability changes:
-spell abilities !White, !Black, !Red, !Time, !Summon are now only learned once and grant access to all their spells (if learned) like !Blue
-in battle non-active skill slots are filled with non-duplicate !Item, !Fight, !Brave, !Scan
-Barrier: triggers now at 1/4 instead of 1/16 (and only if shell is not already active)
-Brawl: attack power bonus increases by 1 per level instead of 2 and caps at Lv35
-Counter: chance increased from 50% to 70%
-Counter: changed used ability from !Fight to !Counter; same modifiers for now but displays name on top
-Defend/Guard: defend/guard stance is cancelled on free/extra turns (e.g. 100 MP use)
-Defend/Guard: damage reduction now applies against all attacks that respect either physical defense or magic defense
-Defend/Guard: negates elemental weakness, reduces chance to get hit by status effects
-Defend: reduces damage only by 25% instead of 50%
-Drink: items are no longer consumed but put the command in cooldown, bigger stacks give shorter cooldowns; cooldown shared with Item
-Dual-Wield: now has a 13/16 attack power penalty
-Double Grip: 125% attack power instead of 200% final damage
-Drink: Power Drink now increases attack power by 10 instead of a dummy value, capped at +30
-Equip X abilities were replaced with new abilities
-Fight: successful hit regains 5 MP (3 if dual wielding), up to 80 MP
-Gaia: random chance independant of level, roughly 25% chance for each local spell effect
-GilToss: cost lowered to 10*VIT Gil per target
-GilToss: base damage is 1.5*VIT+5 instead of based on level
-GilToss: damage multiplier is based on level*(AGL+VIT)/2 instead of fixed 150
-GilToss: uses earth element
-Guard: take 1/4 damage instead of 0 from physical attacks
-HP +10%: renamed to Bulwark, adds 10 VIT as well
-HP +20%: renamed to Endure, HP +10%, can survive lethal hit if HP was > 1/8 before
-Kick: takes unarmed base attack power now into account instead of only using the brawl bonus
-Medicine: no longer affects MP recovery
-Mix: items are no longer consumed but put the command in cooldown, bigger stacks give shorter cooldowns; cooldown shared with Item
-MP +10%: renamed to Turbo MP, provides 10 MP at battle start
-Observe/Scan: grant free turn afterwards
-Red: grants White and Black magic up to level 4
-Rose: formerly Red2, grants White and Black magic up to level 2
-Slash: changed to hit-all physical 85 power STR/AGL attack with 75% base accuracy instead of kill all
-Song: max stat bonus reduced to 30 instead of 99
-Spellblade: grant free turn afterwards
-Spellblade: now compatible with all non-spell weapon types (Bows yes, Rods yes, Blood Sword no)
-Spellblade: no longer usable with X-Magic
-Steal: chance to steal and chance for rare item increases with AGL
-Throw: does no longer consume the item but gets a cooldown based on item used, e.g. Shuriken have faster cooldown, stronger weapons longer; cooldown shared with Item
-X-Fight: no longer ignores defense or evasion
-X-Fight: no longer lets magic weapons deal double the intended damage
-X-Fight: reduced from 4 to 3 attacks, increased damage from 50% to 57%
-X-Magic: only provides access to level 1 white/black spells by itself
-X-Magic: spells cast via this suffer a 13/16 attack power penalty
-X-Magic: can no longer use spellblade spells
New Abilities:
-AreaCast: equip-passive that lessens multitarget penalty for damage and accuracy from spells as if spells were "always multitarget"
-Brave: does not use the current turn and gain 100 MP = get to act twice now; delay until next turn is doubled
-Crit Up: increases chance for critical hits and their damage on katana and bows; increases min and max damage of axes
-Finesse: menu with 8 physical skills; work with spellblade, 2handed, dualwield and weapon's element
-Heal Amp: increase power of heal magic by 50%
-Martial: menu with 8 physical skills, 3 of those are shared with Finesse, same modifiers
-MagicAmp: increase magic elemental damage, same as e.g. Ice Rod, not stacking with those items
-MassCast: allows to multi-target certain otherwise single-target-only spells
-Pierce: attacks ignore absorb, immunity, resistance to element
-Politics: stealing gets you 2 copies of an item, double post battle reward
-Revenge: receive 25 MP when taking attack damage; poison and other effects do not count for this
-S-Jump: jump with double damage and longer air time
-Steady MP: recover MP after each turn
-TwinCut: perform two regular attacks with reduced attack power but increased multiplier
-Y-Magic: "counterpart" to X-Magic; non-X-cast magic gets 25% attack power boost
-Aero, Aid, Armor, Comet, Cure, Drain, Fury, IceSwd, Mute, Psych, Shell, Slow: cast spell of same name free of charge, single target only
-Sleep: cast spell of same name free of charge, multi target possible
-Sand: use enemy ability Quicksand free of charge, single target only
-Quake: use enemy ability of same name free of charge, multi target only
Spell changes, general:
-changed spell damage formula to include equipped weapon; this works as a % modifier of the spells' spell power
-in case of dual wield, uses the stronger weapon
-in case of double grip (ability known + free hand), 1/8 bonus is given
-for BraveBlade the dimished attack value is used
-"rod breaking" uses a value based on level instead
-staves and rods grant an additional bonus to spell power
-multitarget penalty was changed from -50% atk power to a M factor based on the number of enemies hit (100%, 65%, 45%, 36%, 29%, 25%, 23%, 20%)
-formerly multitarget penalty free spells (not abilities) now are subject to a lesser multitarget penalty (100%, 82%, 60%, 49%, 43%, 38%, 35%, 33%)
-likewise magic accuracy modifiers (mostly status spells, other auto-hit) were changed from 100%, 50%, ..., 50% to 100%, 71%, 60%, 53%, 47%, 44%, 41%, 38%
-flare-type spells now only pierce 1/2 defense instead of 31/32
-level based type spells use (80..150)% weapon damage as base instead of fixed 10..100
-level based type spells use (30+level/4) as stat for the M multiplier
-random type spells use (100% weapon damage + (0..40))*C/16 power instead of 50..200, with C as the original M multiplier
-for random type spells M is now calculated the same as for normal spells
-modified a few spell animations to make them multitarget compatible
-revive effects cancel doomed state
-extra damage against specific monster type spells now only get x4 damage instead of x8
-magic accuracy was changed from Hit% + (attacker.Level - target.Level) to Hit% + (attacker.Mag - target.Vit)/4
-spells based on caster's HP (e.g. Exploder, Holy Breath) or target's max HP (e.g. Flame, Breath Wing) are now properly influenced by resistances and weaknesses
Spell changes, specific:
-Animal/Mysidian Rabbit: heals party slightly instead of doing nothing
-Animal/Unicorn: no longer a full heal, changed to very strong heal with blind/poison removal
-Black/Curse: replaces Bolt3, against next hit target has 0 defense and takes +50% damage
-Black/Dark: replaces Lightning2, try to inflict blind to one enemy
-Black/Drain: added wind element
-Black/Psych: added poison element, capped at 50 MP
-Black/Quake: replaces Fire3, earth/ground elemental damage to all enemies
-Black/Stun: replaces Ice2, try to inflict paralyzation to one enemy
-Black/Tempr: replaces Ice3, increases attack power by 6, capped at +30
-Black/Water: replaces Fire2, water elemental damage to one/all enemies
-Blue/Aqua Rake: added water element
-Blue/Crusher: replaces Fusion, deals damage equal to target's max HP - current HP
-Blue/Exploder: x2 damage and caster survives with 1 HP if used by player
-Blue/Goblin Punch: damage bonus against same level target reduced from x8 to x4
-Blue/Hammer: MP damage changed to 50%+20
-Blue/L? Holy: replaces Aero2, use "Holy" against enemies whose level is NOT dividable by 2,3,4 or 5
-Blue/Needles: x2 damage if used by player
-Blue/Snowstorm: replaces Aero3, deals ice elemental level based damage against all enemies, can inflict blind
-Blue/Vampire: drains by 50% caster HP instead of 100%
-Blue/White Wind: heals by 50% caster HP instead of 100%
-Mix/Dragon Shield: immunity to wind damage
-Mix/Explosive: x2 damage and caster survives with 1 HP if used by player
-Mix/Kiss of Blessing: berserk status no longer ignores immunity
-Mix/Resist Fire: absorb fire damage, become weak to water and wind
-Mix/Resist Ice: absorb ice damage, become weak to fire and poison
-Mix/Resist Thunder: absorb lightning damage, become weak to ice and earth
-Spellblade: elemental enchants deal x2 damage on weakness hit and make no change to defense
-Spellblade/Dark: replaces Fire2, attacks can inflict blindness
-Spellblade/Drain: heals only 25% of damage dealt
-Spellblade/Flare: ignores all defense and basic physical evasion, does not modify attack power
-Spellblade/Hold: replaces Ice2, attacks can inflict paralyzation
-Spellblade/Psych: drains 20 MP, less for dual wield and X-Fight
-Spellblade/Stone: replaces Fire3, enchant with earth elemental damage
-Spellblade/Tempr: replaces Ice3, ignores 25% defense and adds 20 attack
-Spellblade/Water: replaces Fire2, enchant with water elemental damage
-Spellblade/Wind: replaces Bolt3, enchant with wind elemental damage
-Summon/Golem: lowered Earth Wall's HP from 1000 + (Level * 50) to 200 + (Magic * 20)
-Time/Bleed: replaces Drag, minor damage + HP leak
-Time/Demi: damage doubles against wind weakness, halved against heavy types (instead of auto-miss)
-Time/Echo: try to cast an offensive spell any enemy has recently used; on failure to find a usable spell uses Demi instead
-Time/Flood: replaces Quick, water elemental damage to all enemies
-Time/G100: replaces Slow2, removes float and reduces evasion
-Time/Renew: replaces Haste2, reduces remaining item cooldown
-Time/Shift: replaces Void, target gets to act now (ATB = ready)
-White/Dia: replaces Scan, holy elemental damage to one/all enemies
-White/Holy: now pierces defense like Flare
-White/Pure: cures in addition to poison blind and paralyzation
-White/Smite: replaces Cure2, lightning elemental damage to one enemy, pierces defense
-White/Storm: replaces Cure3, wind elemental damage to one/all enemies
-White/Ward: replaces Life2, negate physical damage (Golem effect)
New Spells:
-Finesse/Martial: Cleave, stronger physical attack
-Finesse/Martial: Rampage, physical attack that can hit all
-Finesse/Martial: Fate Hit, random damage
-Finesse: Weaken, inflict physical damage and lowers evasion stat directly
-Finesse: Armor Break, inflict physical damage and lowers defense stats directly
-Finesse: Venom Strike, inflict physical damage with additional chance to inflict poison
-Finesse: Chill Out, inflict slow
-Finesse: Sharpen, ignores 25% defense and adds 20 attack for weapon attacks
-Martial: Salted Wounds, inflict physical damage, stronger against hurt targets
-Martial: Danger, inflict damage equal to own lost HP against all
-Martial: Tera Break, inflict very high physical damage
-Martial: Aid, restore 50 MP to ally, profits from Medicine skill
-Martial: Prepare, increase own level by 10
Status effects, general:
-status effect chance is no longer: if immune then 0% else 100%
-status effect chance now depends on affinity towards a relevant element (e.g. lightning for paralyzation),
status resistance (now only 1/3 [or 2/3 on weakness] instead of 0%,
attacker's magic, target's vitality and a few other minor factors
-heavy-type enemies can now be affected by HP to 1, revive-kills-undead and doom effects, subject to magic accuracy/evasion
-heavy-type enemies can now cure themselves from certain status effects after some time: berserk, blind, charm, mini, mute, old, sleep, toad
Status effects, specific:
-Charm: ends when taking any damage
-Haste: delay between actions is now only reduced by 33% instead of 50%
-HP leak: strength increased from 1 to maxHP/512 + 1, capped at 20, doubled if weak to fire, halved against player
-HP leak: only ticks per ATB point, not 3~5 times per second
-Level halved: against monster can no longer drop below half starting level
-Old: stats drop only to 50% of base (=no equipment) stats instead of down to 1
-Old: monster no longer lose levels instead now affects monster strength
-Old: increased tick delay from 5 to 30
-Poison: strength increased from maxHP/16 to (maxHP/16+20)*1.68 (roughly 10%), capped at 1000, doubled if weak to poison, halved against undead
-Regen: strength changed from VIT*Level/16 to VIT*softcap(Level+5)/32 + 2 * (VIT - 22)
-Sleep: ends when taking any damage
-Slow: delay between actions now only increases by 50% instead of 100%
Monster changes:
-potential max HP increased from 65.535 to 524.272
-with very few exceptions enemies have always elemental affinities, no more 90% of enemy types are pure neutral
-bosses and strong regular monsters can have "HP barriers", any overflow damage when reaching such a barrier is lost
--e.g. a boss with a barrier at 5000 HP is sitting at 5001 HP and hit for 9999 damage, he'll only drop to 5000 HP now and only the next attack continues as normal
-upon passing a HP barrier the following stats increase slightly: attack, STR, MAG, AGL, evade, m.evade
-upon passing a HP barrier maxHP decreases accordingly, meaning the enemy can never be brought back above such a barrier
-successfully inflicting a death, petrify or similar status will not kill a boss/monster with HP barrier directly, only drop it to the next HP barrier
-enemies can no longer be immune to displaying their HP
-enemies don't spend MP for spells
-self-targetted revival for monsters fails after the first time; monster reviving other monster has no limit
-stats, spell selection and drops were modified to fit with the other changes
-all monster should now reward non-0 exp
-strong fight is reduced from x8 attack power to x4
-changed Gloom Widows color so it can be differentiated from Tarantula
-monster like Omniscient should now treat !Gaia, !Animal, !Item, !Scan, etc. properly as non-physical
-rare item drops are 100% if you have no copy of that item yet
Monster formation changes:
-enemy formations of random encounters are now more random; for most formations there's only 1/8 chance that it spawns with all members present.
-if this 1/8 chance is not met, it is 50/50 for each monster (except the first) if it stays home.
-boss formations and select few random encounter formations stay fixed
-ABP gain is no longer determined by the base formation but a percentage of exp earned, capped at 200
Misc. changes:
-can now save at any time
-running on the world map no longer requires the ability
-can rename lead character by pressing L or R + menu button
-damage cap increased from 9999 to 32k
-in-battle dialog can be forwarded by holding any A,B or direction button, previously these dialogs had fixed speed
-same for cutscene auto-dialog
-eva% cap has been reduced from 99 to 70
-exp gain can be switched off in the config
-exp gain is no longer divided by the amount of surviving party members
-after battle, the party is healed by (1/8 maxHP + 4 * (VIT - 20)) * (VIT + 12) / 32
-reequip after job/ability change can now be set to either optimize or none (keep current items)
-changed menu attack display from 200% for dual wield and double grip to 13/16 and 5/4 respectively
-"sort" now actually sorts items instead of only grouping them by consumable/weapon/armor
-level from the likes of Hero Drink and Dragon Power mix is now capped at 239 instead of 255
-escape via L/R either works or doesn't, no more RNG; success depends on encounter, AGL, deaths and a few status effects
-"JOB Lv X ability" text on ability selection replaced with Active/Passive/Innate
Bug fixes:
-damage should no longer be able to overflow
-game no longer crashes when spells target 7 or 8 enemies at once, very few spells were not affected
-attempting to hit the 8th enemy with a single target attack should no longer hit a "random" party member
We have EVEN MORE themes now, but some old ones are gone...