[Version] LF2 Rebalance [LF2-RB] - Progress Thread

[STM1993]

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Yay! Good thing you scrapped a bunch of the old stuff, the sprites I made for new moves really weren't good at all. I think so far weapon minions are my favourite thing in here, as much as I despise fighting againts flying kicker, boss Mark, yet with his new sprites, is brilliant. I think left (his right) arm could use more shadow. Any reason there is no b sprites for criminals?
I'm hoping to see an update with all new moves mentioned in the post soon, before going for stuff like revive and "AI manipulation system", which whatever it might be, sounds cool.

I actually kept them and are waiting to use some of them XD. Nyamaiku made the arms for BossMark.

Criminals don't have b_sprites at the moment, because I do have some new moves for some chars that simply do not have a b_sprite equivalent. I don't want to waste further time copy pasting them onto the new spritesheets when its much more efficient to just edit a whole spritesheet's colour palette at the later date when the sprites are actually finalized.

The updates are not in order, but yes I'll be prioritizing hitboxes(to ensure combos are consistent) followed by new moves. Revive system will come later since its more relevant for multiplayer and quite annoying to implement. AI Manipulation is actually just playing around with state 3 and spawning invisible balls to manipulate the AI's behaviour(and unfortunately my options on DC side are limited), but again can be done later when the moves are finalized.


WpnMinion is a concept I'm proud of, though it has evolved a bit and the name is now a bit wrong.
The LF2 AI loves picking up weapons, and is easily lured by it to their deaths. Seeing this, I wanted to nerf this strategy rather than completely nullify it. How do I make only selected enemies immune to weapon luring? Give them a weapon.
With that, along with knowing that LF2 AI has hardcoded behaviour based on the id of the weapon they have on hand, I wanted to create a replica of the original minions, hence WpnMinions.

Well, turns out these DC-based replicas are not to my satisfaction:
* The WpnAI cannot imitate original LF2 soldiers closely enough(eg: WpnHunter doesn't know how to run away).
* They are often either too strong or too weak, with no middle ground.
* Many of these WpnAI can be beaten in the exact same way as any normal LF2 AI.
* I don't have the sprites, and mere palette swaps do not make a unique enemy.
* What if players choose or Rudolf transforms into this enemy? It'd feel absolutely wrong in human hands.

The original LF2 minions are also generally good enough and numerous enough in variety on their own; you can mostly split them(ignoring Bandit/Hunter) among the 4 LF2 bosses thematically:
* Julian + Knight
* Firzen + Sorcerer
* LouisEX + Monk
* Bat + Justin
That leaves out Jack, Mark, Jan. I probably only need like 2-3 additional minions to complete the set.

The last thing is that I want WpnMinions to be able to teach or enforce actual LF2 skills. Things like:
* >>JA; exactly how useful it is and how to defend against it
* How to deal with broken_defend situations
* How to punish those who flip out of combos

So going in that direction, I think most WpnMinions will actually end up being unique Midbosses rather than common soldiers, and I must have been over-fixated on nerfing the weapon lure strategy.

I decided to do a writeup to help gather my thoughts on what I want to do.
Will be busy as more stuff start to pile up in real life and I don't want to lose sight of my goals again.

General
* Most chars' >>JA will be nerfed from 70 to 69dmg; this is to prevent 1-shotting bandits in Normal/Difficult.
* Most chars' JA is useless and deals too little damage, though AI does not know how to defend against it.
* Buff most chars' >>A to be vrest, have >= damage vs >>JA (or at least have utility like Dennis stun).
* Weapons are excellent for throwing, but I feel AI should be able to better defend against it.
* Weapon swinging is mediocre(except ice sword). Its only real value is providing vrest attacks(esp >>JA).
* Heavy Weapons are great in Easy/Normal, but useless in Difficult/Crazy due to teamchange & projectiles.
* Heavy Weapons are also actually really broken when paired with certain vrest attacks for combos(eg: flute).
* I want to reduce the id1000 heroes' MP from 500 to maybe 200 when they initially spawn in Stage. This can be done with DC and is customizable.

0. Template
* I like the concept of picking a character with no special moves, and winning with only basic moves.
* I also like how Template doesn't have to worry about accidentally doing D>A after block + turn + punch.
* However, Template is too weak; I'm buffing his stats to be on par with the average Hero.
* Story-wise, Template is a homunculus made from alchemy, and can take the form of others.
* That means he gets Rudolf's DJA Transform, but he can directly grab instead of needing to stun first.
* Transform is inherently unfair/unbalanced in PvP; so he'll remain unselectable by "Random".
* I do wonder if having only 1 move is too plain though, and I don't want some of my old HeroMinion ideas to go to waste, like "Weapon Steal", "Transmute", "Re-Roll F8 Weapon", "Timelock"...

1. Deep
* Godly in Stage Mode, but unreliable in PvP.
* Deep has trouble starting big combos, and even those are hard to do AND easily flippable.
* This forces Deep to play in a reactionary manner, greatly limiting his otherwise insane damage potential.
* I'm buffing his D>A to be much more effective for this playstyle since Deep isn't good at combo rushdown.
* D>A also gets a brief moment of state12 so that it can deal with Davis's D>A spam.
* AA D>AA(A) is a 100% safe 250hp/225mp combo. I'm making it easier to do.
* AA DvA(DvA)JA is the stronger combo, but is less safe.
* AA (G)Ax5 D>J nerfed as it does too much damage for too little MP; encourage the above 2 combos instead.
* His DJA shall be a -mp overtime Sprint(ik1+wpnSt16 tech; cannot hold weapons) as a small mobility boost.
* Also improved his walk from 2.3 to 2.5.

2. John
* Very honest & balanced in PvP(mostly 5-5), but extremely bad in Stage mode.
* D>J should be a bit easier to use for combos, and fix the Rudolf DJA escape exploit.
* The big problem: I want to buff his AOE for PvE, but in a way that does not buff his PvP.
* I'm giving him D^AA (Non-Homing Disc, refund 50mp, slowly accelerates & dmg50->70 overtime).
* However, this is still too expensive; John needs a low-mp option for attacking big groups.
* Considered vrest >>JA, but I think that's too much now. Maybe retain 70dmg(1-hit bandits) is good enough.
* I've been thinking his DJA should be a Weapon ability, but throwing weapons is kinda overpowered.

Instead of making weapons, maybe Transmute a weapon currently on hand to something else? Combine with D>J to stop AI from picking up weapons so that he can use them himself. This also kinda solves my concern about giving John vrest >>JA directly since this still needs him to pick up a weapon. Will also need to allow Milk to be transmuted into a weapon(important for Survival where you can't get any weapon drops due to the accumulation of milks), but not in a way that refreshes the contents of the milk.

4. Henry
* Hard to use in 1v1(PvP) but strong in team fights & Stage Mode.
* Nerfed D^J's duration/damage, startup time, and slowed down MP Regen Rate while flute is active.
* D>J is OP vs AI, but dmg is too low for PvP. Buff dmg but make AI able to react(block/avoid?) to it proper.
* New DvJ(Summon Arrow as Weapon) to mitigate his awful CQC without giving him a counter/escape ability.
* Buff his basic SP/>>A/>>JA as well.

5. Rudolf
* Hard to use in PvP(and in team fights), but simple yet effective in Stage Mode.
* Rudolf is a weird case; he is both overpowered & underpowered at the same time.
* (Rule-Restricted)Infinites are a big part of Rudolf's basic kit.
* Buff normal shuriken mp15->0 and z-axis aim from 2.5 to 3.
* Find some way to nerf his D>A; this one move in PvP is extremely oppressive even without infinites.
* Keep shuriken as type1 due to the new aim system, otherwise I'd use type3 to make him more team-friendly.
* >>D will now have z-axis movement, along with D>J(also starts faster).
* super_punch & >>A are guaranteed punishable on flip even if successful. Fix this!
* >>A is actually very OP if not for the above. Fix this too!
* I'm not sure whether Rudolf needs a new move. Probably not?
* I might need to add a TransformCheck system, not to stop Rudolf from becoming Julian, but to stop him from becoming an NPC WpnMinion.
* I wonder if there's a way to punish people who abuse F6 with Rudolf without wrongly punishing those who use Beer.

6. Louis
* Suffers several critical problems affecting both PvP and Stage; a few of these cannot be truly fixed.
* Fix bugs affecting his SP/JA(rest), >>A/>>JA(mp), D>J(missing itr) and D^J(wtf). Buff various things.
* Change DJA to transform to weaker Hero version of LouisEX; this should solve those unfixable problems.
* HeroLEX's moveset is mostly based on the version from Streetwize's mod.
* Yes I will allow HeroLEX to transform back to normal Louis anytime, at the cost of MP. No instant runstab.
* Not sure whether I should still allow Louis to transform into BossLouisEX (DJA+DJA, hplock via mpregen).
* DvJ is currently an ArmorUp Buff(courtesy of Nyamaiku), with low MP cost but uses Louis's original HP lock mechanism. Unlike similar skills in other mods, I do NOT allow it to stack infinitely.

7. Firen
* Moderately difficult to use properly in PvP and Stage; very reliant on zoning and combos are hard to setup.
* Add DJA Summon Fire Sword(Neuer Stern). Normal A does not burn. Solves Firen's bad matchup vs Dennis by giving him melee reach.
* Added state19 to minimize risk of self-burn when swinging weapons and when doing D>A(good for broken_defend).
* D>A can no longer x6(max x3). Stronger on non-burning but weaker on burning(overall D>AAA same damage).
* Fixed Julian/Knight's burning bdy so that Firen's combos can work on them properly.
* Old idea of DvA flamestomp is no longer necessary with the above changes.
* Redesign D>J's groundfire and fix a bug that makes the groundfire punch harder than it needs to be.
* Find some way to adjust DvJ's balance; it is both kinda eh and very overpowered at the same time.
* Buff D^J to no longer cost HP and pierce armor(but can still be defended).
* Fix the broken_defend loop on helicopter spin super_punch.

8. Freeze
* Solid character all-around and very popular; One-Touch Man.
* Fix his inconsistent A(punch) recovery time.
* Nerf his D>A's nrg->iceball conversion; spawns weaker iceballs.
* D>A can hit falling on 1st tu; this is for Template's DJA combo. Old DvA Icepunch no longer needed.
* Same as John, I don't want to buff him too much, but I want a new utility DJA.
* Add DJA for giving ice sword to others directly.

9. Dennis
* Wrecks anyone who isn't Deep/Woody/Davis in PvP, but has trouble dealing with big groups in Stage.
* Main problem in PvP: the damage of his Grab and DvA(especially first 3 hits) is too high; nerf those.
* Main problem in Stage: his multihit attacks can be easily interrupted and he lacks 1-hit knockdown.
* Add DJA ik3 "Galeforce" for crowd control & anti-leap-escape. Buff his D>J bdy to avoid Bandit punches.
* Add vrest to >>A; better against armor(but still same number of kicks to break defend for DvA followup).
* (G)D>J infinite can now be escaped; turn away from Dennis, and dash after landing from the 1st kick.
* Fix his A recovery being 1tu too slow that results in silly trades against 2tu startup attacks.
* Other matchup problems can be solved buffing Dennis's opponents(eg: Firen) rather than nerfing Dennis.
* Nerf his chaseball spam. Seriously wtf.

10. Woody
* The #1 PvP Champion with insane DPS. Pretty powerful & useful in Stage but not exactly easy to use.
* Massively nerfed his D^A(dmg70->52) and he is still godlike. His tech is just THAT good and mp-efficient.
* D>J removed invulnerability frames, will not double-hit or crush defend, less damage(85->75), mp200->225.
* Fix teleport inputs, give him DJA (same as DvJ without allies).
* Improve all his other underused/flawed tech, such as >>AA.

11. Davis
* High damage rushdown PvP & >>D>A spam. Quite decent in Stage but could be better at crowd control.
* Shift around his dmg values to accommodate new enemy Stage HP and D^JA dmg(50->69); same overall damage.
* D^A is only invulnerable from Combos/Rolling. Otherwise, has a tiny bdy on 2nd tu that only some attacks can hit; this fixes the injury DP problem in PvP.
* New DJA megapunch for low-cost AOE(also works after DvA, compared to D^JA being arest) & anti-armor.
* DvA gets a new bdy that cannot be hit by soldiers'(eg: bandits) normal punch, great for crowd control.
* >>A is stronger, >>AA will always hit once, >>A(<) is the new input for completely cancelling the itr.

38. Bat
* D^J is overpowered for Boss/PvP. One-trick pony with D>A for Stage(nullified by Knight/ie4 defenders).
* Nerf D^J overall omniblockable but make it anti-Knight(ie23). Improve tech for D>A and D>J.
* Add DJA that allows him to "surrender" and change to attacker's team. Disable this move from Boss in Stage.
* I do want to improve him more, but this is a low priority.

50. LouisEX
* Banned in PvP despite the HP lock. Awesome fun in Stage. Actually the weakest of the 4 Bosses.
* LEX's attacks are all very strong, but have technical weaknesses that can be exploited and lacks z-axis.
* I will still nerf his D>A though, at the very least allow enemy AI to be able to react and block it.
* Instant Jump Attack. This is particularly unfair to Dennis & will be fixed via a new Cpoint "Fake212" system.
* Changes/New Moves from HeroLEX will not be available to BossLEX; this is for AI consistency in Stage.

51. Firzen
* Boss whose spells are slow to startup but deal WAY TOO MUCH damage!!
* My main goal is to tone down his damage so that he is a fair boss, but make him more fun for players to use.
* Letting him have DvJ ice sword sounds like a lot of fun, and players can use it back against the boss!
* Add DvA, which is a variant on D^A that is useful for combos & anti-AI(doesn't make them block).
* These new moves ultimately don't randomly change the way players approach Firzen as an enemy boss, so its fine.
* No point putting a DJA move; it is possible to bypass the de-fusion input anyway.
* Firen & Freeze are actually better than Firzen in terms of technique, whether individually or as a team.

52. Julian
* Julian is actually a good boss; just need to tweak his damage & fix his exploits.
* Tweak his damage to better fit new enemy Stage HP + reward melee over range(for players).
* D>A skulls do WAY too much damage and have some awful bugs.
* Fix wallbang issue by giving everyone blinking if they flip from very high in the sky.
* D>J also can be flipped(higher vrest, smaller behind).
* D>J & D^J no longer instantly destroy milk.
* Fix Mirror Image clones exploits(midair & Rudolf DJA).

30. Bandit
* Slightly tone down his ability to gang up on players and it should be fine.

31. Hunter
* Supposed to be as weak as Bandit, but he is actually too OP for that role.
* Near-instant >>A/>>JA with deceptively large/long vrest hitboxes. Nerf this.
* Arrows can juggle AND z-axis aim is 2.5. Remove juggle and nerf aim to 2.
* His throw speed and other stats should match Bandit's.

32. Mark
* Actually stronger than the 10 Heroes, but his low mobility makes him unable to dodge certain attacks.
* Buff his normal A punch to be more similar to Dennis's, but retain Deep's damage.
* Nerf his overly high damage and his nonsensically high priority hitboxes.
* Fix D>AA consistency(super_punch), start6/4->5.
* I will be particularly careful with the number of Marks I put in Stage as an enemy.

33. Jack
* Based on Nyamaiku's Jackass.
* Tends to juggle; limit his machinegun D>A, maybe make D^A start4->5. Otherwise let him be Hero-level.
* I will be particularly careful with the number of Jacks I put in Stage as an enemy.

34. Sorcerer
* This is a good enemy minion. 50-50 as an ally(his AI is a more generous healer than Jan btw).
* Could use some small damage buffs as a Rudolf transform choice.
* Improve on the "tell" when he does D>A/D>J; players can't react fast enough to it.
* His hitboxes are pretty weird and should be tweaked. His role is a disabler.

35. Monk
* Excellent NPC Ally, but is mediocre as an enemy(only effective as anti-projectile support).
* Bandit-like stats is okay, but he has some strange oddities that need fixing.
* Utterly unsuitable as LouisEX's minion in gameplay; he only fits for thematic reasons.
* I wonder if I should add a WpnMonk variant specifically as an enemy.

36. Jan
* Based on Nyamaiku's JAV.
* I feel that Jan is not a good character in Stage, both as an ally and as an enemy.
* She overshadows John with her D^J heal, while her D^A is extremely annoying to deal with/breaks combos.
* Also responsible for causing LF2 to crash in Battle Mode if you try to 10/30 every single soldier.
* I need a replacement for her role, but I still want to keep her as a character and give her Revive.

37. Knight
* This is actually a good minion.
* However, his start5 armored jump attack is really unfair and will be nerfed.
* I might also prevent Knight's AI from picking up weapons(but will still chase weapons when running).
* Also for some reason, Knight's D>A is faster than normal Attack. I'll fix this.

39. Justin
* Based on Nyamaiku's Jusef(unreleased).
* Decent soldier, but will juggle if there's too many at once. Cannot really fuse him as Hero-Soldier hybrid.
* I think it is okay to give him the new Mirror Image move, but other moves will have to be reviewed.
* I will be particularly careful with the number of Justins I put in Stage as an enemy.