As the Glitz Pit Discord debuts its “Glitz Pit Ranking Board”, a place for the masses to evaluate Paper Mario and its sequel’s badges, partners, and Star Powers, I want to expound on my opinions on the matter, continuing off my TTYD badge tier list from earlier this year.

Rather than continuing to list my opinions on various cross-sections of the game’s mechanics individually, I thought I’d come up with a somewhat off-the-cuff series of suggestions of how the various mechanical systems in The Thousand Year Door might be tweaked, retaining the current variety of options, but with a more thoughtful application of systems imbalance (see Extra Credits‘ excellent videos on perfect imbalance and marginal mechanics for why some degree of “imbalance” is not only inevitable but desirable), aiming particularly toward challenge runners.  I’ll approach this for the most part by taking a look at some of the least balanced aspects in the original TTYD mechanics, and making minor adjustments to bring options on all sides to (better) viability.  (As a side note, I might intersperse more in-depth analysis at a later date, but I think the reasoning stated now should be sufficient to get an idea of my thoughts on what in the vanilla game is and is not well-balanced.)

With that out of the way, let’s start off with the big one.

Imbalance Point 1: “Super-multihit” (3+ hit) attacks

Lots of math to follow in this section in particular.

Ask any seasoned Paper Mario veteran what the most broken (non-Special) move in TTYD is, and the vast majority’ll probably say Power Bounce / Multibonk.  Despite the damage dealt dropping by 1 on each subsequent hit, with sufficient base ATK, you’re raising your damage dealt by 1 per hit for each additional ATK point you add — far more than with any other attacks on a single enemy, Jumps and Hammers alike.  Yoshi’s Stampede takes this to an even more ridiculous extreme, raising your damage dealt by 1 per hit per enemy for each additional ATK point.

Let’s look at various formulas that could be used instead, seeing how they compare in damage, expressed in as a difference from a normal Jump-like attack (2*ATK + N) or as a multiple of ATK, for some specific numbers for ATK and hits:

Method 1a: Fixed Damage (e.g. 8, 8, 8, 8, 8…)

Obviously this scheme scales way too much with high ATK, so it’s no surprise this wasn’t used for most multi-hit attacks (except Mini-Egg, which I’ll address separately later).

Method 1b: Linear Descending (e.g. 8, 7, 6, 5, 4…)

Definitely an improvement for ATK up to 5 (which is fairly reasonable, as all supermulti-hit attacks have a base ATK no more than 3), but gets way out of hand if you go all-out on attack power.

Method 1c: Geometric Series (50% rounded up, e.g. 8, 4, 2, 1, 1…)

The ol’ Pro Mode school of nerfing.  In theory, you could use geometric series to bind the total ATK multiplier to whatever you want, but any multiplier other than 50% would be pretty hard for the player to calculate in advance.  Problem is, a geometric series with a factor of 1/2 results in a sum of exactly 2x (barring rounding / the trailing 1-1-1’s), which makes Power Bounce a fairly pointless upgrade over a standard Jump, especially if your ATK has a lot of factors of 2.

Method 1d: Half, Quarter-Repeating Damage (e.g. 9, 5, 3, 3, 3…)

Similar to the way SMRPG’s Super Jump works, I believe.  The second hit does half the initial hit’s damage, and subsequent hits do a quarter of the initial hit’s damage, both rounded up.  In theory, this should bound the damage dealt in eight hits to around 3x the base ATK, but having to choose a rounding direction (which I chose up, to not have to make an edge case for low ATK) means that some ATK values have slightly higher multipliers.  Pretty solid overall, but let’s look at one more alternative:

Method 1e: Linear Descending x2 (e.g. 8, 6, 4, 2, 1…)

Surprisingly (to me, at least), this scheme actually ends up being pretty good, probably the best overall.  You have to get into double digit ATK before you start easily hitting substantially more than 3x your ATK, and it never goes below 2x your ATK for four or more hits (and is equal to 2x at 2-5 ATK).  Either this or the previous scheme would probably be my choice to better balance these sorts of attacks.

Imbalance Point 2: Jump vs. Hammer attacks

Definitely a subject on which many opinions are held, but I don’t think the situation is that unsalvageable.  In theory, Jump and Hammer are balanced such that a casual player uses Jumps for specific defense-less or aerial enemies, and Hammer for everything else due to its less strict timing and blunt damage.  However, when considering the full palette of options the player has, the ease at which extra ATK power can pave over the slight difference in base power, and the hazards that might be faced, it’s not really a surprise that Jumping is supreme for a variety of uses (particularly in single-target situations), and can be made viable in nearly any situation.

Rather than trying to address the situation by removing or otherwise neuter Jump’s multiple hits leading to multiply-increased damage w/increased ATK, I’d approach balancing them for expert use by letting raw single-target damage remain Jump’s niche by-and-large, while bolstering Hammer’s debilitating status effects, elemental power, and spread damage affinity.

The main problem to be addressed, at any rate, is not the attack power differential, but the supreme targeting advantage Jump has over Hammer.  As a tangent, let me first stress that Ice Power and Spike Shield are not the source of the problem.  Ice Power only affects one family of enemies offensively, Embers, that Hammer could only slowly tackle one at a time, while partner moves like Power Shell or Special Moves are far more effective at tearing through them.  Likewise, Spike Shield only affects a handful of enemies fought after its appearance post-Chapter 4; of those, Koopatrols, Moon Clefts, Frost Piranhas, Dark Bristles, and Spunias are still effectively dealt with by Quake Hammer or Fire Drive, and Spiky Parabuzzies would have taken forever to take down with Hammer Throw (compared to Lip Lock or specials), leaving only Poison Pokeys and possibly Piranha Plants specifically switching to be weaker to Jump than to Hammer.

Rather, the real problem with Hammer’s targeting is that you’re stuck with attacking enemies in order, rather than picking and choosing to dish out exact damage to them, or just taking out troublesome enemies in the back; furthermore, its would-be-decent status moves (particularly Head Rattle) are rendered useless by only targeting the front.

Therefore, I propose reworking the Hammer Throw into a new passive-effect badge, Hammer Bro, which makes all single-target Hammer attacks able to target any enemy.  Furthermore, the multi-target attacks would hit all enemies regardless of position (with Fire Drive having the appearance of Blazehammer from the recent Paper Mario games, and Quake Hammer the appearance of Earth Tremor).

With that major change, let’s look at balancing the individual Jump and Hammer moves to align with their new function:

• Power Jump / Smash – Don’t really need to change.  Decent enough as starter / basic power-increasing badges.
• Multibounce – Increasing the FP (and maybe BP) cost couldn’t hurt, otherwise it’s fine.
• Power Bounce – Granted the nerf to PB mechanics above, pretty much fine; maybe increase the FP cost to 4.
• Sleep, Shrink, Soft Stomp – Pretty much fine; Jump having one debilitating status isn’t unreasonable, and the others play well with its new niche.
• Tornado Jump – Rather than doing fixed damage to all aerial enemies after hitting, change it to have a (perhaps slightly reduced) chance of inflicting Dizzy to all enemies with no damage after the initial hit.  Gives it a niche without stealing Hammer’s thunder. Speaking of…
• Zaphammer (new) – Replacing the Hammer Throw slot, this would be a single-target hammer attack that inflicts Paralysis for 3 turns (see the section below on status effects) for 3 FP; stacking badges adds 2 to the turn count.
• Vital Smash (new) – An upgrade to Piercing Blow, since Quake Hammer and Power Smash cover a lot of the same ground as the vanilla one. This move would be a single-target hammer attack that pierces defense, but can have its attack increased by up to 3, leeching the extra damage from Mario’s HP.  The FP cost could be 4 or 5, and additional badges would increase the extra damage (and HP lost) by 2.
• Ice Smash, Head Rattle – Increase the former’s turn count to 3; otherwise, they’re fine, and made a good deal more useful with the potential ability to choose a target.
• Quake Hammer – Fine as it is; if the damage were better or the FP cost lower it’d easily be too powerful when stacked (for reference, see any of PM64’s Quake badges), and as it stands it’s already a go-to option for a number of enemies.
• Fire Drive – Fine as it is, but could be interesting if stacking it increased the base damage and the burn damage by 1, rather than just the base damage by 2.

One final thing; on the general note of FP cost for stacked move badges, I think the current method of linear FP increase for status moves, exponential for the rest is decently balanced; it’s unfortunate that it makes most unusable after using two (maybe three) badges, but the most obvious alternative of stacking linearly would lead to an FP vs. boss HP arms race for cheaply stackable badges like Power Jump.  (It’s possible that something like Super Paper Mario‘s score progression — 1x, 2x, 4x, 6x, 9x… might be slightly more balanced, but that would be more complex and ultimately not change much in practical use.)

What absolutely should be added in any case is a way to select moves at any power up to the maximum for the number of badges stacked; for example, if wearing three Power Smash badges, one should be able to choose between a +2 ATK / 2 FP, +4 ATK / 4 FP, or +6 ATK / 8 FP, like one already can for Double and Triple Dip.  Would make stacking two move badges a lot more palatable in the general case to a lot of players, I imagine.

These two changes address the majority of ‘unfair’ imbalances in TTYD’s systems, but why not go on and take a look at possible ways to tweak other aspects of the battle system.

Differentiating Status Effects

One of the lesser-appreciated improvements from Paper Mario to TTYD‘s battle system was how much more varied the status effects became.  The Sleep, Freeze, and Stop statuses, all functionally identical in PM64, are at least somewhat distinct in TTYD.  That being said, there’s definitely room for more distinctions; here are my ideas with how to tweak some statuses to improve their viability or make them a bit more unique.  First off, some common statuses that I wouldn’t change at all, for reference:

• Dizzy – 50% miss rate on attacks.
• Confuse – 50% chance of performing a random action (or doing nothing).
• Sleep – Unable to move or defend, 50% chance of waking up when hit.
• Stop – Unable to move or defend.

As for statuses I’d like to see fleshed out a bit more:

• Allergic – Unable to gain new statuses; fine as is, but needs to be used more!
• Fast – Take 2 moves every turn; ditto.
• Freeze – Unable to move or defend; status ends if hit by fire attacks and does 1 damage upon ending.  This status could stand both to be less debilitating / get more use and to be more distinguished from Sleep and Stop, so I’d additionally like to see it halve damage dealt, similar to Super Smash Bros.
• Burn / Poison – Currently identical, deals 1 damage at the end of each turn.  The functionality’s already there for Poison to deal more than one damage every turn, and it’d be cool to see both do that, particularly in later chapters.
• Paralyze – Would like to see the Slow status reworked as this, making the user skip their offensive and defensive actions on odd turns (similar to “Even Turn” runs).  Could be interesting to try to strategize around Para-locking a single enemy, too.
• Cursed – A variation on / replacement for Counter/Payback; rather than applying only to damaging contact moves, this would deal half the total damage dealt back to the attacker after the attack completes, whether or not it was a direct attack.

Finally, there’s an inherent imbalance between ATK-related and DEF-related statuses; for the former, Huge/Tiny, ATK-Up(/Down, which is unused), and Charge all modify ATK power separately, whereas DEF only has DEF-Up/Down.  This could easily be left as is, but some possible changes that might make the stats more in line would be:

• Remove “Huge” status (at least on the player’s side, where the imbalance is biggest), replacing its effects with ATK-Up.
• Remove DEF-Down status, and add a new pair of statuses that operate separately from DEF-Up (“Hard”/”Soft”).  To make things more interesting, these could modify the damage dealt directly, affecting piercing attacks as well (perhaps with an exception made for Special Attacks), and essentially allowing “negative” DEF.
• Introduce “Hard”/”Soft”, and still make use of ATK-Down and DEF-Down.

Partner Changes

Having experimented around with a number of various partner strategies over the course of the Glitz Pit Community Challenges, I can really appreciate how well the main partners in TTYD were balanced.  By and large, the main problems lie in the brokenness of super-multihit moves, and the latter two partners having a fairly uninteresting move apiece in exchange for relying on overall higher stats.

Before we get to them, though, let’s address the elephant in the room: I really don’t think Ms. Mowz is all that bad, at least for the role she plays in game — an optional partner whose only real purpose is badge farming.  In my opinion, comparing her combat viability to the other partners is somewhat missing the point.  Nonetheless, she could stand the most work in terms of living up to her potential as a purely “marginal mechanic”-based character.

First of all, let’s go really out on a limb and give her the unique distinction of not having upgrades.  Instead, she has a fixed 20 HP, and four moves from the get-go; they’ll be mostly instruments to fit her ‘rogue’ archetype and personality, somewhat like Duster’s “thief tools” in MOTHER 3.

• Love Slap (Base) – 5 damage piercing attack; not too horrible for a base move if you don’t feel like switching and/or all you need is a front-targeting attack.
• Kiss Thief (2 FP) – Steals an item/badge an enemy is holding, or any badge from their random drop table (with increased chances compared to the vanilla game), not just their held item table.  Ideally you should be able to get any badge you want in well under an hour of farming.
• Quick Exit (3 FP) – A move that guarantees a run away from a standard battle, provided you complete a reasonable Action Command.
• Infatuate (4 FP) – Causes the Confuse status to all enemies; outright stealing this one from Vivian, since I’ve got another idea in its place, and it fits Mowz about as well.

With her out of the way, let’s go over the other partners, which have comparably few changes:

Goombella: Pretty much no changes, perhaps upping Multibonk and Rally Wink’s FP cost slightly.

Koops: Probably the most well-rounded and best-balanced partner in the vanilla game; great spread damage moves, and he can tank individual hits well but has low HP and a severe weakness if you get greedy. No changes really necessary.

Flurrie: Definitely underappreciated by me beforehand, but actually fairly well-balanced.  Only definite change would be making Gale Force’s action command slightly easier to fill, and making it enemies defeated with it yield 0 Star Points, akin to Fright Masks and all similar moves in PM64.

Yoshi: Even with the super-multihit attacks better balanced, Mini-Egg is still a fairly overpowered move, potentially dealing heavy damage and having a ludicrously high chance to inflict Shrink status on a single target.  It should either only hit each enemy once, or do no damage regardless of ATK and target at random.

Vivian: To fit her magic abilities, her Ultra-Rank move could be replaced with a move that inflicts the new “Cursed” status on Mario.

Bobbery: Fairly clearly the weakest of the six main partners in the vanilla game, except at a casual level.  To fit his background as a character, I think it’d be interesting to play up the “strategic” aspect of his moveset and his bulk; here’s a sample of how I could envision that working:

• Bomb (Base) – Same as vanilla; 4/5/6 damage to front.
• Bomb Squad (4 FP) – Increased FP cost, bombs still a fixed 3 damage, but the blast range increases with Super Rank, and a fourth bomb is added for Ultra Rank.
• Bob-ombast (Super, 9 FP) – Does 7/8 damage to all enemies on the field.
• Big Bang / Detonate (Ultra) – “Big Bang” (6 FP) spawns a bomb that does up to 10 damage (unaffected by ATK; can be controlled by an Action Command similar to Sushie’s Squirt) to all characters on the field when set off.  After use, “Detonate” (0 FP) becomes available in its place, and must be used to set off the bomb (damaging him, and Mario if he’s vulnerable, in the process).

Miscellaneous Addenda

A random assortment of balance-y things not mentioned elsewhere.  I’ll leave out badges like Pity Flower that have obvious but uninteresting means of improvement, but here are some of the more particular ideas:

• Get rid of fog, or make ‘blocking’ it remove its imposed miss rate on the player’s attacks.  All other stage effects can be worked around much more easily, and add a bit of unpredictability.  That being said, badges that increase/decrease Star Power gained while making the stage effects more/less likely to activate might be interesting.
• Rather than having an “Ice Power” badge to increase ATK and DEF against fire and protect against Burn, it would be cool to have an “Element Shield” badge (and partner variant) to reduce elemental damage taken by 1, and nullify element-based statuses (Burn, Freeze, and Paralysis).  Alternatively, an EarthBound-style “Ice Power” / “Fire Power” / “Earth Power” trio to counter ice, fire, and electricity respectively could be cool (and would make sense for enemies of their respective type to hold), but in practice Mario and his partners don’t use enough non-fire elemental attacks to make separate badges per element balanced in TTYD.  In a future game with similar mechanics, perhaps?
• Similarly, wrapping up immunity to touching spikes, fire, elemental charge, and whatnot in a single “Hazmat Shield” badge (and partner variant) would be a more succinct way of enabling Jump or other contact attacks to freely target anything, akin to the new “Hammer Bro” badge for Hammer.
• The Charge badge, despite not being all that broken considering other ways ATK can be raised (especially if one of the super-multihit changes were to be implemented), should really cost 2 FP, to minimize its “first-order optimality“.
• Lastly, and perhaps most controversial, I hate how polarizing Quick Change is as an option in TTYD.  A cost of 7 BP is far too much to be generally useful in enemy battles; as tempting as that one quick switch would be, you’re missing out on any number of options with that BP cost if you use it — Heart + Flower Finder, Power Plus + FP Drain, nearly enough for two Flower Savers (P), the difference between Jumpman and Power Plus + Fire Drive to keep your options open, et cetera.  Conversely, it’s undeniably one of the most broken tactics in the game if your aim is to abuse Peril and/or ATK-buffed partners without having to have them face any oncoming enemy attacks.  To bridge the gap between these two polar opposite scenarios, I’d love to see the badge altered to be a comparably reasonable 3-4 BP, but have it cost a few FP to perform a quick switch.  This would make it far easier to slot into any badge setup, while simultaneously making it far more interesting to make sure every switch is optimal / necessary.

This sums up my thoughts on how I’d approach tweaking the TTYD combat systems’ balance to expand the range of a veteran player’s options; perhaps I might try to implement a subset of them into a balance mod of the game in the (let’s say very-distant) future.  In the meantime, hopefully this is a starting inspiration for others to think critically about the balance in the Paper Mario (and other) games, or maybe even to implement in the many PM fan engines in development.

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