Messages

2956

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Cockatrice Summon

« on: March 09, 2008, 04:43:10 AM »

Cockatrice would've been a useful summon if it actually multi targeted. I never understood why they cut it from FF2us and ET yet left the other optional summons in place, I could understand it if they had cut them all (It wouldn't make any sense but it would be consistent) but not just the one.

Well, there are problems with the balancing of the spell.

You have compete with Stone/Break.. which she learns late game.
Allowing the spell to be multitargetable would effectively be making it rather powerful early on.
The other problem is the obtainability of the spell. It is the one of the first summons obtainable early game, although one of the monster variants that drops it can easily be missed altogether. Maybe it's just me, but the whole game is a Goblin/Imp world after all.

To improve it, the MP consumption has to increase at least by 2x as fair compensation...

2957

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Agility and ATB Speed - Theory of Relativity

« on: March 09, 2008, 04:33:52 AM »

Ugh, well, I guess that makes sense. That also explains why Haste is a huge boost, and Slow is a massive penalty. I suspected the Plague hasting Haste on the entire party was to make the death countdown go faster, and this pretty much confirms it.

I pretty much agree here.  I'm strongly for the theory that Haste does indeed increase the speed of count.  I've casted Slow on one of my characters in said Plague battle and they counted down slower than the rest.

Same here, I used to use this strategy quite a bit before I realized it's really not needed, just a hold over from the days when I actually had to look at the menus to input commands.

Deathlike2: One thing you might want to look into for your documentation is how longer you can sit at 00 without dying. IIRC, it's a whole lot longer in FF2us than FF4.

Ok, I have yet to plan a good strategy for this though.. I'll probably end up modding the Agility to whatever is at level 70 (it is shockingly scary that Agility at that level for the girls is at 32). The only other thing that supposedly works is running away, as that seems to switch/delay timers.

2958

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / SNES Bug - Caller's Magic Orb Description Missing

« on: March 09, 2008, 04:31:19 AM »

Supposedly, there is a message that is displayed when a Rydia's monster summon item is highlighted.

However, this doesn't seem to occur at all... the editor data would suggest that message be displayed, but it doesn't.

2959

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Protect+Shell Success Behavior

« on: March 09, 2008, 04:09:45 AM »

Does anyone know what the effect is of casting Protect/Shell with multiple targets? Does it reduce the chance of success or the length that it lasts?

AFAIK, there is no split target power loss, but I personally can't tell. The effect of the spell lasts for the duration of battle.

The chance of success most definately is affected by multitargeting (in general this is true, unless you are using a spell with a hit rate of 100%,
which this is not).

2960

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Agility and ATB Speed - Theory of Relativity

« on: March 09, 2008, 04:07:24 AM »

Well, Stop is supposed to "stop" the target.. which makes a lot of sense anyways.

2961

Gaming Discussion / Re: A Request for Entroper

« on: March 08, 2008, 09:49:01 PM »

AI can change magic power, so it's possible that the game is upping the magic power of whatever is casting Double Meteor for it to do high damage. However, this is a total guess, and isn't to be taken seriously.

AI can change the spell multiplier (magic stat), but not the power of the spell.

There's another Meteor mentioned in the spell list, and that's probably the one used by Zeromus... but you know the sad part is that even though it is beefed up, if you are at level 99 and maxed your magic defense multiplier enough, it still won't hit.

Sad, but true.

2962

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Agility and ATB Speed - Theory of Relativity

« on: March 08, 2008, 09:41:10 PM »

Ok.. I honestly don't see the difference when Haste or Slow is applied.
I'll have to tweak the Agility stat and normalize to the enemy's Agility to see if there's impact.
Clearly Agi > 70 is too high to see a difference that I can tell.

2963

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: HP% Spells

« on: March 08, 2008, 09:37:37 PM »

I was planning to write about this, but there's a basic formula.

There's a Spell Power stat and an HP Factor Stat (whatever you think of calling it).

When both are multiplied, they equal 100%, although I think that's not entirely required.

Hold on.. revising algo first...

For the SNES+GBA version, it is simply this:

Damage = maxHP/ Spell Power * Elemental Multiplier

Elemental Multipliers:
Weak vs Element = 2
Strong vs Elemental = 1/2

If you absorb this element and are using the SNES version, then apply against my magic damage algo.
If you absorb this element and are using the GBA version:
If single targeted, use my magic damage algo, but substitute the second value in the list as the spell power.
If multitargeted, simply invert the damage by multiplying by -1.

2964

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Agility and ATB Speed - Theory of Relativity

« on: March 08, 2008, 09:16:26 PM »

Middle, Uppermost, Lowermost, Middle-Upper, Middle-Lower

This is true, but only because Haste was cast on everyone simultaneously.  Count's speed is not related to your agility, but it is related to whether or not you have haste/slow cast on you.  The Count/Haste thing isn't a "rumor", to verify this, just have Count status active on two party members, cast Haste on one of them, and watch them die twice as fast.  Try fighting one of those eye monsters in the Lunar Subterrane, the ones that look like the Plague boss but just cast Count on you individually instead of all at once.

I'll look into this right now.. I was planning on documenting Count status.

The monster you are thinking of is Fataleye (FF2US name), Allemagne (FF4 J2e translation), and Ahirman (FF4A).

2965

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Imp Summon

« on: March 08, 2008, 09:01:18 PM »

I could of SWORN the Imp call spell does more damage to other Imps.  Test it again, I'm 99.98% positive it does.

I tested against all the Imp enemies. There is no bonus.

If you plugged in the numbers to the magic formula, the damage range when Rydia's Wisdom is at 99 (meaning 25x spell mutliplier) is 200-300.

Every Imp varient, except for the Imp Captain takes full damage.. but that's because they have 0 magic defense.
The Imp Captain has a magic defense of 7, which limits the damage output significantly.

The other enemies around Baron, excluding the SwordRat have 0 magic defense.

In fact, the SwordRat has enough magic defense (11) to fend off the Imp summon, which means the damage dealt is always 1.

There is no multiplier, and feel free to test that yourself.

2966

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Imp Summon

« on: March 08, 2008, 07:52:48 PM »

Doesn't the damage x 16 versus other Goblin/Imp enemies?

Nope, no such luck. 

The summon meant to be half a level 1 elemental in power (being non-elemental). There are no special properties that I can tell otherwise.

2967

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Agility and ATB Speed - Theory of Relativity

« on: March 08, 2008, 07:43:50 PM »

I'm still not seeing it, there is no correlation as far as I can tell.

The Count sequence is delayed when you're executing commands.

2968

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Mage Summon

« on: March 08, 2008, 04:57:23 PM »

This spell is pretty unique.

In addition to using the Protect/Shell sound for the attack, it appropriately uses an attack that hurts and Paralyze the enemy
(assuming the target is not immune). However, unlike its original breathren, it doesn't induce HP leak status.

Unfortunately, this spell is not boss compatible.... WHY??? Damn chicken squid mages...

2969

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Cockatrice Summon

« on: March 08, 2008, 04:51:39 PM »

This is a pretty straight forward summon, with some peculiar properties.

Even though this spell is not boss compatible, 1 damage is still dealt, like what Poison does (although, ironically Poison doesn't hurt bosses at all).

The hit rate of this spell is 50%, which is better than Stone/Break's hit rate of 30%, which makes this much more reliable...
but too bad it is only single targeted.

2970

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Imp Summon

« on: March 08, 2008, 04:48:59 PM »

One of the few summon spells that many tend to ignore... with good reason.

The summon spell itself is actually decent for a low-Chocobo MP version, but far weaker.

The spell base power is 8, which is half the power of any level 1 basic elemental.

The only interesting pecularity of the spell is that the hit rate of 50% is completely ignored in damage calculations.

Go figure.