I have my own "tier" list. Yes, a tier list for a RPG. This is in order of whom -I- think is useful, before all of the new abilities were added in. Note that this is subject to change now that all of the newer abilities are in (Weapon Bless, Souleater, Pray, etc.). "? Tier" are those that I don't know how they'll fare at all yet.


S: Remilia, Koishi
A: Marisa, Sanae
B: Cirno, Meiling, Yukari, Alice
C: Reimu, Reisen, Youmu, Mokou, Utsuho, Yuuka, Byakuren, Patchouli, Momiji
D: Sakuya, Aya, Komachi, Keine
E: Nitori, Suwako, Advent Cirno
?: Yumemi, Hope, Nue, Rinnosuke



Reasonings:


S Tier: Remilia is solely up here BECAUSE she is THE absolute strongest physical attacker in the game, beating out even Meiling. Top that off with some good Absorb and Shadow attacks. Koishi is mainly up here due to how versatile her moveset is right now, and some abilities (such as Flare and Freeze) are pretty powerful for the time you get her.


A Tier: Marisa is just all-around powerful, and even if she can't use magic against enemies, she still has other options (well, only really Stardust Reverie and Attack), so she's not COMPLETELY useless. And Steal is always good! Sanae...well, Sanae is pretty good both as an attacker and supporter (and she's one of the few characters with a Revive ability). Falling Stars is her highlight though.


B Tier: Yukari and Alice are both really solid characters, though Alice will ONLY reach here if her skills get upgraded a bit. Yukari is also up here due to her inherent Ribbon. Meiling is of course here due to her massive physical attacks as well as being a good healer, and Cirno well...Cirno is pretty versatile in what she can do (and all of her summons, bar Tewi, are AoE at that).


C Tier: A LOT of people fall into here, simply because well...this is basically the average characters. For instance, Yuuka is here mostly because she DOES have powerful moves, but she's slow and has a LIMITED selection of moves, and Reimu is here due to even though she has an extremely versatile moveset, they can only go so far compared to everyone else that deals better in those categories (i.e. Komachi for statuses, Marisa/Patchouli for Magic, etc).


D Tier: Characters that AREN'T terrible per say, but they're very limited in their capabilities and what they can do. Keine has the potential to reach S or A Rank, but only by getting ALL of her skills.


E Tier: The characters that nobody would use pre-Beta4 2.0. Nitori was all but useless due to her low MP and very limited moveset, Suwako was unreliable, and Advent Cirno requires her to upgrade her skills a LOT, as well as level her up a lot more compared to everyone else.



So that's how it is. Of course, others may have different views on this list, which of course I'd like to hear from them on it~

After like 2 months of not updating with a blog, I have updates for those who haven't been keeping up! Yes, the game has been updated today as of this post for those who don't keep up with the game page or any other place that this game is at, so there's that! What's new? Welllll~



*Weapon Bless and both Armor Blesses are fully implemented. Need to fix bug with Weapon Bless regarding dual-wielding characters though...I've no idea on how it's being caused or how to fix it...
*A crapton of animations (roughly 200-300) have been added to the game!
*Damage formulas have been modified slightly for skills to not be shared with regular physical attacks. Still need to apply physical stuff to enemies to make them weaker to the Attack command.
*Updated Misty Lake with a new puzzle!!!


Do give feedback on Misty Lake for those who haven't tried the new one (you can still play through the puzzle even if you finished it, assuming you haven't gone too far into the game)! It'll help my mapper with ideas and whatnot!

So, new stuff! Need to brainstorm so if you're willing to listen (or read, whichever), this is what's going down for characters!


Sanae: Miracle command has been completely changed and no longer acts as a random effect generator (which arguably, her Fortune Packets would work better as but those are her heals...). Instead, it acts just like Angel's Snack from FFIX. In other words, here's how it works; when the command is chosen, it will use 1 Faith item from your inventory on your entire party. That's all it does. If you have no Faiths, then it will instead recover 10% of your party's Max MP. However, due to THIS now, Faiths can no longer be bought at shops (it can still be crafted though), and Faiths can no longer be used by the party. Faiths are also pretty uncommon now (though not too rare since you need them for that ability). The problem though is whether or not they should not be buyable now or not (they do cost 3000 Yen to buy). Crafting them is a bit costly as well (right now, takes 2 Sake and 2 Adrenaline (originally took Holy Waters too, but that was all sorts of messed up with that one) to make 1 Faith).



Hope: The only new thing right now with her is the Reverse spell. No, it does nothing like it did in FFXII. In fact, it only reverses the effects of statuses for your party. For instance, if your character has Poison and you use the spell, Poison is removed and that person gets Regen. Likewise, if the character has Regen and you use the spell, the character will get Poison. It's not fully implemented yet as I need to figure out what statuses will be "reversed" with what...



Remilia: Souleater is now fully functional and will deal damage to all enemies and Remilia equal to 33% of Remilia's MAX HP (meaning even if she's not at Max HP, it'll still do the same amount of damage each time). Of even more important note is that I MAY make it Shadow attribute (well, it's not technically Shadow because I can't make Switch type abilities elemental), though it will not heal Remilia still at all.



Yumemi: Yumemi has a new set of abilities in her Machina command that she'll have at all times, regardless of what weapon she has equipped so she can at least do SOMETHING. These are all lifted from FFTA/FFTA2:


Red Spring: 8 MP, Haste on either all enemies or allies.
Green Gear: 8 MP, Poison on either all enemies or allies.
Silver Disc: 8 MP, Armor Break on either all enemies or allies.
Chroma Gem: 8 MP, Damages MP to either all enemies or allies.
Gold Battery: 8 MP, Heals MP either to all enemies or allies.
Black Ingot: 8 MP, Fear on either all enemies or allies.


Again, I'm iffy about having statuses for these because of Hope (with the Pestilence/Death subskills) and Komachi (single target skills). In addition, Yumemi also has Lucky 7 (straight from FFIX); which deals either 7, 77, 777, or 7777 damage to all enemies if the last digit of her HP is equal to 7. I haven't figured out how to code this yet, but I'm sure it's possible to do....maybe.


The OTHER thing with Yumemi, is ther secondary command is going to be like Sanae's old Miracle command, in that it does a random effect. The problem here, and thus the brainstorming, is what all effects should it do? I would like to have one effect, and then have the complete opposite of that effect as a 50/50 chance if that subability is chosen at random (for instance, if the 3% chance End Game subability is chosen at random, there would be a 50% chance of either getting Instant Victory (all enemies are instantly defeated regardless of Instant Death immunity) or Game Over (your party is instantly defeated regardless of Instant Death immunity).



Yuuka: Yuuka may actually get a secondary command ability called Scare (not sure what else to call it right now). What will this do? When used (will only target one enemy), if it succeeds, it will force the target to flee from the battle and give less EXP/Yen than if you defeated it (10% is what I'm thinking of the original value), but will increase the chance you have of getting its item. Obviously will not work on bosses, and harder to use on Notorious Monsters. May be made level dependent.





Whew, long post is long. Not sure what all else to do with these, but wanting to get these done before I move on with Momiji/Youmu/Nitori/Suwako stuff (Momiji and Youmu with their special self-buffs, Nitori/Suwako for the Armor Blesses). Hope to hear your ideas on this!

Ok, so I'm almost finally done with the whole Weapon Bless system for everyone (up through beta5 weapons anyways). Once I get this done, I'll start on the Armor stuff and then finish it up with the Status Bless since that'll take equally as long as Weapon Bless (as of this post, this is day 5-6 of working on that command alone). Now, the question I have here...I am thinking about cutting down the number of abilities for Status Bless from 14 to 8, to match how many other abilities are in Hope's other skillsets (minus her default). The question is, what to axe for it? The following are all the abilities in Hope's Status Bless command:

Instant Death, Poison, Blind, Silence, Berserk, Confusion, Sleep, Paralyze, Amnesia, Venom, Petrify, Freeze, Slow, and Stop.

If I DO decide to add more back into this at a later date, that'll be easier to deal with then, but for now, 6 of these need to be axed (plus it'll make coding this monster a lot quicker...). In addition, I have yet to decide what to give for Armor Status Bless. Speaking of new commands...

Patchouli and Byakuren both will have Weapon Bless (Weapon Bless will replace Byakuren's current Pray ability, because it's lame). Does not stack with Status Bless.
Nitori will gain the Armor Elemental Bless (just called A. Bless) command. This will grant a buff that increases resistance towards an element for a specific amount of time. Will not stack with Armor Status Bless (unless I make one target armor and another helmets). The only element not available in here that's in Weapon Bless is Mystic.
Suwako will gain the Armor Status Bless (just called A. Bless) command. This will grant a buff that protects fully against a chosen status effect until the buff wears off. Does not stack with Armor Elemental Bless. No idea how many abilities should come into this.

In addition, Momiji and Youmu also have new things that I'll be adding to them (Names are subject to change):

(????): 3 separate abilities for Slash, Pierce, and Blunt (single target or AoE, I haven't decided). (Momiji Only)
Barrier: Physical Resist Up for one party member (Momiji only)
Shield Wall: Physical Resist Up for a limited time for the party (Momiji only)
Critical Up: Doubles Critical % of weapons.
Piercing Sight: Ignores Evasion for brief time.
Target All: Allows attacking all enemies.


Whether or not I should give the last 3 abilities to BOTH Momiji and Youmu, or to either or is up in the air.


Last thing, Field abilities may come into play (yes, those same ones from GoS). In fact, Sakuya may utilize them if I get them coded right. They are as follows (all exactly from GoS):


Killing World: Prevents all healing effects.
Killer World: Increases Instant KO effects.
Suction World: Increases Potency of HP draining moves.
Empty World: Removes field abilities.
One MP Cost (On accessory and field ability)
Chameleon Camouflage: Reduces elemental damage


Some of these will come into play with bosses too as they'll set these up either during a fight or at the start or prior to it (or it'll be the dungeon's gimmick).


Patchouli's MP Stroll ability is currently disabled as it was OP (deciding if it should be every X steps you recover 1 MP or something. 1 MP for 1 step is kinda silly, especially with Sakuya's speed bonus on the overworld). Also still deciding on Souleater for Remilia as well as Yumemi's Gadgeteer type ability and on how to fix Sanae's Miracle ability.


Last thing to note is that Mokou will get her Auto-Revive passive from GoS as well (I haven't decided on the % chance to revive per turn, as per turn means every turn that happens, from an enemy or ally, not just from Mokou).



So there's that as an update! Any ideas or suggestions, feel free to add to this!

And so, after quite some time of thinking of new things (and reading some tutorials of which I may use), here's what's new in the Ideas and possible updates in the near future for this game (as well as ongoing projects in Touhou Fantasy). Note that some of these have been mentioned before, but will be rementioned anyways:


*New command abilities. These include the following:

*Mad Rush (Momiji): Berserk + Protect + Haste to party. Taken from Final Fantasy VIII.
*Souleater (Remilia): Sacrifice 30% of Max HP to inflict non-elemental damage to all enemies equal to a 33% multiplier of HP sacrificed.
*Astrology (Patchouli. Command name pending): Allows Patchouli to grant elemental buffs to a party member's weapon. Can only have one buff on a party member at any given time (i.e. cannot have both Fire and Holy), and does not work in tangent with Hope's Pestilence command buffs. Original idea taken from Genius of Sapphieros, but also from Final Fantasy V.
*???? (Yumemi) (Not named yet): Think of the Gadgeteer from Final Fantasy Tactics A2. Yup, this is what this command would be like. For those who don't know, the Gadgeteer's main abilities were that it has abilities that inflicted statuses on an entire team, but was a 50% chance of being either the enemy party or your party. This includes both negative and positive statuses. Not sure if she'll get this or not, but just an idea...
*Revive (Mokou): Now I know what you're thinking, this is a bit OP for a regular command right? Well...this isn't exactly a 100% full revive ability either. The way it's gonna work, IF it's put in, is if Mokou uses this ability on a KO'd ally, it costs half of her current HP and revives the KO'd ally with HP equal to the amount paid. Kinda like Final Fantasy Tactic's Chant/Wish ability in a way.
*Libra (Reisen): Not to be confused with Aya's ability. It's similar, but think of it as for the party. You might be wondering, what's the point of that? Well, think of it as a way to find out your character's status (and also helps with knowing what they're strong/weak to as well as what statuses they have on). This is still pending though.
*Pestilence (Hope): Unlike most of the other commands, this command will not give Hope access to Pestilence movesets (in fact, she might only get 1 out of 3 abilities at that from Pestilence). This works similarly to Astrology, in that Hope can grant one status buff to a character's weapon (i.e. grant Instant Death to a character's weapon to allow them to inflict Instant Death with regular attacks). Does not work in tangent with Astrology, and can only have one buff on a party member at any given time (i.e. cannot have both Instant Death and Poison).

*New Passive Abilities:

MP Stroll (Patchouli): While walking on the world map (with Patchouli in the party), party regains 1 MP per step. Simple enough no?
Move Find (Nitori/Nazrin): Haven't decided if Nazrin will be an optional character or not. As long as this character is active on the field (or in party, whichever), the player can see hidden items/save points on the map. Taken straight from Final Fantasy VIII.
Gilsnapper (Marisa): After receiving damage from anything, there will be a chance to earn Yen equal to the amount of damage taken. Not sure if this is possible to do, but thought it'd be a neat little passive to have. Can't really think of anything else for her ya know!

*Gameplay:

*Hope: Hope in general may get revamped, in that her stats will change depending on what "mode" she's in. For instance, in her default "mode", her stats are unchanged, but in her "Fate" mode, her HP and Attack are lower, while her MP and Magic are higher. This may also include elemental and status resistances being changed too. Depends on whether or not the Class command can be done in this way.
*Koishi: As mentioned before, Koishi will be undergoing a revamp on her Blue Magics, mainly to make them more unique and less generic. Of course, this will more than likely hamper her playability as she'll no longer have access to 50 some odd abilities and instead roughly half of that, but consider this a balancing issue that needs fixed.
*Suwako: Suwako is undergoing a slight update with new moves, to accomodate for her lack of usability in the game.
*Updated HRCS system: This will include the ability to switch out any party members at any given time, without the need to have one party member in the party all the time (i.e. Reimu, Marisa, and Momiji), unless absolutely required to have them (i.e. Youkai Mountain, Blazing Fires of Hell).
*Custom EXP System: This will differ from the current EXP system, in that it will allow for more flexibility with level ups and custom statuses. This will remain in debug room until it is completely done and players have tested it (as well as with the statuses associated with it, those including Virus, Wounded, and Double EXP).
*Custom Skill Shop: To avoid having players constantly go into their menu to upgrade their skills, this will allow players to see what skills can be bought and what they do, as well as automatically learn them after they are bought (will still follow the same system as the current skill system). This too will remain in the debug room until fully done and tested by players.
*Overworld Field Abilities: Borrowed mostly from Defiant of Shrine Maiden. Also includes the ability to change the player's overworld sprite with a single button, which is meant to be used in tangent with this system. Depending on which character is on the map, different abilities can be used for different effects (i.e. Aya's allow the player to view the map, Marisa's allows the player to unlock locked doors and chests that don't require a switch or key to open).
*Updated Statuses: Still a work in progress. This will help with showing what statuses a character has on as to alleviate not knowing what is on a character due to 2k3's limitation. The statuses Disease, Freeze, Bubble, and Heat are all still a WIP as well and require being fully finished somehow, if possible.
*Updated Synthesis Shop and Crafting Items: Still a WIP. I feel that the Synthesis Shop won't be used at all due to how the materials are needed for the stuff in here, and feel that I may need to make a way to buy/make crafting materials (or have an easier way to get crafting materials obtainable). Open to ideas on this one.
*Enemies: Enemies may get fixed up so that regular physical attacks will do more damage and not have the physical skills completely rape them otherwise. In order to do this, I'll have to separate the physical attack tag for regular weapons from the physical attack skills. Not hard to do, just time consuming.
*Dungeons: Depending on several factors right now. If the Overworld Field abilities goes through, then several dungeons will get revamped to fit in with this. If not, then some of the earlier dungeons will probably be revamped to be longer (i.e. Forest of Magic, Bamboo Forest, Eientei). This also includes fixing up puzzles and making them fairer, as well as implementing new puzzles into later dungeons (some of which I already have ideas for, but haven't worked on due to well...obviously not working on this game!).

Miscellaneous:

*Sprites: I still need sprites done for the OCs (overworld sprites for everyone not Hope and Chaos, in-battle boss sprites for all of them, in-battle character sprites for Hope and Chaos) as well as for statuses for those who don't have them yet, including status icons. This also extends to needing custom sprites for enemies from the Touhou series (and possibly other places!).
*Inventory: Depending on how the skill system goes, there may be LESS items due to not needing Ability Scrolls nearly as much as before. However, new equipment for armor and accessories will be added to deal with the newly implemented Poison element.
*Elements: The Poison element is brand new, and serves as a way to nullify damage from the otherwise lethal spells (if nobody noticed, Bio spells and their like tend to be mighty powerful). In addition, the Gravity element is being considered as a way to completely nullify Gravity-based attacks, similar to with dealing with Poison-elemental attacks. There will be no Gravity-elemental weapons however if it does make it in, though there may be a way to grant Gravity element to weapons via Astrology (there will be some enemies weak to Gravity. For instance, the Iron Giant).


For those wondering about the Elemental and Status buffs, reason why they don't stack is because I'll need a "Condition" for each element and status, so that when the character gets the buff, it activates a status that activates a common event to switch that character's weapon to a similar weapon but with different attributes. Note that there are roughly 13 attributes and 22 statuses that are in this game that can be used by the player...so in order to have ONE weapon with all possible combinations, that would be one weapon copied 286 times. Which is far too much even if it would make it more unique, considering the sheer size of this game. So there's the reason for those not stacking together. It gets knocked down to roughly 35 copied weapons otherwise. That should be good enough, no? And that depends if I MAKE some of these statuses usable by the player such as Charm and Sap.



So there's your updates on that! I'm fairly certain that there's others that I'm forgetting in this. If there are, I'll just post down below on this! A lot to come, and a lot to do...any help on this is still welcomed of course!


EDIT - To help with deciding on command abilities and passives, here's what each character currently has in the game (excluding temporary characters). EXPECT SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT!!!


Reimu:
*Main Command: Divinity
*Sub Command:
*Battle Passive:
*Overworld Passive:
*Overworld Field Ability:


Marisa:
*Main Command: Magic
*Sub Command: Steal
*Battle Passive:
*Overworld Passive:
*Overworld Field Ability: Skeleton Key (Unlocks locked chests and doors that do not require a special key or switch)


Cirno:
*Main Command: Ice
*Sub Command: Call
*Battle Passive:
*Overworld Passive:
*Overworld Field Ability:


Aya:
*Main Command: Wind
*Sub Command: Intel (Scan)
*Battle Passive:
*Overworld Passive:
*Overworld Field Ability: Sight (Can view current map of dungeon)


Meiling:
*Main Command: Invoke Chi
*Sub Command: Chakra (Can be upgraded to affect party)
*Battle Passive:
*Overworld Passive:
*Overworld Field Ability:


Patchouli:
*Main Command: Magic
*Sub Command: Astrology (See above)
*Battle Passive:
*Overworld Passive: MP Stroll (see above)
*Overworld Field Ability:


Reisen:
*Main Command: Lunatic
*Sub Command: Libra (Pending. See above)
*Battle Passive:
*Overworld Passive:
*Overworld Field Ability: Reveal Traps (Show all hidden traps on the map)


Sakuya:
*Main Command: Time
*Sub Command: Time Stop (100% chance to escape escapable battles)
*Battle Passive:
*Overworld Passive: Sprint (Double speed on overworld)
*Overworld Field Ability:


Momiji:
*Main Command: Sword Tech
*Sub Command: Mad Rush (see above)
*Battle Passive:
*Overworld Passive:
*Overworld Field Ability:


Nitori:
*Main Command: Water
*Sub Command: Stock (Allows Item use for MP cost)
*Battle Passive:
*Overworld Passive:
*Overworld Field Ability:


Youmu:
*Main Command: Sword Tech
*Sub Command:
*Battle Passive:
*Overworld Passive:
*Overworld Field Ability:


Komachi:
*Main Command: Shinigami
*Sub Command: Yen Toss
*Battle Passive:
*Overworld Passive:
*Overworld Field Ability:


Yuuka:
*Main Command: Flower
*Sub Command:
*Battle Passive:
*Overworld Passive:
*Overworld Field Ability:


Remilia:
*Main Command: Red Magic
*Sub Command:
*Battle Passive:
*Overworld Passive:
*Overworld Field Ability:


Advent Cirno:
*Main Command: Sword Tech
*Sub Command:
*Battle Passive:
*Overworld Passive:
*Overworld Field Ability:


Mokou:
*Main Command: Phoenix
*Sub Command:
*Battle Passive: Auto-Revive (Revive at a low % randomly while KO'd in battle)
*Overworld Passive:
*Overworld Field Ability:


Byakuren:
*Main Command: Mystic
*Sub Command: Pray (Restore 10% Max HP to party)
*Battle Passive:
*Overworld Passive:
*Overworld Field Ability:


Yumemi:
*Main Command: Machina
*Sub Command:
*Battle Passive:
*Overworld Passive:
*Overworld Field Ability:


Sanae:
*Main Command: Divinity
*Sub Command: Miracle (Random chance for random effect, similar to Paula's Pray ability in Earthbound)
*Battle Passive:
*Overworld Passive:
*Overworld Field Ability:


Suwako:
*Main Command: Water
*Sub Command:
*Battle Passive:
*Overworld Passive:
*Overworld Field Ability:


Keine:
*Main Command: History (Acts as Arithmetician command from FFT)
*Sub Command:
*Battle Passive:
*Overworld Passive:
*Overworld Field Ability:


Utsuho:
*Main Command: Nuclear
*Sub Command:
*Battle Passive:
*Overworld Passive:
*Overworld Field Ability:


Koishi:
*Main Command: Memory (Both normal abilities and Blue Magic)
*Sub Command:
*Battle Passive:
*Overworld Passive:
*Overworld Field Ability:


Alice:
*Main Command: Magic
*Sub Command:
*Battle Passive:
*Overworld Passive:
*Overworld Field Ability:


Yukari:
*Main Command: Boundary
*Sub Command:
*Battle Passive:
*Overworld Passive:
*Overworld Field Ability:


Hope:
*Main Command: Pandora (Changes abilities depending on what command is chosen)
*Sub Command:
*Battle Passive:
*Overworld Passive:
*Overworld Field Ability:


Nue:
*Main Command: Unknown
*Sub Command: Morph (Change target into item if target's HP is 10. Will be changed)
*Battle Passive:
*Overworld Passive:
*Overworld Field Ability:


Rinnosuke:
*Main Command: Magic
*Sub Command: Pandora
*Battle Passive:
*Overworld Passive:
*Overworld Field Ability: