Mega Tact relaunch

[Mogri]

And now, all the other reaction abilities.

Broadly speaking, we have two parameters we care about when we're deciding what a reaction ability does: the trigger and the effect. There are basically seven different trigger conditions:

• You've been attacked (whether or not the attack hit). This is the most common trigger; 8 of the 27 reactions fall under this umbrella, including Counter.
• You've taken HP damage from an attack (including 0 damage, but not including healing). This trigger also applies to 8 reactions, buth they're somewhat less commonly-encountered reactions, such as Speed Save.
• You've taken HP damage from an attack, and you're at critical health afterward. 4 reactions use this trigger: HP Restore, MP Restore, Critical Quick, and Meatbone Slash (Bonecrusher). Meatbone Slash is a really good ability that's overshadowed by Blade Grasp existing on the same job: it deals damage equal to your maximum HP, making it very likely to kill your attacker.
• You've been targeted by an attack, and the reaction applies before the attack resolves. This is comprised of the 7 reactions discussed in the previous post.
• You've lost HP by almost any means possible, including Poison, fall damage, and even self-inflicted damage from abilities like Wish. This trigger is unique to MP Switch (Mana Shield).
• You've been healed in excess of your maximum HP. This trigger is unique to Distribute (Cup of Life).
• You've been the target of an ability that has a Faith-based effect (including magic and magic guns). This trigger is unique to Face Up (Faith Boost), which is a detail I missed in the original Mega Tact. Granted, this is not an especially competitive ability...

As for effects, most reactions that are actual reactions (as opposed to the ones mentioned in the last post) either use an existing ability (e.g. Counter uses Attack, Auto-Potion uses Potion) or modify the reacting unit's stats (e.g. Speed Save, MA Save). Once we've eliminated those, we're left with the following oddballs:

• MP Switch turns HP loss into MP loss. It's hard to call this a standard reaction ability, because it can occur in response to lots of things that aren't actions; on the other hand, like most reaction abilities, it doesn't apply to damage received from other reaction abilities.
• Distribute, that odd duck. I'd love to see someone try to use Distribute effectively. Unfortunately, you can't Distribute healing that you inflict on yourself, but you could get up to some shenanigans with something like Chameleon Robe and Math Skilled Holy.
• Absorb Used MP is Celes's Runic except that the spell still goes off. It's hard to make a case for this, if I'm being honest.
• Counter Magic differs slightly from Counter, Counter Tackle, and Counter Flood in that the ability used is whatever was originally cast. The caster must expend MP to cast the spell.
• Damage Split is the only reaction that cares about how much damage was done.
• HP Restore, MP Restore, and Meatbone Slash seem like they could fall under the umbrella of "reactions that use an ability," but the ability they use doesn't actually exist.

Many of the huge FFT fans out there are likely familiar with the exhaustively comprehensive Battle Mechanics Guide by Aerostar. It's an incredible piece of work, and it was basically my Bible when I was starting to work on Mega Tact many, many years ago. When you get down into the weeds, though, you end up discovering that while it does a fantastic job of describing the mechanics of the game, it's not quite precise enough to serve as a specification. Take Meatbone Slash, for example: what's the range on the counterattack? Probably determined by the user's weapon, I imagine -- but I can't tell for sure.

[Mogri]

Today, we're starting on weird command menus. On a scale from least weird to most weird, they are:

• Draw Out and Item, which check the team's inventory. The initial release won't actually track inventory, but the framework will be there.
• Elemental, which will show the ability for the tile you're standing on. This is a bit kinder than FFT, where you'd have to look up the ability.
• Jump, which cobbles together an ability from the best Horizontal and Vertical Jump abilities you know. Initially, Mega Tact units will always know all their abilities, but Izlude has a partial Jump skillset, so it's still relevant.
• Throw, which will give you a list of items you own and know how to throw. The assassins have partial Throw skillsets.
• Math Skill, which requires you to choose a parameter, a factor, and a spell. Mega Tact limits Math Skill by assuming that the unit doesn't know any spells outside of her equipped skillsets, but it's still a really good option under default rules. (Less relevantly, Mega Tact doesn't track experience at the moment, eliminating one Math Skill parameter from consideration.)

First on the block was Elemental, because the unit whose turn it is in my test battle happens to be using it.

[Mogri]

Let's take a look at what's been left undone, what'll make it into the initial release, and what'll have to come later.

First, here's the list of stuff that I skipped over with the intent of coming back to later. Most of this is launch-critical, but for various reasons, I decided not to do it yet.

• Anything that modifies equipment (e.g. Knight and Thief skills, Equip Change). I doubt I'll get Equip Change done by launch, but the rest seems too important to skip.
• Weird stuff like Steal Exp and Gil Taking that don't really matter. I guess I'll do something about them someday...
• Math Skill, both on the front end and back end. Of course, this is a must-have.
• Line of sight. There are two types of LOS: direct (e.g. guns, crossbows) and arcing (exclusive to longbows). Old Mega Tact has the implementation for this, but I haven't gotten around to porting it over.
• UI for charged actions targeting a unit instead of a tile. It's a pretty important feature, tactictally speaking, so I guess I'll have to include it.

And here's my list of yet-to-dos.

• I've wrapped up Jump and Elemental, but the other weird skillsets mentioned last time still need UI.
• Mimes gonna mime. There are a lot of intricate rules around mimicry, but the actual implementation isn't too tough, so I can probably fit this in.
• AI is the elephant in the room. For launch, I don't care about having AI-controlled teams, but I do kinda care about Confusion, Charm, and Berserk, all of which put a unit under AI control. Confusion is easy to get right, and Berserk isn't too bad, but Charm requires a unit to use the fully-featured AI. Important as these statuses are, I might punt on this one; I never intended the initial launch to be feature-complete.
• More maps would be good, especially since the new Mega Tact supports layered maps (e.g. the bridge in Zirekile Falls), which weren't possible in the old version.
• Custom rulesets are definitely a down-the-line feature, but you will someday be able to alter the game to your whim. Are Calculators and Samurai overpowered? Knock them down a peg, and add in the custom job you dreamed up when you were 12 while you're at it.
• Also in the category of "much later": team inventories and specific ability selection. Maybe someday, we'll be able to limit the total number of JP a unit can spend, and if so, it'll be important not to waste it all on Meteor.
• Aside from that, everything else is meta-game features, like the ability to add someone as a friend on the site so you can rematch. I also want to add in more battle format parameters, like putting a cap on the total Brave a team can have. These are of middling importance: I won't put them in the initial launch, but I want them for the "1.0" release.

[Mogri]

It's a Math Skill. I've overridden unit E's job and skillset to set this up, but he doesn't seem to mind.

Math Skill takes the effects of a spell while overriding its charge time, MP cost, range, and area of effect. This is a real silly way to implement what is otherwise a very interesting skillset. If we were to eliminate some of those overrides, it would become much more interesting:

• If Math Skill retained the charge time and MP cost of the original spell, it would still be preferable to normal casting in all circumstances where it's already preferable, but it would at least convey the same drawbacks as conventional magic.
• If Math Skill did not affect the entire map but instead were limited to a radius around the caster, positioning would become a tactical consideration rather than the existing "play keep-away" you get with a Math caster.

But hey! Good news! You will be able to do all of that with the custom rulesets (whenever they're available). They can even be set on a per-skill basis, so you could have a "7" factor that affects the entire map while "5" only affects units near the caster (possibly excluding the caster herself). You could even get crazy and say that certain Math Skills only affect allies or enemies (though whether that's better or worse is another question altogether). Finally, you could create multiple Math Skill skillsets, forcing players to choose between a set with more parameters and a set with more factors.

So while the original Math Skill is way too good for competitive use, there's still hope for it down the line, which is awesome, because it's too interesting to lose.

(Note, however, that this is not true of old Mega Tact, where Math Skill was entirely hardcoded.)

[TMC]

As someone who's never played FFT, I'm amazed by how complicated the mechanics are.

One thing I've been wondering always: do you have any plans for character sprites? An arrow with a small icon for the character identity is a good low-cost compromise but I wonder whether you hope to do better eventually, given how nice all those icons are. Obviously, sprites could be a huge time-sink.

[Mogri]

As someone who's never played FFT, I'm amazed by how complicated the mechanics are.

One thing I've been wondering always: do you have any plans for character sprites? An arrow with a small icon for the character identity is a good low-cost compromise but I wonder whether you hope to do better eventually, given how nice all those icons are. Obviously, sprites could be a huge time-sink.

Sprites would be very tricky, given that the source material has an isometric viewpoint. All the original sprites normally face diagonally. Also, those icons were already a huge time-sink; hopefully, it doesn't show, but those are all custom work (albeit mostly adapted from existing material).

If someone were to donate sprites for everything, I'd consider using them, but they'd have to be A) high-quality and B) comprehensive. It wouldn't do to have half the units using sprites.

[TMC]

The icons being original is a bad thing??

Oh right, you did say that you only have a single icon for all monsters, so I guess there is a way someone could contribute graphics without taking on an enormous burden. (No, I'm not volunteering)

[Mogri]

The icons being original is a bad thing??

Oh right, you did say that you only have a single icon for all monsters, so I guess there is a way someone could contribute graphics without taking on an enormous burden. (No, I'm not volunteering)

The icons being original isn't a bad thing! It's just that they took some time.

Definitely if there's an easy dimension for expansion, it's the monsters, followed by the special units. I think most players will stick to the generics, but anything that isn't a generic human is either Ramza (special humans), Queklain (the Lucavi bosses), a Chocobo (monsters), or a demon (special monsters). That's annoying if you're running a full team of monsters or something.

[Mogri]

It's down to the nitty-gritty. Everything is mostly working, and I'm now focused on debugging. Every now and then, I remember something that I've overlooked (e.g. the Train/Tame ability or damage canceling Sleep). I suspect there's a decent quantity of those that will only be caught in alpha, as my testing process consists of running through a battle while playing both sides.

There are still some UI improvements I want to get out before alpha launch. In particular, I want the page to automatically detect when your opponent has taken a turn and update so that you can take yours, and I want easier viewing of the unit info panel for units other than the currently active one. Aside from that, though, we're launch-ready, and I expect to open the gates in a few weeks. (It'd be sooner, but I'm on vacation next week.)

[Mogri]

After a several-month hiatus, I'm back at it, and I'm working on the AI. I've spotted several areas for improvement over the old code -- not surprising, given its age. Among these is the epiphany that attack range is basically reflexive: if I can target you with an attack, then with very few exceptions you can target me with that attack. This is handy because it means if I decide I want to cast Fire on a unit, I check the target unit's range as if it were casting and cross-reference that against the caster's movement range.

This is a slight oversimplification, since many abilities have an area of effect to consider, but it decreases the search area over what I was doing so enormously that I can probably afford to do the AI synchronously.

(What was I doing? Checking every possible ability at every possible movement target at every possible targeting destination -- but that gave me memory overflows, so I had to cut it down to a few movement destinations, and it still had a several-second runtime.)

[Spoonweaver]

can I play this again yet?
I had a lot of fun back when it was working

[Mogri]

can I play this again yet?
I had a lot of fun back when it was working

I haven't publicly launched, and I'm not expecting to do so soon, but if you want to try Mega Tact in-flight, you can opt in by tacking '/dev' onto the URL (which I won't do here because I don't want it scraped by search). Note that depending on how you log in, it may redirect back to non-dev, and you'll need to manually navigate back.

I give no guarantee that it will work, and in particular, AI is not integrated at all yet. Units that are under Chicken/Confusion/Charm or members of teams designated as AI will be human-controlled.

You will have a difficult time finding opponents at the moment. I believe you can designate yourself as the player on all team slots, although you can't join an open slot in a battle where you're already a participant.