[Dragon5]

I always said I would look into rebalancing the game if we could get access to the files. Here we are now. I don't have the same energy or time I used to have anymore, so how far I go depends on a few things: How much support I get, and how much help I can get.
I just messed around with a few things just to see if I could do it. I'm not asking much for help. Right now I'd just like to know how to look for regular moves, because I only found the code for specials so far.

[color=var(--link-color)]Download here[/color]

Initial Changes (Click to View)

Giggs
-Slam breaks walking guards
-Whirl now does 12 damage
-Whirl pushback increased

S. Eason
-Fierce Slashes now costs 90 MP from 50
-Super Uppercut now costs 275 MP from 300

Full list (Click to View)

General
-Unarmed popup lowered vertically

-MP regen no longer based on max MP
-Uppercut pushback decreased on sword users

Lucas
-Uppercut 300 MP
-Mobility between Leo and Eason

Leo
-Has Lucas's mobility
-Sword Rush break power lowered to 175 from 181
-Sword Rush vertical power raised slightly; horizontal lowered slightly
-Time between first and second hits of Sword Rush sped up
-Sword Dive cost raised to 75 MP
-Uppercut raised to 325 MP
-Cannot do specials out of roll

Sword Eason
-Uppercut lowered to 275 MP
-Fierce Slashes raised to 120 MP
-Jump Attack uses Leap Slash, slowed down slightly
-Cannot do specials out of roll

Drew
-Horizontal pushback from Drop increased
-Vertical pushback from Drop decreased
-A Combo slowed down slightly
-Jump Attack startup increased
-No longer hits from behind during jump attack

Shawn
-Stamina increased
-Walkspeed increased
-Arrows stun the opponent for one frame
-Arrow breaking power increased to three arrows from five
-Recovers three frames faster from all grounded shots
-Air normal shots are one frame faster
-Run Attack followup sped up one frame

Eason
-Normalize health lowered to 450
-Blasts raised to 80 MP
-Dragon Punch raised to 290 MP
-Fierce Fists raised to 130 MP
-Walkspeed lowered 1 point
-Dash speed lowered 1 point
-Stamina consumption increased
-Each combo attack hits one frame later; total duration unchanged
-Fierce Fists cost raised to 140
-Fierce Fists distance lowered slightly
-Cannot do balls out of roll

Taylor
-Normalized health lowered to 400
-Run speed lowered slightly
-Laser costs 125 MP from 100
-Shields cost 150 MP from 100
-Shield breaking power halved
-Loses 20 HP when summoning a clone

Jenny
-Starts with 600 MP normalized
-Attack combo slowed down
-Dash and Jump Attack hit one frame later

Giggs
-Slam breaks walking guards
-Whirlstick now does 12 damage
-Whirlstick pushback increased
-Whirlstick breaking power tripled (now breaks in 7 hits alone, or 1-2 w/followup)

Sinan
-420 HP
-550 MP
-Lower damage of hits 1-3 and jump attack
-Flip hits removed
-Startup of Hexagram increased for both ground and air
-Mobility reduced slightly

Vivian
-Can act sooner during attacks 1 and 3
-Air Strike lowered to 125 MP
-Double Slash lowered to 90 MP

Raye
-Can do Lightning from first two attacks
-Breaking power of A combo increased
-First two hits of A combo damage raised to 45
-Lightning breaking power raised
-Mobility lowered; stamina increased[/color]

[MangaD]

Hello, nice to see you around here again!

There has been an attempt by the Chinese community to balance the game, they call the mod HFE (HF Equilibrium). In fact most of their mods are based on it. Although it is unfinished and has Yaga and Azrael on it.

Nevertheless, it is nice to see that there are different approaches to tackle this issue. Unfortunately, I haven't modified any moves myself and those who have (BEBD and So Louis among a few others) have not yet made any tutorials that I'm aware about. I'll query them about this and will get back to you when I have an answer. 

[Dragon5]

I appreciate it. I did try Equilibrium and while some of the changes are interesting, it seems some characters were untouched like Giggs. I was also a bit iffy with characters being replaced. Iczzy was actually my favorite of the Big Three and the one I intend to get to first since he had some issues that are easier to fix.
I'm also trying to figure out animation timing, because that would greatly help me further tweak characters like Drew who really needs some attacks slowed down.
Nirvana asked if I changed Giggs's Staff Rush's guard properties and made me remember how pitiful it was against guards. So...

An Update (Click to View)

Staff Twirl break power increased from 10 to 30 (now breaks in 7 hits alone, or 1-2 w/followup)
Taylor has 400 health Normalized (It was 500... ಠ__ಠ)
Run speed lowered slightly
Laser costs 125 MP
Shields cost 150 MP (I want to lower his limit to two, but I don't know how yet)
Shield breaking power lowered by half
Jenny now starts with 600 MP

[MangaD]

All right so, I've asked @S*LuEX about it and he said to look into globalDat (id=142). Attack_47 for example is about Lucas' uppercut. Communication with Chinese players is difficult because they do not understand English well. It is better if you describe something specific that you'd like to achieve so that they can give us the steps.

Ideally we'd have someone making tutorials for all this but it's unlikely that the Chinese will make ones that we can understand.

[Dragon5]

I knew where specials were, but after looking a bit further I did find the basic attacks. I suppose the next thing I want to look for is how to adjust animations, specifically animation speeds since Drew's jump kick and Vivian's attack string needs attention.

On another note, here's what happened when I messed with the stun values.

I'm going to reduce it to 1/10th of that value so he can get a bit more advantage instead of nothing. It's not as much as a normal hit, but it should help him out since it was originally 0.

[MangaD]

I suppose the next thing I want to look for is how to adjust animations, specifically animation speeds since Drew's jump kick

You'll find frames' data in SPT files. Drew's SPT file has id=229. Open that file and search for "name": "JUMP_ATTACK". You should find the following:

"50": {
    "HFW_classNameXXX": "Data.Action",
    "selfLoop": false,
    "nextAi": -1.0,
    "allowTurnFace": false,
    "nextAti": -1.0,
    "frame": null,
    "aiz2": 0.0,
    "special": -1.0,
    "landAti": -1.0,
    "landAi": -1.0,
    "nextAgi": -1.0,
    "name": "JUMP_ATTACK",
    "a_keyTgr": null,
    "landAgi": -1.0,
    "frameIndex": 146.0,
    "aix1b": 0.0,
    "mpBurn": 0.0,
    "index": 50.0,
    "aix2": 0.0,
    "aiz1": 0.0,
    "nextActionName": null,
    "type": -1.0,
    "aix2b": 0.0,
    "aix1": 0.0,
    "landActionName": null
},

Notice that frameIndex is 146, that's the frame where JUMP_ATTACK begins. Now you can search for "146" and you'll find that frame. All subsequent frames with "name": "jump_attack" belong to that motion. Every frame has a duration attribute, you can increase it to slow down the motion. Good luck!

[Dragon5]

Notice that frameIndex is 146, that's the frame where JUMP_ATTACK begins. Now you can search for "146" and you'll find that frame. All subsequent frames with "name": "jump_attack" belong to that motion. Every frame has a duration attribute, you can increase it to slow down the motion. Good luck!

That was extremely helpful. Thank you so much.

Kind of a big update. I did four characters with more extensive changing than last time. Same link as before.

Update overview (Click to View)

I always felt like Jenny became too fast after 0.6. Part of her challenge was how you couldn't keep spamming A with her. To prevent her from becoming awful I didn't slow down the whole animation. It better shows her weapon's weight. You now need to play more carefully, which was what Jenny was always about.

Fanboys gonna hate, but I nerfed Eason. I decided to lower his health in favor of reducing his damage. It's now a bit above Jenny. Dash Air Blasts annoy people, so I lowered his stamina. He doesn't need to move around so much when he only needs to get close. I finally raised his MP consumption so it's not that much better than younger self. Fierce Fists is the only move that costs more. He's probably still OP but this is a huge step in the right direction.

Shawn now has amazing Stamina alongside slightly better dashing and walkspeed. His run speed remains untouched since he's as fast as a horse. I lowered the recovery on his arrow moves but kept each startup unchanged, save for his normal air shots with only one less frame of startup. The last touch was for his arrows to break guards in three shots instead of five, and two for running. I hope he becomes viable again.

Drew now has slower punches to help make him less scary. He was just way too good with his fists and players relied on them far too much. The startup isn't that much worse, but the time between hits is increased. Hurricane Drop into Kick also isn't guaranteed anymore. If you can't tell by now I much preferred HF before 0.6 broke the game.

Finally, I lowered Sinan's HP 20 points from her bats. Her attack speed is unchanged since she doesn't have as much reach nor a projectile out of it. I may slow it just a bit later on. If only I could manually lower her damages...

Next I'll start with Lucas and Leo, and probably hurt-time extension.

HOT FIX: It turns out my updated costs for Eason weren't applied. This version also replaces S. Eason's Jump attack with his Leap Slam. I plan to make it function like a normal jump attack when used outside of the input command.

[MangaD]

If you'd like to change where Shawn's arrow spawns, or any other projectile, you'll find the data for it in globalDat (id=142). Find the PtWithName of the projectile (10 for Shawn's arrow, standing) and change the velocity attributes (vx, vy and vz).

vz will cause the arrow to go up with negative values, and down with positive values. Default is 0 so it goes straight.
vy will cause the arrow to go higher with negative values, and lower with positive values.
vx is what you want, lower values will cause the arrow to not go as far, but they will also hit the opponent that is touching you.

This will also change the velocity of the arrow though. This is the solution @S*LuEX told me. Don't know any other right now.

[Dragon5]

[color=var(--font-color)]No update yet, but I'll talk about what I've done so far.[/color]

[color=var(--font-color)]Each update I try to do something new to challenge myself and figure out more behind modding the game. I've been messing around with stages lately and this may take a bit to get every stage I want in and look good with the size reduction. Turns out you can easily adjust their width by modifying the first "w" and the "x" for each object determines the distance from the left side with "xRepeatNo" letting you duplicate them with "x" serving as distance between. I still need to figure out how to remove objects for Phoenix Castle.[/color]

The last thing I'm trying to figure out is how to actually add characters. It's not easy, but at the very least my goal is to figure out how to put characters in the selection list. I found out that the jumps in the P-code will fix themselves once you're done with it, which makes the process easier thankfully.
I owe some major thanks to MangaD anyway for reminding me how to modify the code outside of the editor.

As far as balance changes go... I nerfed Drew and Eason a little more. I aim to at least give Drew something in return, but Eason was to make sure he has nothing excessive (like being able to travel 40% of the screen with Fierce Fists). Vivian gets some nice buffs though to her attack combo and Air Strike.
I'm still figuring out how to balance Lucas, but I did lower the breaking power for Leo's Sword Rush just slightly so he can't use it to break free in neutral. I think I might give Leo Lucas's mobility and make Lucas slightly faster so that Eason is fast while Leo is slow, with Lucas in between them to further cement his "well-rounded" nature and give him a welcome boost.

[Dragon5]

Okay. Sorry for taking so long for an update. Scope creep, I admit, as well as figuring out more things along the way. I'm gonna skip the changes and put everything in the major list in the first post. 

Download here