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Deathlike2

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FF4 Equipment Rebalancing?
« on: March 19, 2008, 09:05:48 AM »
Although this is strictly my opinion, I hope to give some insight into retweaking aspects of FF4 that seem horribly broken and unbalanced/useless.

I'll focus on specific aspects and work my way to others as I come up with ideas.

Bows+Arrows need the most restructuring.

Bows should focus more on tweaking the attack power.. the Arrows should be used to exploit weaknesses.

I haven't thought too much on the Bows.. but each upgrade should be like this.. a new bow should improve the attack power at least by 10 (internally, 20 points have to be increased) and the hit rate increases by 10% (this should be semi-viable for those not named Rosa).

Arrows need to be retweaked.. something along the lines like this (monsters probably have to be retweaked):
"Cursed" Arrows, 20 attack power, inflicts Curse (a tweak for Iron arrows specifically)
Holy Arrows, 10 attack power, Holy elemental, effective vs Spirits/Ghouls (most spirits are weak vs holy)
Fire Arrows, 10 attack power, Fire elemental, effective vs Undead (it would also work against the Milon Z/elemental version)
Ice Arrows, 10 attack power, Ice elemental, effective vs Insects/Reptiles (this is based on the Ice Rod)
Lightning Arrows, 10 attack power, Lightning elemental, effective vs Mechs
Darkness Arrows, 15 attack power, Darkness elemental, inflicts Darkness (this is part of a greater game tweak that would be necessary)
Mute/Silence Arrows, 15 attack power, effective vs Mages, inflicts Mute/Silence
Charm Arrows, 15 attack power, effective vs Giants, inflicts Charm
Artemis Arrows, 18 attack power, effective vs Dragons, inflicts Poison
Drain Arrows, 15 attack power, Drain elemental, effective vs "Undead" and Flan/Pudding (replacement for Poison Arrows)
Beast/Beastkiller Arrows, 8 attack power, effective vs all races except Flan/Pudding (replacement for Genji/Samurai/Yoichi Arrows)
Medusa arrows, 5 attack power, inflicts Stone

Edit: Arrow values retweaked and posting Bow stats...

Short Bow, 20 attack power (10 effective), 99% hit rate, Air elemental
CrossBow, 40 attack power (20 effective), 50% hit rate, Air elemental
Great Bow, 60 attack power (30 effective), 60% hit rate, Air elemental, +3 Str
Archer/Killer Bow, 90 attack power (45 effective), 65% hit rate, Air elemental, +5 Str
Elven Bow, 130 attack power (65 effective), 75% hit rate, Air elemental, effective vs mages, +5 Wis, +5 Str, casts Shell when used as an item
Samurai/Yoichi Bow, 180 attack power (90 effective), 70% hit rate, Air elemental, +10 Str, +10 Will, effective vs giants
Artemis Bow, 250 attack power (125 effective), 80% hit rate, Air elemental, effective vs dragons, +15 Str, +15 Agi, -15 Vit, +15 Wis, -15 Will

Thoughts and comments welcome.

Another Edit: The focus of the power goes to the bows.. the arrows have a lesser role although they have more impact early on.

The Short Bow is to be used early on.. for characters like Palom+Porom for Mt. Ordeals... while Rosa benefits from the CrossBow early on. The Great Bow will be handy during the Magnetic Cave run.. and the later Bows will become very viable for other characters.. particularly Rydia (and FuSoYa to a lesser extent) so they aren't doing as poorly.

The Artemis Bow gets the greatest boost, and gives Rosa competitive stats so she can keep the White Robe instead of having to use the Minerva Robe to be even remotely speedy.
« Last Edit: March 28, 2008, 01:54:45 PM by Deathlike2 »
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JCE3000GT

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Re: FF4 Equipment Rebalancing?
« Reply #1 on: March 19, 2008, 05:58:39 PM »
Weapons in general need to have stat effect tweaks.  Why don't more Rods and Staves give you better +INT/WIS?

Deathlike2

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Re: FF4 Equipment Rebalancing?
« Reply #2 on: March 19, 2008, 07:47:27 PM »
Weapons in general need to have stat effect tweaks.  Why don't more Rods and Staves give you better +INT/WIS?

I think the impact has more to do with when those weapons are given to you relative to the current progress in question. I think status effects or enemy type/race modifiers would be much more interesting...

I still don't quite understand why there is Charm Rod.. not a Charm Staff instead...

Go figure.
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Deathlike2

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Re: FF4 Equipment Rebalancing?
« Reply #3 on: March 20, 2008, 04:10:48 AM »
Ok.. some Rod+Staff rebalancing...

Rod, 6 Attack Power, 50% hit rate, casts whatever it casts as an item with a spell multiplier of 1, +3 Wis, inflicts Curse status
Ice Rod, 10 Attack Power, 55% hit rate, casts Ice1 as an item with a spell multiplier of 2, +3 Wis, effective vs Insects/Reptiles, Ice elemental
Flame Rod, 16 Attack Power, 60% hit rate, casts Fire1 as an item with a spell multiplier of 3, +5 Wis, effective vs Undead, Fire elemental
Thunder Rod, 24 Attack Power, 60% hit rate, casts Lit1 as an item with a spell multiplier of 4, +5 Wis, effective vs Mech,  Lightning elemental
Change Rod, 30 Attack Power, 40% hit rate, casts Piggy as an item with a spell multiplier of 1, + 10 Wis, effective vs Giants, inflicts Mini status
Stardust Rod, 40 Attack Power, 70% hit rate, casts Comet as an item with a spell multiplier of 7, + 10 Wis, +10 Str, effective vs Mages
Magus/Meteor Rod, 50 Attack Power, 65% hit rate, casts Meteo as an item with a spell multiplier of 1, +15 Wis, +15 Vit, +15 Str, effective vs Undead, Holy elemental (replacement for Charm Rod)
Lilith Rod, 62 Attack Power, 60% hit rate, casts Psych/Osmose as an item with a spell multiplier of 8, +15 Wis, +15 Vit, +15 Will, effective vs "Undead" and Giants, Drain elemental

Staff, 8 Attack Power, 50% hit rate, casts whatever it casts as an item with a spell multiplier of 1, +3 Will, Holy elemental, inflicts Darkness status
Healing Staff, 12 Attack Power, 55% hit rate, casts modified Cure with a spell multiplier of 2, +3 Will, Holy elemental, effective vs Spirits
Silver Staff, 22 Attack Power, 50% hit rate, casts Slow with a spell multiplier of 1, +5 Will, effective vs Undead, inflicts partial petrify (v1) Status (remaking this staff to be more useful)
Power Staff, 32 Attack Power, 99% hit rate, casts Berserk with a spell multiplier of 1, +10 Will, +10 Str, inflicts Berserk status
Charm Staff, 42 Attack Power, 60% hit rate, casts Charm with a spell multiplier of 1, +10 Will, +10 Agi, inflicts Charm status, effective vs Giants (replaces Lunar Staff)
Holy Staff, 52 Attack Power, 70% hit rate, casts Holy with a spell multiplier of 5, +15 Will, +15 Str, +15 Vit, Holy elemental, inflicts Darkness status, effective vs Undead (replacement for Life Staff)
Silence Staff, 48 Attack Power, 65% hit rate, casts Silence with a spell multiplier of 1, +10 Will, +10 Str, +10 Agi, effective vs Mages, inflicts Silence/Mute status
« Last Edit: March 24, 2008, 10:30:14 AM by Deathlike2 »
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Re: FF4 Equipment Rebalancing?
« Reply #4 on: March 20, 2008, 08:16:56 AM »
There are too many swords and/or too few characters that can equip them. I actually toyed around with the idea of giving Rosa the ability to equip some of the weaker swords before deciding to just cut a few of them in favor of other weapons.

Deathlike2

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Re: FF4 Equipment Rebalancing?
« Reply #5 on: March 20, 2008, 08:43:51 AM »
There are too many swords and/or too few characters that can equip them. I actually toyed around with the idea of giving Rosa the ability to equip some of the weaker swords before deciding to just cut a few of them in favor of other weapons.

That I cannot argue, but that's relatively difficult to balance to begin with...
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Re: FF4 Equipment Rebalancing?
« Reply #6 on: March 24, 2008, 08:51:13 AM »
There are too many swords and/or too few characters that can equip them. I actually toyed around with the idea of giving Rosa the ability to equip some of the weaker swords before deciding to just cut a few of them in favor of other weapons.

I thought about the exact same thing...Sort of make her like a Beatrix character from FF9... My idea was for her to be able to equip just a few, swords like Silver, Light, and and Defender. I've also thought about making that "Spare" weapon (which appears to be a two-handed duplicate of Ragnarok) into a special sword just for her (with a much lower attack power than Ragnarok, but maybe a nice stat bonus to perhaps Will and Vitality), and make it a rare drop on something difficult to defeat like the Zemus mind or one of the dragons in the Lunar Subterrane...

You're right though, that there are too many, at least for the default character makeup... IMO Cain could use an "ultimate" spear, and Edge an "ultimate" katana (something along the lines of FF4A's Abel's Lance and the Mutsunokami). A couple more rods and staves might not be a bad thing either...but maybe a dagger or knife available for the twins or Edward...

As Deathlike said it's a hard balance anyway...

Ok.. some Rod+Staff rebalancing...
...
Staff, 8 Attack Power, 50% hit rate, casts whatever it casts as an item with a spell multiplier of 1, +3 Will, Holy elemental, inflicts Darkness status
...
Silver Staff, 22 Attack Power, 50% hit rate, casts Slow with a spell multiplier of 1, +5 Will, effective vs Undead, inflicts partial petrify (v1) Status (remaking this staff to be more useful)
...

Again I like a number of your ideas there, especially the change rod casting piggy but hitting with mini and being effective vs. giants.

However the only thing I'd sugges to the bit I quoted above is that if you're going to make the Silver staff cast slow, then  instead of the "Staff" staff casting it's normal spell which is "Poisuna" (effectively the spell is "Antidote"). Have it cast "Basuna" which removes a couple more statuses besides poison, but isn't a shortcut to Esuna (so you still have to learn the spell or buy the expensive cure all medicine).  Silver staff normally casts Basuna.

~~~

Another thing I noticed, in general, is that the "Insects" enemy subtype is really underused but seems to have been something for the ice elementals. For example the Ice Rod is effective vs. insects and the Ice Shield is defensive vs. insects.

In my preliminary weapons tweaks I've made both the Blizzard Spear and Ice Brand Sword effective vs. insects.
« Last Edit: March 24, 2008, 09:14:14 AM by Paladin »

Deathlike2

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Re: FF4 Equipment Rebalancing?
« Reply #7 on: March 24, 2008, 09:45:09 AM »
There are too many swords and/or too few characters that can equip them. I actually toyed around with the idea of giving Rosa the ability to equip some of the weaker swords before deciding to just cut a few of them in favor of other weapons.

I thought about the exact same thing...Sort of make her like a Beatrix character from FF9... My idea was for her to be able to equip just a few, swords like Silver, Light, and and Defender. I've also thought about making that "Spare" weapon (which appears to be a two-handed duplicate of Ragnarok) into a special sword just for her (with a much lower attack power than Ragnarok, but maybe a nice stat bonus to perhaps Will and Vitality), and make it a rare drop on something difficult to defeat like the Zemus mind or one of the dragons in the Lunar Subterrane...

Hmm.. actually some of those swords I tend to ignore probably would be decent on Rosa.. but the hit rate has to be remotely decent since there is a back row penalty in play (or you could just make the sword back row compatible for the sake of it).

Quote
You're right though, that there are too many, at least for the default character makeup... IMO Cain could use an "ultimate" spear, and Edge an "ultimate" katana (something along the lines of FF4A's Abel's Lance and the Mutsunokami). A couple more rods and staves might not be a bad thing either...but maybe a dagger or knife available for the twins or Edward...

FF4A had the right idea, but a number of that stuff is too overpowered.

Quote
As Deathlike said it's a hard balance anyway...

Most of the ideas are based against the original game (FF4), but a lot of monsters should be boosted as fair compensation though... I already know it is tough to "rebrand" and "remake" unused weapons.

Quote
Ok.. some Rod+Staff rebalancing...
...
Staff, 8 Attack Power, 50% hit rate, casts whatever it casts as an item with a spell multiplier of 1, +3 Will, Holy elemental, inflicts Darkness status
...
Silver Staff, 22 Attack Power, 50% hit rate, casts Slow with a spell multiplier of 1, +5 Will, effective vs Undead, inflicts partial petrify (v1) Status (remaking this staff to be more useful)
...

Again I like a number of your ideas there, especially the change rod casting piggy but hitting with mini and being effective vs. giants.

However the only thing I'd sugges to the bit I quoted above is that if you're going to make the Silver staff cast slow, then  instead of the "Staff" staff casting it's normal spell which is "Poisuna" (effectively the spell is "Antidote"). Have it cast "Basuna" which removes a couple more statuses besides poison, but isn't a shortcut to Esuna (so you still have to learn the spell or buy the expensive cure all medicine).  Silver staff normally casts Basuna.

The Staff is useful for like one battle (Scamaglione). It probably should just use Esuna outright IMO.. or at least the statuses inflicted on the journey.. including Darkness (moth), Toad (Toad monster), Slap (Paralysis, Curse, Mute from Lilith), Piggy (Baron Guard), Size (Baron Guard).. oh wait, just make it Esuna!  :tongue:

The Staff's usefulness limits the attack options, so keeping it the way it is won't be that much different... it isn't like it gives a great bonus to anything.

Quote
~~~

Another thing I noticed, in general, is that the "Insects" enemy subtype is really underused but seems to have been something for the ice elementals. For example the Ice Rod is effective vs. insects and the Ice Shield is defensive vs. insects.

In my preliminary weapons tweaks I've made both the Blizzard Spear and Ice Brand Sword effective vs. insects.

For Insects, it is a better idea to give it to weaker Ice weaponry. Giving it the Blizzard/Ice Brand is overpowered. Leaving it on the Ice Shield is good enough as that's when you encounter them for a fair bit.
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Deathlike2

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Re: FF4 Equipment Rebalancing?
« Reply #8 on: March 24, 2008, 10:55:59 AM »
Ok... onto the swords... only a few number of the swords need tweaking here.

Shadow Sword, 10 attack power,  80% hit rate, Darkness elemental, inflicts Curse
Darkness Sword, 20 attack power, 85% hit rate, Darkness elemental, inflicts Darkness
Black Sword, 30 attack power, 90% hit rate, Darkness elemental, inflicts Death

Coral Sword, 55 attack power, 80% hit rate, Lightning elemental, inflicts Curse, effective vs Mechs (idea copied from FF4ET, with some tweakage, replaces Ancient Sword).
Light Sword, 99 attack power, 99% hit rate, Holy elemental, effective vs Undead, +5 Will, +5 Vit, +5 Str (this is ideal to make it reasonably equippable for Rosa, plus make it a bit more capable than the Defender)
Drain Sword, 50 attack power, 50% hit rate, Drain elemental, effective vs "Undead", Giants, and Pudding, casts Osmose/Psych as an item with a spell multiplier of 5, -5 to all stats, (this can be made Rosa equippable and be a nice source of MP recovery on the cheap)
Slumber Sword, 60 attack power, 77% hit rate, inflicts Sleep, casts Sleep as an item with a spell multiplier of 1 (this is rebalanced intentionally).
Silver Sword, 55 attack power, 80% hit rate, inflicts Darkness, effective vs Undead, back row compatible (all Silver equipment is to be effective vs Undead in my tweakage, probably a good equipment to be Rosa compatible)
Drain Spear, 88 attack power, 25% hit rate, Drain elemental, effective vs "Undead", Giants, and Pudding, casts Drain as an item with a spell multiplier of 5, -10 to all stats (needs retweaking due to low hit rate)
Excalibur, 160 attack power, 99% hit rate, Holy elemental, casts Holy as an item with a spell multiplier of 3, +10 Str, +10 Will (probably can be Rosa equippable)
Holy Spear, 109 attack power, 80% hit rate, Holy and Air elemental, casts Holy as an item with a spell multiplier of 4, effective vs Undead (changed the effectiveness from Spirits to Undead)
« Last Edit: March 28, 2008, 10:10:32 AM by Deathlike2 »
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Deathlike2

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Re: FF4 Equipment Rebalancing?
« Reply #9 on: March 24, 2008, 11:47:40 AM »
For armor, most armor are fine as is, but some need heavy retweaking to be semi-viable... some will be done in sets because it is moreso a minor change than anything.

Iron set of equipment, add Flan/Pudding resistance to all (given that this set of equipment is virtually forgotten after its debut, it has some practical uses, this set should be DK Cecil enabled)
Paladin set of equipment (whatever they are sold as in FF4 is the equivalent), change Undead to Spirit resistance (if DK Cecil can handle undead attacks, so can Paladin Cecil)
Silver/Mythril set of equipment, change Spirit to Undead resistance (Spirits are virtually gone past this point of the game, so why give useless resistance?)
Fire Shield, add Undead resistance (Undead hate fire.... shocking!)
Diamond Shield, add Mech resistance (this is the only way to keep this shield viable over its Aegis competitor, not sure if it should be applied to the whole set)

Genji/Samurai set, each component is to be tweaked as follows:
Genji Shield, add resistance to Charm and Paralysis, +3 Agi, +3 Str, add Giants resistance
Genji Armor, add resistance to Curse and Petrify, +3 Agi, +3 Vit, 10% evade, add Giants resistance
Genji Helmet, add resistance to Charm and Petrify, +3 Wis, +3 Str, 10% evade, add Giants resistance
Genji Gauntlet, add resistance to Curse and Paralysis, +3 Wis, +3 Vit, add Giants resistance

Dragoon/Dragon set, each component is to be tweaked as follows:
Dragon Shield, +3 Vit
Dragon Armor, +3 Vit
Dragon Helmet +3 Wis
Dragon Gauntlet, +3 Wis

Shadow Armor set, add resistance to Curse
Darkness Armor set, add resistance to Darkness
Black Armor set, add resistance to Death

Note: All of these are to resist the DK's tweaked weaponry.

Diamond Ring, add resistance to Mechs. This primarily would make Edge and FuSoYa take less damage while in the Giant.

Cursed Ring, retweak stat losses -10 to Str, Agi, Wis, Will, +5 to Vitality (it needs some defense, if anything)

Ninja Robe, add resistances to Fire, Ice, Lightning (why a high magic defense piece of equipment doesn't have elemental resistance is beyond me), change Agi stat boost to +5 (using FF4ET's Agi changes to this equipment)

Major retweak:
Artemis Robe, 15 defense, 10% evade, 8 magic defense, 8% magic evade, +10 to all stats, resistance vs Dragons (this is a totally reworked Power Robe, only usable by all female characters)

Genji Armor set, Ninja Robe, Dragoon Armor set tweaks inspired by JCE's hack.
« Last Edit: March 28, 2008, 10:39:43 AM by Deathlike2 »
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Deathlike2

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Re: FF4 Equipment Rebalancing?
« Reply #10 on: March 28, 2008, 10:10:49 AM »
Retweaked Yoichi's Bow, Genji armor set, Ninja Robe, Holy Spear, and a few others in this list.

I'm currently pondering what to do with the Axes...
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Paladin

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Re: FF4 Equipment Rebalancing?
« Reply #11 on: March 28, 2008, 11:06:43 AM »
I'm currently pondering what to do with the Axes...

Axe them  :tongue:

Seriously. I'm considering turning some of the axes into something else in present/future hacks. At least of the classic game. Of course in FF4A Cid can use them to advantage...but without a massive hack to the classic games he's gone before the good ones are available. Although you could create a rare Axe drop during the time Cid is available, say in Cave Magnes or Zot, that would be an ultimate weapon for him in the classic game. As was mentioned by another, even if it's overpowered for the current part of the game, a rare drop being that unbalanced is the point if it's really rare.

Ultimately it would be really cool to figure out exactly how the 2-handed equip really works so it could be disabled and these weapons could be turned into anything else you might want. Or make the prospect of using them on Cain or Cecil "nicer" since you're not trading off defense for offense. Which I think the special effects of the axes such as effective vs. Giants, random poison on hit, or effective vs. Mages with a healthy attack power was supposed to be the advantage of using the axes over swords or spears on Cecil and Cain.

As a workaround, it might be easier to repurpose some of the 2-handed Axes as staves, rods, or maybe daggers for the mage classes where, being unable to equip a shield really isn't a problem.

Just food for thought...
« Last Edit: March 28, 2008, 11:13:21 AM by Paladin »

Deathlike2

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Re: FF4 Equipment Rebalancing?
« Reply #12 on: March 28, 2008, 11:17:55 AM »
I actually have some decent ideas for the axes...

Avenger Sword, 100 attack power, 95% hit rate, +10 Str, +10 Agi, +10 Vit, -10 Wis, -10 Will (tweak based off of FF4ET's version)
Dwarf Axe, 62 attack power, 69% hit rate, +5 Str, +5 Vit, -5 Agi, -5 Wis, -5 Will, effective vs Mages (this is based off of FF4ET's version)
Master Axe, 120 attack power, 69% hit rate, 2 handed, casts Shell when used as an item with a spell multiplier of 1, +10 Agi, +10 Wis, +10 Vit, effective vs Mages and Mechs, inflicts Silence (this is a replacement for the Rune Axe)
Beast/Beastkiller Axe, 160 attack power, 69% hit rate, 2 handed, casts Hold when used as an item with a spell multiplier of 1, +15 Agi, +15 Wis, +15 Vit, effective vs Dragons and Giants, inflicts Poison (this is a replacement for the Poison Axe)
Dragon Claw, 0 attack power, 75% hit rate, +10 Str, +10 Will, Holy elemental, effective vs Dragons, inflicts Poison (idea based off of FF4A's Dragon Claw... not too useful for Yang, but a lot more beneficial to Edge)
Cat Claw, 0 attack power, 99% hit rate, +5 Str, +5 Agi, +5 Vit, +5 Will, +5 Wis,  inflicts Sleep (tweaks to improve the claw for late game, moreso than early game...)

Both heavily reworked axes should be usable by all... even if that's not too great, they are much better than they were before.

Edit: Fixed Dragon Claw properties (forgot it was Holy elemental)
« Last Edit: March 28, 2008, 12:49:49 PM by Deathlike2 »
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Re: FF4 Equipment Rebalancing?
« Reply #13 on: March 28, 2008, 12:41:13 PM »
I like some of those...

Heh...I already had changed the Hell Claw to Dragon Claw in my current hack, same reason you gave  :tongue:

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Re: FF4 Equipment Rebalancing?
« Reply #14 on: March 28, 2008, 12:54:25 PM »
It's easier to use hindsight when you look at the distribution of weapons to the enemies that are in the game... though sometimes I wonder if the monster creators and balance testing were on different planes of existance.

For Hammers...

Charged Hammer, 45 attack power, 75% hit rate, +3 Agi, +3 Vit, casts Lit2 when used as an item with a spell multiplier of 4, Lightning elemental, effective vs Reptiles and Mechs
Holy Hammer, 55 attack power, 75% hit rate, +3 Str, +3 Agi, +3 Vit, casts Holy when used as an item with a spell multiplier of 1, Holy elemental, effective vs Undead and Mechs
Pudding Hammer, 65 attack power, 75% hit rate, +5 Str, +5 Agi, +5 Vit, +5 Wis, +5 Will, casts Quake when used as an item with a spell multiplier of 1, effective vs Pudding/Flan and Mechs

The whole idea on rebalancing some of the 2 handed weaponry is to find a way to compensate for the defense (and its multiplier) of the shields.. which happens to be Vitality.. and primarily Agility. If you've ever played Phantasy Star 3 or 4 on the Genesis, a two handed weapon was generally superior to the one handed weapon, because for the Swords, they gave you additional defense, which was effectively better than a dagger-shield setup. It's not really viable in FF2/4 by design, but you can get close to it.
« Last Edit: March 28, 2008, 01:51:40 PM by Deathlike2 »
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