Final Fantasy XII: Struggle for Freedom- A Difficulty Mod- 1.9 Released!

[eternal248]

Download here: https://www.nexusmods.com/finalfantasy12/mods/59

Hey guys! Those of you who've been in the FFXII Modding Discord channel know already, but I've been chipping away at making a FFXII mod for the past month or so. The great news is that it's almost done and is in its testing phase! Once I've tested everything, I'll be releasing a public beta for everyone to enjoy.

I mod games throughout the entire Ivalice Alliance, barring Revenant Wings and Vagrant Story. I've made mods for Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, and Final Fantasy Tactics A2. FFXII holds a special place in my heart as one of my favorite games on the PS2. I remember coming home every day after school and just spending hours getting immersed in the world, and when I found out there was a dedicated modding community for this game, I immediately knew I wanted to work on this. To that end, I spent a very long time figuring out exactly what I wanted to do to make the FFXII experience more interesting, yet accessible for both new players and vets alike. Struggle for Freedom (SFF), is my vision on how to go about that. Will the changes appeal to everyone? Probably not. But I'm hoping that at the end of the day, people will want to try it and they'll have fun with it.

What does this mod change? Here's a quick rundown!


Struggle for Freedom (SFF) aims to overall be a more challenging/balanced version of FFXII while still being fair and adding quality of life features. SFF doesn't aim to be cruelly difficult.

SFF is balanced around Normal Mode and isn't intended for use with New Game- or New Game+, although there's nothing stopping you from playing with those modes.

There are four versions of the mod included:

1) The Struggle/Freedom Jobs, which feature unique jobs for each character based on their canon roles, each with two set Espers and Zodiark being a Wild Card that can be assigned to anyone. Struggle jobs are linear with little room to diverge from the set License path, whereas Freedom jobs are more open, similar to FFXII's original boards.
Vaan (Sky Pirate) is a Thief/Ninja, focusing on swift attacks with Daggers and Ninja Blades as well as Stealing and evading attacks.
Penelo (Dancer) is a White Mage/Dancer, focusing on healing and buffing while striking enemies with Rods and Poles.
Balthier (Leading Man) is a Machinist/Chemist, focusing on Guns, Spears and Measures and boosting the effects of items.
Fran (Wood Warden) is a Black Mage/Archer, focusing on elemental attacks, both magickal and physical to snipe enemy weaknesses.
Basch (Paladin) is a Knight/Paladin, focusing on defending allies while doling out powerful physical attacks with Swords, Knightswords, Axes, and Hammers.
Ashe (Princess) is an all-rounder, being a combination of a Time Mage/Red Mage/Samurai, focusing on combos with Katana, Maces, Knuckles augmented by Time Magick and Arcane Magick.

2) The PS2 Board, which features the original PS2 board, albeit with TZA's new Licenses added.

3) Rebalanced 12 Jobs, which feature altered versions of the 12 jobs introduced in TZA.

4) Unchanged 12 Jobs, which feature unaltered versions of the 12 jobs introduced in TZA.

Characters have had their stats changed around to better fit their canon appearances:
-Vaan has the highest Speed of the party and decent HP, but has low Magick and MP. Vaan comes with the Foe: HP = 100% Gambit upon reaching the Gambit tutorial, allowing for easier theft.

-Penelo has the highest Magick of the party and decent MP, but has low Strength and Vitality. Penelo also now comes with the Cure spell innately as well as the Ally: HP < 30% : Cure Gambit.

-Balthier has the highest Vitality of the party and decent HP, but has low MP and Speed.

-Fran has the highest MP of the party and decent Magick, but has low Strength and Vitality.

-Basch has the highest Strength and HP of the party and decent Vitality, but has the lowest Magick and MP.

-Ashe falls right in the middle of the group, having an average stat spread among everyone in the party.

Each character has Brawler as an innate License, allowing True Unarmed to be a more viable gameplay type without needing to buy the License or use the Amber Armlet.

Espers have many, many more skills at their disposal and have custom Gambits set up to take advantage of their new skillsets. As such, Espers are far more powerful now. Each Esper also has new passive abilities to further augment their power. Most Espers have a theme to give them each a unique use. For example, Cuchulainn has the ability to corrupt and invert items that he uses, similar to the Nihopalaoa.

Guests can no longer set off traps.

Many enemies have had their stats augmented. As a general rule, most enemies have 2x HP and 1.3x stats, with certain exceptions to the rule.

Certain Steals and Drops have been changed to better fit the balance of the game.

Trial Mode enemies have had their stats severely increased, and no longer give LP.

Certain "broken" enemies such as Dustia and Negalmuur have been severely nerfed.

Many enemies have different pieces of equipment now, such as the Urutan Yensa, who can now Poison the party with their Bamboo Arrows.

Some enemies are now differently sized, making them stand out more.

The Treasure system has been completely changed. Many chests that were not 100% spawn are now 100% spawn, meaning there's less of an RNG element to finding treasure, particularly late-game. For example, the Cleanse chest in Cerobi is now a 100% spawning chest.

Diamond Armlet mechanics have also been changed- now, wearing the Diamond Armlet doubles the ceiling of potential Gil that can be obtained from a chest. Also, the Rare item found without the DA becomes the Common item found with the DA. Knots of Rust and the Meteorite items are now the Rare DA item.

FFXII PS2 players can rest easy- the Demonsbane is now once again in the post-Demon Wall chest.

The Invisible Equipment (Gendarme, Seitengrat, etc.) can now be obtained via the Bazaar and treasure chests. Seitengrat has been moved to a new location.

Certain Bazaar recipes have been changed for balance purposes.

Consumable item Bazaar recipes can now be repeated infinitely, allowing a capable hunter to farm the materials they need to get consumables for cheap.

Many shops have new items, with items like Serums and Teleport Stones being more readily available.

The Hunt Club sidequest has been made to be more interesting.

Each Trophy Rare Game now has a 100% drop of a rare or useful item.

Each of the prizes you can buy from the Hunter's Club salesman is streamlined, so you no longer have to worry about who you give what trophy to.

By getting all 30 Trophies, you are rewarded with the Wyrmhero Blade. The Hunt Club is now the only way to acquire the Wyrmhero Blade.

Many weapons have been completely changed, with weapon types having niches now, making each weapon type more viable and interesting and allowing for more interesting job combos.

-Swords are simple weapons, with many of them having an elemental affinity with which to strike down the foe. Their elemental affinity allows them to be easily boosted by element augmenting equipment.

-Daggers are quick weapons, focusing on quickly debilitating the target with debuffs.

-Axes no longer deal random damage, instead focusing on damage with a higher combo rate compared to comparable weapons.

-Hammers no longer deal random damage, instead focusing on raw damage and debuffs that impair the foe's ability to move and act.

-Maces are versatile weapons, focusing on debuffs and element augmenting with the boon of being able to be used alongside a Shield.

-Measures have been completely rehauled, with each Measure no longer inflicting damage and instead bestowing the target with two buffs 100% of the time.

-Greatswords can no longer Combo and are instead considered to be defensive weapons, with many Greatswords bestowing an Auto: Buff such as Protect and Haste on the user.

-Katana focus on dealing high amounts of damage with long combos. Masamune is now 1H, allowing it to be used with the Genji Shield.

-Ninja Blades are now 1H, allowing them to be used in conjunction with Shields and focus on combos, with Iga/Koga being a devastating combo that takes advantage of Oil and Fire.

-Spears are powerful weapons capable of hitting Flying units, with many late-game Spears having new elemental affinities to strike down targets more quickly, and many can also inflict debuffs.

-Poles can no longer hit Flying units, but are otherwise well-balanced between offense and defense, being able to allow the user to easily evade attacks while being able to string together long combos of attacks.

-Rods are now 1H, allowing them to be used in conjunction with Shields. Many Rods focus on either augmenting the user's magickal abilities or protecting their frail mage users from harm.

-Staves are now 1H, allowing them to be used in conjunction with Shields. Staves focusing on augmenting elemental damage- particularly those of spells- to devastate the enemy.

-Bows are now slightly faster, with many late-game Bows able to augment elemental damage, particularly those of their Arrows, with many Arrows having new elements, such as the Bamboo Arrows being Water Elemental, and the Parallel Arrows becoming the Silver Arrows, which are Holy Elemental.

-Crossbows are now able to Combo and ignore the weather, making them more accurate and ultimately able to inflict more damage.

-Guns are mostly the same, still capable of ignoring stats to deal decent damage regardless of level. Two Guns are now Gunblades, which can Combo and deal damage based on STR, but can swap out ammo to change the sword's element.

-Hand-Bombs are now Knuckles, weapons that deal damage based on Strength and Speed. Knuckles focus on raw damage and combos together to deal heavy damage. Knuckles use Claws as ammo, and Claws can be switched out to change their element and status effects. Certain Claws also have special effects, such as dealing damage based on Magick instead of Strength.

The FINAL FANTASY weapons (Vrscika, Mina, etc.) now have new weapon models. The Invisible Weapons also have proper models now.

Guest weapons such as Larsa's Joyeuse can now be obtained and used by the party by stealing from certain bosses.

The previously unused Hero's Blade is now Ashe's starting weapon.

Armor is mostly the same, with many differences being found with Shields and certain pieces of armor bestowing elemental augmentation.

Shields- in addition to focusing on evasion- now also focus on reducing elemental damage, with there being a Shield to guard against each of the 8 elements. Zodiac Escutcheon is now the best overall shield, Gendarme is now the most elementally resistant shield, and Ensanguined Shield bestows Auto: Decoy onto the user.

Many previously uninteresting pieces of armor such as Pirate's Hat and Bone Helm now offer new effects.

Accessories have been retouched, with many no longer having random elemental affinity.

-Thief's Cuffs have been fully removed and replaced with Giant's Gloves, which grant +HP and +Vitality. A new License, Master Thief, allows a character to permanently have boosted Steal rates.

-Firefly no longer cuts EXP gains to 0, rather, it grants immunity to Instant Death, Syphon, and Fractional Damage.

-Steel Poleyns no longer grant immunity to traps, instead it boosts damage dealt by the Attack command by 20%.

-Quasimodo Boots now reduce all damage taken by 30%.

-Winged Boots now grant Swiftness 2 (50 LP version) to a character if they don't have it already in addition to Auto: Float.

Many, many abilities have been altered in some form or fashion. This ranges from MP Cost changes, to element changes, etc.

-Black Magick is largely the same, focusing on elemental damage with some big changes. Aqua is now Water and comes with an upgraded form- Waterga- finally accessible to the player for use. Each elemental spell family has its own niche use. Fire spells can inflict Oil for increased damage, Blizzard spells are AoE, Thunder spells have reduced casting time, Water spells are MP efficient, and Aero spells can inflict Immobilize to pin down foes. Scourge now can inflict many debilitating statuses at once, and Toxify is able to inflict both Disease and Sap at once- making it the first time a player has access to a Disease spell. Flare is instant-cast to make up for its long animation, Poison is AoE, and Bio can inflict both Poison and Sap.

-White Magick still focuses on healing and buffing with some major changes. Protect and Shell last longer and Regen is AoE and lasts longer, making those buffs more viable early-game. The status clearing spells such as Poisona are now AoE, making them more useful compared to items. Esuna now clears statuses that those status cleansing spells don't, such as Stop, Slow, and more. Renew is worth the high MP cost now by virtue of it becoming instant-cast, and Holy is AoE now with a shorter animation, and has a small chance of Stopping foes.

-Time Magick remains a good blend of buffs and debuffs, but with some big changes. Gravity and Graviga have been replaced with Quake and Quakega, spells that deal Earth Elemental damage in an AoE, giving Time Magick users a reliable method of dealing damage with an element that wasn't seen often in Vanilla FFXII. Vanish is now AoE, with Vanishga being replaced with Gravity, which reduces HP by 50% in an AoE.

-Green Magick has seen some drastic changes. Reverse was very broken in Vanilla and has been replaced with Drainga- a spell that drains HP from multiple foes in an AoE, effectively fully restoring the user's HP while dealing that damage. Decoy is now considered a buff, has had its duration increased, and has perfect accuracy, while Oil is more accurate. Oil will now wear off over time.

-Arcane Magick has remained mostly unchanged from Vanilla, albeit with some minor MP and Power changes.

-Technicks have received the largest overhaul of all skill types in the game. First Aid now restores a flat 15% of the target's HP, making it useful for conserving MP between fights. Wither and Addle have been replaced with Blitz and Erase- the former dealing weapon damage in an AoE and the latter removing all statuses from a target. 1000 Needles is now instant-cast, making it great for finishing off bosses with damage resistance. Traveler now bestows Haste/Vanish/Float on the user, while Numerology reduces the HP of enemies in an AoE by 25%, while Horology removes Time Magick-based effects such as Slow and Stop from the party.

-Esper abilities and Finishers have been buffed, making them far more devastating than they were previously, with the exception of Zeromus' abilities, which were nerfed slightly for balance. Many Esper abilities now inflict debuffs as well.

Many consumables have been changed, although for the most part they have effects similar to how they were in Vanilla.

-The Fang items no longer deal percentile damage, instead dealing elemental damage similar to -ra level spells.

-Baltoro's Seed now bestows defensive buffs on an ally, whereas Domaine Calvados bestows offensive buffs on an ally.

-The Meteorite items have been renamed for clarity upon getting them from chests, and they have a variety of new effects, primarily focusing on dealing heavy damage to enemies.

-Black Orbs now act as normal drops from enemies in the Penumbra in addition to their "Press X to Collect" versions. This means you can get Black Orbs without needing to mash X to collect them if you don't want to.

-The "Foe: Vulnerable to X" Gambits have been renamed for clarity to "Foe: Not-Immune to X".

Thank you for playing! Please send any feedback, bug reports, or even just general comments on whatever thread or board you found this mod on. I'll do my best to keep an eye on everything and reply to feedback as it comes back!

[eternal248]

Hey Gemini, you don’t have to restart- your save will carry over. You can just remove the old patch, patch using the new one, and then continue from where you left off.

[Novalys]

Hi friend,
Thank you for your incredible work! After 30 hours of play I stopped playing for a while.

I want to resume, so I just installed your update.

But I realize that I forgot a lot ! F

or example, on the boards (Freedom) of my characters there are licenses inaccessible, how do we get them please ?

Its embarassing I really totaly forgot. Thank you!

[eternal248]

Hey Lal! Can you send me a screenshot of which Licenses are unavailable? Many are unlocked after Espers are unlocked or, if you haven't gotten far in the game yet, after Gambits are unlocked.

[eternal248]

Hey everyone! Wanted to give a quick update on the mod and future updates as we wrap up 2019. Before I get to the update, I wanted to go over a few amazing milestones that the mod has reached this year, all thanks to the amazing FFXII community, including the help all of you have given!

1. As of this post, SFF has 169 Endorsements on Nexus, placing it 3rd in terms of FFXII mods with endorsements. I never expected to get past 5 or 10, so this is a huge thing!

2. The mod has been viewed over 67000 times. If Wikipedia is to be believed, that's around 10000 more than the population of Greenland. Which is great! Or something. Anyways, that's a lot of people!

3. Over 2900 people have downloaded SFF and we're almost at the 3000 mark. This is a huge milestone, and it's all thanks to the amazing community we have here!

2019 has been a big year for SFF, and I'm so excited to see what cool new finds 2020 brings. Thank you all again for your encouragement, support, and feedback over the course of the past year. It really is all thanks to you all that we can build such a fun project, together.

With that said, it's time to talk about the future. I have a week off of work between Christmas and New Year's Day, so I'm hoping to knock out some of the more tedious things I have planned for 1.9. I would like to note that even if 1.9 is not ready by the New Year (which I don't think it will be), I intend to release a small hotfix that will fix a few minor annoyances, such as my terrible design decision with regards to Ultima and her reaction to being Blind as well as some other small fixes that have been bothering me.

I posted before about some of the bigger changes I'd like to make, and I've fleshed the ideas out a bit more and would love to hear feedback on them! A full tenative and living changelog can be found on Google (below), but here's a list of what I have planned:

-The spawn rate for the Lv. 99 Red Chocobo will be increased. (Thanks Griever and Raiden, for making that possible!)

-The Weather Eye NPC near Giza will be able to switch between the Dry and Rains at will. (Thanks again to Griever and Raiden for those amazing changes!)

-Revive will be switched up to revive allies at 5% HP rather than the 20% I believe it's at now, allowing players who prefer risky, HP Critical tactics to have a way to bring someone back more easily at HP Critical.

-In fitting with the above change, the Fuzzy Miter accessory is also being reworked to take advantage of HP Critical mechanics. The Fuzzy Miter will be changed to the Bloodust accessory (name pending, taken from X-2), which will bestow HP Critical on the user without the user actually needing to be in HP Critical. This will be an end-game accessory that will allow people to better take advantage of Spellbreaker, Adrenaline, and Last Stand (as well as increased Combo rates).

-Many treasures will be fixed and just made generally less of a hassle, including making the Feywood Embroidered Tippet spawn 100% of the time (currently 25%, IIRC) and fixing a few bugs with regard to the Zodiac Spear chest and a few others. The chances of getting Gil in the Subterra has also been decreased significantly.

-Spells that proc statuses now have a set rate of doing so, as opposed to being tiered. Fire spells will inflict Oil at a 15% flat rate, Aero spells will inflict Immobilize at a 30% flat rate, Dark spells will inflict Blind at a 15% flat rate, and Quake spells will inflict Slow at a 15% flat rate.

-Many items will be reworked, removed, or edited. Most Fangs, Motes, Knots of Rust, Dark Matter, Dark Energy, Meteorites, etc. will become other items. Below is a list of the items that, as of right now, are being introduced. Note that all of these items may not make it in right away, as there may be issues with descriptions that will need to be adjusted first.

1. Ultra Potion- restores 3000 HP to a single target
2. Mega-Potion- restores 1500 HP to the entire party
3. Turbo Ether- restores 300 MP to a single target
4. Mega-Ether- restores 100 MP to the entire party
5. Stone- deals physical damage to a single target (FFT fans can rejoice that Throw Stone is now in FFXII!)
6. Bandage- removes Immobilize/Disable
7. Holy Water- removes Doom
8. Levisalve- bestows Float on the party; essentially will be replacing Float Motes
9. Purifying Salts- removes buffs from the target; essentially will be replacing Dispel Motes

-Many items are being replaced with Azuricites- a new type of usable item that will replicate Blue Magick abilities found in other games. The current plan is to have them be Poachable from enemies or potentially be found via Canopic Jar or Monograph drops. I haven't decided exactly how I want to handle those just yet, but the general idea is that they'll be usable items that replicate traditional Blue Magick. Here's what I have planned currently:

1. White Wind Azuricite- will either make an ally temporarily immune to debuffs or remove all debuffs from an ally, depending on which I can get to work better- will be obtained from Cockatrices, Chocobos, Divers, and Urstrixes.

2. Vampire Azuricite- will deal physical damage to the enemy and drain HP- will be obtained from Steelings and Mimics.

3. Blaster Azuricite- will inflict Petrify and Stop on the foe- will be obtained from Coeurls.

4. War Dance Azuricite- will bestow Bravery and Faith on all allies- will be obtained from Dreamhares and Mandragoas.

5. Aqua Breath Azuricite- will deal magickal Water damage to enemies in an area- will be obtained from Gators, Toads, Chimeras, and Piranhas.

6. Acid Azuricite- will deal magickal damage to the enemy and will inflict Poison, Sap, and Slow- will be obtained from Serpents and Flan.

7. Roar Azuricite- will remove all buffs and debuffs from all allies or all enemies- will be obtained from Sleipnirs, Wolves, and Behemoths.

8. Mighty Guard Azuricite- will bestow Protect and Shell on all allies- will be obtained from Tortoises and Golems.

9. Tremor Azuricite- will deal heavy physical Earth damage to a single foe and inflicts Immobilize and Disable- will be obtained from Headless and Slavens.

10. Sandstorm Azuricite- will deal magickal damage to enemies in an area and inflict Blind- will be obtained from Mantises, Urutan, Yensas, and Tyrants.

11. Night Azuricite- will inflict Sleep on enemies in an area- will be obtained from Gargoyles, Nightmares, and Ghosts.

12. Dragon Force Azuricite- will bestow Haste and Bubble on all allies- will be obtained from Fell Wyrms, Plate Wyrms, and Wyverns.

13. 1000 Needles Azuricite- will deal exactly 1000 damage to an enemy- will be obtained from Cacti.

14. Bad Breath Azuricite- will inflict Poison, Blind, and Silence on enemies in an area- will be obtained from Malboros and Zombies.

15. Angel Whisper Azuricite- will restore 40% of the party's HP- will be obtained from Entites and Elementals.

16. Self-Destruct Azuricite- will deal heavy damage to enemies in an area and inflict Oil on them while sacrificing the user- will be obtained from Bombs and Facers.

17. Doom Azuricite- will inflict Doom on enemies in an area- will be obtained from Ghosts and Skeletons.

18. Magick Hammer Azuricite- will reduce an enemy's MP to 0- will be obtained from Reapers.

19. Goblin Punch Azuricite- will deal damage to an enemy equal to the user's lost HP- will be obtained from Baknamies.

20. Trophy- will sell for 3000 Gil and will be obtained from Bangaa and Seeq foes.

-With these changes will also come some edits to Technicks and some other abilities, as noted below:

1. 1000 Needles will become Greased Lightning, which will deal instant weapon damage to the enemy.

2. Charm will become Shades of Gray, which will inflict a random debuff on the target, assuming the target is not immune to it.

3. Soul Devour will now deal heavy damage to a single target and potentially inflict Sleep.

4. Soul Purge will now deal tremendous non-elemental damage in a large area.

-Another big change will be related to enemy AI. Many enemies in XII had some questionable abilities, and I've finally gotten around to changing 100+ enemies, with many having abilities they did not have before. Late-game enemies and Trophy Rare Game were particularly retouched and should prove to have more interesting skillsets. Some examples:

1. Hydro can now use Scourge, Darkga, and Mythril Bubbles to prove to be a more proper guardian fight fitting the Pharos.

2. Phoenix can use Ardor, finally giving it a decent Fire attack.

3. Elementals now have more interesting abilities that are more focused around their elements. For example, Fire Elementals can use Oil and Pyromania now, whereas Leshach Entites can use spells such as Stop, Blizzaga, and Sleepga.

[eternal248]

CONTINUED FROM LAST POST

-As with everything else getting overhauled, so too are weapons. The goal is to make certain lesser-used weapon types gain a little more use.

1. Rods will replace Measures in term of utility, having no offensive power, but bestowing buffs on allies while having high EVD and being one-handed, allowing them to be used with Shields. Rod, Holy Rod, and Rod of Faith will likely remain the same, but this is what I have planned for the others.

a. Serpent Rod will bestow Float and Vanish on the target.
b. Healing Rod will bestow Regen and Libra on the target.
c. Gaia Rod will bestow Protect and Shell on the target.
d. Power Rod will bestow Bravery and Haste on the target.
e. Empyreal Rod will bestow Decoy and Bubble on the target.

2. Blood Sword will now inflict Sap at a 100% rate.

3. Deathbringer will now inflict Doom at a 10% rate.

4. Mina will now inflict Disease at a 25% rate.

5. Vrsabha will now inflict Death at a 5% rate.

6. Karkata will now inflict Death at a 10% rate.

7. At the suggestion of Hinnyuu, Maces will be slightly revamped to give the player more Holy options throughout the game, making fights against Undead a little easier and giving Red Battlemage an interesting niche.

a. Bronze Maze is now the Sage's Crosier, which is Holy Elemental and provides +32 MP and +4 MAG.

b. Chaos Mace is now the Vesper, which is Holy Elemental and provides +70 MP and +9 MAG.

c. Bonebreaker is now Seraphim's Mace, which is Holy Elemental and inflicts Confuse at a 15% rate.

8. Where does this leave Measures, you ask? I'm not 100% on the concept yet, but the current front runner is to convert Measures to Gunblades- making them a proper weapon category. Gunblades would be one-handed weapons that can Combo and use Ammo instead of a Shield. Gunblades would specialize in stringing together long combos with elementally infused strikes (from the equipped ammo), great for taking down certain enemies. Here are the current Gunblade concepts I have:

a. Revolver- the initial Gunblade, no real gimmick here.
b. Peacemaker- a defensive Gunblade that gives +HP/VIT/SPD and gives Auto: Regen to the user.
c. Axis Blade- a Gunblade with reduced CT compared to the others.
d. Hauteclaire- a Gunblade that uses Bolts instead of Ammo to focus on debuffs, rather than elements.
e. Hyperion- the strongest Gunblade in terms of ATK, also having heavy Knockback.
f. Lionheart- the strongest Gunblade in terms of Combo Rate.

-Espers are also on the list to be revamped, though this is a change I'm not sold on yet, as it would likely require players to begin a new game, and I don't like forcing people to do that. If I do decide to do that, I have a few ideas to make each Esper more usable throughout the game.

1. Each Esper would cost 3 Mist Charges to Summon, making it slightly harder to Esper spam without chugging Ethers/Elixirs (as Espers will be stronger now to compensate).

2. Each Esper would have high HP and Auto: Decoy, effectively making them guardians of whoever summons them.

3. Each Esper would have high overall stats, making Espers like Belias viable even late-game.

a. Belias would be a varied Esper, blasting Fire-weak foes with Painflare, augmented by Oil and Faith, and using Shades of White and Shades of Black as needed to further support their Summoner. Belias can be afflicted with Oil to allow him to easily heal himself with potent Fire abilities cast on himself.

b. Mateus would specialize in crippling AoE abilities, such as Blizzaga, Dispelga, Sleepga, Silencega, and Disable to maintain control of the battlefield while using Flash Freeze to damage and inflict Stop on foes.

c. Adrammelech will focus on raw speed, with his attacks and magicks having 0 CT while using Hastega, Slowga, and Immobilize to help his Summoner further outspeed and outflank enemies, with Flash Arc having a quick animation to deal heavy damage over a short period of time.

e. Zalera will focus on life and death-themed abilities, using things like Curaja and Bubble to keep his summoner alive while using Kill, Countdown, Break, and Warp to easily vanquish enemies.

f. Shemhazai will focus on raw magickal damage, using Soul Devour to put foes to Sleep, allowing her to decimate them with no chance to fight back, while using Drainga to deal heavy AoE damage to help stay alive, while also using Faith and Sheer to augment her damage as well as Flare and Scathe for raw magickal DPS.

g. Hashmal is Shemhazai's physical counterpart, focusing on raw physical DPS. Hashmal can use Berserk to Berserk himself for quick bursts of physical damage or he can use Expose and Bravery and Expose to increase overall damage, while using Blitz for AoE coverage. Roxxor can be used to Immobilize foes, forcing them into one-on-one combat with Hashmal and making them unable to evade his blows.

h.Cuchulainn focuses on debuffing enemies, mainly with Poison, Sap, and Disease while having access to Reverse Item to turn regular items into crippling status effects. To stay alive while crippling the target, Cuchulainn's Malaise deals a decent amount of damage while draining HP, effectively making him a tank with potent debuffing capabilities.

i. Zeromus, as before, focuses on using Gravity Well and Big Bang to deal damage based on his lost HP. Although Gravity Well will likely be nerfed, Zeromus' high max HP total (augmented by Bubble) will allow him to deal incredible amounts of damage very quickly, making him a great boss slayer. New to this update is the option for him to be afflicted with Sap and Poison, allowing him to further reduce his HP quickly, increasing his damage output. To expedite this, Zeromus has access to the Bio spell to quickly inflict these debuffs on himself.

j. Exodus is a swift and steady Esper with the ability to augment the offensive capabilities of his Summoner, using Haste, Bravery, and Faith (as well as Libra because, well, he represents Libra) to augment himself and his Summoner. Comet will deal a flat 3000 damage now making it a consistent attack, and Meteor will be a lesser version of Final Eclipse, dealing a flat 20000 damage to all enemies in range.

k. Famfrit is now a very guardian-themed Esper, focusing on raw HP and defense, shrugging off blows easily with his Auto: Protect/Shell. To better protect his Summoner, he can use Protect, Shell, Reflectga, and Bubble while using Briny Cannonade to inflict Slow on foes, further reducing the enemy's damage-dealing capabilities.

l. Chaos will focus on dealing heavy elemental damage to single targets by taking advantage of their elemental weaknesses to the four elements as represented in the original Final Fantasy- Wind, Fire, Earth, and Water. For foes lacking one of those weaknesses, he can attempt to use Achilles to slap them with one of those weaknesses to exploit.

m. Ultima is a varied mix of potent offense and defense, using powerful abilities such as Holy and Scathe, while also being able to heal the debuffs that befall the Summoner while also being able to use Scathe.

n. Zodiark will be what I think of as a one-time bomb. Zodiark's abilities aren't set in stone just yet, but he'll focus on being the strongest overall Esper with the ability to deal a ton of damage quickly, but he'll have the shortest timer of all the Espers, making him less of a shield and more of a DPS bomb.

Again, not completely sold on the Esper changes just yet, but we'll see what happens!

There are several other things I'd like to do, including reducing the overall download size of the mod, revamping the Rebalanced jobs, including new jobs, and more. I'm super excited to see what 2020 brings. Happy holidays to everyone and happy New Year! Can't wait to make this journey with this amazing community.

EDIT: Link to the living changelog on Google: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HRNxOA3igaTEMwgST4YUQYcQU_8J5JXGZ17awZ2tHM4/edit?usp=sharing

[SenMithrarin85]

the gift that keeps on giving. many thanks, man!

[Nito]

Potions can't heal by % ?

[Melodia]

It's funny, I keep putting off replaying SFF because Eternal keeps making updates.
Heh.

[Novalys]

eternal248 の投稿を引用：

Hey Lal! Can you send me a screenshot of which Licenses are unavailable? Many are unlocked after Espers are unlocked or, if you haven't gotten far in the game yet, after Gambits are unlocked.

Never mind, it was just esper locked, I forgot lol. Thanks for your christmast gift ! I dont know where do you get all this creativity but thanks a lot for my favorite game ! I cant wait for your next update :)

I want to help and give some new jobs ideas, I dont know anything about modding and technical limitation so Its maybe pretty immature lol :

__ Toxic Battlemage (support) :
- Rods, Katanas
- Get exclusive access to all "poison type" magicks like Bio, Toxify, Sap, buffed Poison and more
- Natural immunity to all "poison type" moves, aborbs darkness but have a light weakness
- Natural "sage ring" effect, his corrosive magick cant be reflected by anyone, even the party members
- Access to a (not AOE) move to suppress all poison type move from a party member
- Natural Regen thanks to his innate poison
- His Poison is 100% accurate (except for poison immunised foes)
- Access to enemies/Cuchulainn moves who fits in his mastery

__ Powdermage/Pistomancer (DPS) (from powdermage trilogy) :
- Riffles who almost always relies on MAG instead of STR
- One bullet per element, some neutral, and maybe multi element bullet for endgame ?
- Exclusive access to all neutral type magicks except for poisonous type above (maybe some early game neutral magicks must be created) (if he could use magiks with his riffle animation it would be so grrreat !)
- Access to enemies moves who fits in his mastery
- Get different buff only by shooting himself with neutral bullet ?

__ Spellblade (DPS Tank)
- Use swords who relies on STR, and share bullet with powdermage to change the element
- Measures, Shades of White and buff granting rods to buff allies
- Cant summon Esper because not a mage or ninja class but have great physical talent
-Natural Genji armor effect
- Exclusive access to Blitz 
- Exclusive access to a rage mod with all physical buff of the game (berserk, HP critical, bravery and more) but with a terrible counterpart : like a timed X-Zone

Basically I think you already done the sword mechanics this with the two Gunblades you created

__ Summoner (DPS)
A massive glasscanon, a lot of MP and magick power but very low defenses and PV, a few mob blows KOes him.
- Use Staves or Esper weapons
- Exclusive access to majority of Esper (with your future conditions, stronget but harder to summon)
- Being within two dimension, he have natural vanish status, is immune to physical moves and all magicks buff/debuff. 
- Can "partially" summon esper by directly use some of their abilities
- Elemental immunity system like ennemies who change their weakness when hit
- Access to some dimension moves like X-Zone

__ Ninja
- Use only ninja swords (so some can be created/modified for early game ?)
- Access to all elemental magicks, Vanish, Decoy (but naturaly immunised to Lure status)
- Extremely fast but moderate power lore
- Basically not a mage so moderate magick lore and low MP, compensated by 0CT speed casting
- Can summon a speed focused Esper like Adrammelech
- Can summon some berserked trash mobs (if it is impossible, at least give him an exclusive technic or magick who confuse, Bravery and berserk trash mobs ?)
- Bypasses traps, not detected by ennemies except if he strike them

__ Alchimist (support)
- As you mentionned with Blue Mage's Azurite system, but with an exclusive access to these items.
- Exclusive access to Poach renamed "Transmutate", and maybe make it easier to use
- Naturally immune to magick

__ Chemist (support)
- Not have "Attack Command" or Cannot use any weapons even his bare hands except for some end-game ranged weapon
- A item focused character who have an exclusive access to Potion/Ether/Phoenix Down/Remedie Lore (2 and above), natural pheasant netsuke effect, and exclusive access to magick offensive motes to attack.
- Basically useless without items but strong with it

__ Mercantile Battlemage (DPS)
- Naturally access to some magicks and physical weapons- Empty or already finished licence board, LP give him gils  
- Jack of trade mage who can use more magicks than red battlemage BUT he have 0MP. He uses gil instead of MP
- Natural thief's cuff / diamond armlet / effect 
- I dont really know how Gill Toss and all gil focused abilities work but I'm pretty sure someone smarter than me (you haha) can make a cool stuff with it ! It must be his main ability.
- Shades of Black / White
- Item command locked

__ Master (DPS)
- Bare hands / knuckles as a main and only weapon
- Some nice buffs but he can only aim for himself
- Some offensive exclusives "energy" or phisycal technics
- Water and Light spells
- Can summon a tanky Esper thanks to his energy
- Can trigger auto-Critical HP ability at the cost of 80% of his total PM
- Naturally Regen status

There is a tons of others ideas, Dark Knight, Geomancer, Templar, Viking (by adding thunder Knight and suppressing white magicks and swords/greatswords), that we can took from everywhere.

I hope it will give you some ideas someday, even if I know that some jobs are pretty broken lol. (sorry for bad english haha)

Thanks again for your work, I'm really have a good time thanks to you. :)

Some questions please :

- Do you know if it is possible to edit status effect ? Example : physical hit cures Confusion and Sleep, is there a way to edit that ? Because a confused monster cures immediately by hitting himself, its annoying I would like delete this.

- Can you tell me which TZA All-in-One editor do you use ? I have v.1.0.23.8, even if I perfectly follow the readme I have tons of errors (I just want to edit some texts) maybe my version is outdated ?

- I would like play without my mouse, it is locked into screen so I cant use it freely to read your documentation (I love this) while playing. I must first minimize the game to move the mouse. This guy explain better than me : https://steamcommunity.com/app/595520/discussions/0/1700541698699810334/ have you any idea to fix this ?

- I would like to sell useless items like story-relative weapons goddess nethecite, hero sword, dawn sword, flimsy blade and more. No technical problem if I uncheck "cannot be sold" on these items, in BattlePackEditor ? Like black screen, infinity loop because game is looking for them ?

- Is there a way to see all ennemies animations, except randomely testing them ?

- Also, "HP critical" status don't seems to work on a simple buff magick ? (Like charge : bestow Haste & HP Critical. HP Critical dont trigger) Its is normal ?

Thanks and sorry for the long post ! :)

[eternal248]

@Nito: Hey Nito, I definitely thought about doing that to make them more useful throughout the game. I haven't done much testing with it yet, but I think the challenge with that is that it wouldn't work with the Potion Lores and Pheasant Netsuke. Again, I haven't tested it, but that's a hunch I have. It is something I'm considering doing for a special version of the mod that I have planned in the future though!

@Melodia: The perfectionist in me forces me to keep tweaking things. Please send help. :(

@Lal: You have some fun ideas! I do hope to release a version of the mod with completely new jobs at some point, but it may be a while with how busy I've been lately.

With regard to statuses, I can edit certain properties of statuses, but not others. For example, I can edit how long a status lasts, but I unfortunately can't edit something like what you mentioned above with Confuse.

The version of the Editor I use is 1.0.23.9, though I think the text edits work fine in in the version you have. You may want to make sure the files are being re-imported correctly, etc.

As for the mouse/full screen issue, I unfortunately don't have any idea how to fix that. :(

I've never tested making the key items salable, so I'm not sure how the game would react. I know you can make them normal treasures and nothing special happens, but I'm not sure about if they were to be sold.

Unfortunately, for enemy animations, you'd just have to mess around with them. There's no animation viewer tool or anything like that at the moment.

Last, with regard to HP Critical, the game is always reading the party's HP. The reason the HP Critical buff won't stick is because the moment it's inflicted, it gets removed because the game is reading the unit's HP and is seeing that they're not in HP Critical, thereby curing it instantly.

Hope that makes sense!

[Novalys]

Thanks for all your answers friend, Very kind :)

[summer]

FF12 models and animations see here

[Novalys]

Thanks for your help Summer.


@Eternal : Do you know what "Power Multi" means with Battle Editor, on each abilities ?

And can I delete a mod installed with VBF browser ?


Thanks !

[Taltos]

eternal248-

I wanted to first thank you for the incredible amount of changes that are listed in mod. Your efforts are appreciated.

Quick question- I don't have significant amounts of time to restart the game as new versions of the mod come out. For a person looking for a focus mostly on increasing the game's difficulty, would you say that the mod is stable and "feature-complete" as is? Or should I wait for the 1.9 version?

Thank you again for your efforts!

[eternal248]

Hey Taltos! 1.9 likely won't be out for some time, so I would stick with 1.8.3, which will likely come out tomorrow. (1.8.2 is fine, but 1.8.3 will fix a few small bugs). 1.9 is going to have several new features, so it's going to take a while to implement, test, and balance. For what you're looking for, I'd stick with 1.8.

Hope that helps!

@Lal: Power Multi is used generally with fixed damage/healing formulas to make things do an exact amount of damage/healing, such as 1000 Needles and Potions.

And for VBF Browser, you would have to replace the modded file with the old, unchanged file.