Final Fantasy Hacktics

Well, I just finished Chapter one. 'Twas barrels and oodles of fun! I thought to myself, "Let's do that again! And this time, we'll do it in SHORUKE IS A NITPICKER mode. And with more Move-JP Up."

All of these were encountered in v1.96b

-Cloud's Counter Deathblow description is... not great. "Damage: 85% HP". Cloud's HP or the target's? Max or current HP?  Either tell me how much damage I'm doing, or don't...
-During the opening cutscenes, Dante says "I wish one day I can find a real challenge". I might not have all the words in exactly the right order there, but the point is it should be "could" instead of "can".
-Description for Wish states that it heals 1 to 9 HP. Try to use it on a skeleton, it projects that it'll do 20 damage. Odd, that's more than 9... (then again it also says it cancels Dead, so you know, whatevs)
-I still don't get why Ramza's first thought after seeing Cloud wasn't "I'm going to go ask Besrodio why the f**k." Ramza even mentions Goug when introducing Cloud, and was on the topic of the thinger ("orrery", I think is the proper term) that teleports people across dimensions, so... like... why. Yeah, I know the patch is already out and you're working on Chapter 2 already and it's unworthily hard to change the whole plot around, but it's just so weird.
-During the Mass "No who the hell are YOU" sequence just after the first fight, Cloud interrupts Dante. "Demons?" "Yes. Can I finish your holy lordship?" That needs a comma.
-"Where the hell is my goddamn nose!?!" There's nothing at all wrong with this, I just thought it was hilarious and worth mentioning  .
-(maybe more of an "exploit" than a bug, and may be more related to vanilla AI; I don't know how much AI tweaking was done for this patch) The knights in the second fight outside Lionel's gates were perfectly willing to jump into the water on their left, if Invisible Snake stands in their way and prevents them from using half of the bridge (even if they could use two turns and go around him, staying on dry land), and then stay stuck in the water if the perpendicular ledge is blocked up, declining to move towards the far land.

-Ramza's skill list bugged out. I checked it in the middle of combat, and... well... look at the picture.

-Whenever people level up, that same "washed out" symbol appears in front of their name.

-Why is there a Formation menu screen to change the specs for Ramza's team right before Alma's debut battle? Seems unnecessary. (I know vanilla did that a lot, not sure how hard it is to get rid of...)
-The plot kinda takes a while to resume once you leave Lionel Castle. "Let's go this way and talk to people!" *some time later* "Didn't work." "Well, let's just keep going this way! Something's bound to happen!" Then Mr. Plot shows up and hands them a rock.  :?  We have all these really interesting characters, why don't they drive the plot instead of stumbling around in a vaguely northwest-ish direction and waiting for the plot happen to them? (Personally I'd change it so that Ramza had already heard of the two information brokers in Dorter, and so led the group to go find them)
-We never do find out what Alma meant when she said Lionel Castle's glory was "arrested", do we? Did Queklain damage the brickwork when he died? Or is Ramza just a pitiful Duke who can't keep house and now it's all dusty and out of ketchup? Is the place not cool enough now that the resident politician isn't an evil, fat man?
-Concerning Olan's Letter and Journal Entry 5: "soon even [Olan will] realize I'm still alive here, somewhere..." Hey, Ramza? He SENT YOU A LETTER. He is WELL AWARE you're still alive. He's apparently read your Change of Address form, too.
-The Letter From Delita is something that no sane King would write, especially one who got into power by murdering (or causing the death of) most of a country's nobility in ascending order. You DO NOT write national secrets in explicit detail on paper and send them across the country. They get stolen by bandits, or the messenger gets caught in a blizzard, or attacked by monsters, or the messenger turns out to be some kind of traitor... etc. etc. Some obfuscation is in order. "My dearest, oldest friend, I've arranged a pleasant surprise for you at Lionel Castle, which henceforth is under your care. Please gather all your possessions and relocate there as soon as possible. I've stationed someoner there to act as Duke during your journey there, and who will fill you in as to the details of your new circumstances upon your arrival." etc. etc. Then Ramza shows up at Lionel, and Tesnya (or Balmafula or someone) is waiting there to tell Ramza "you're actually under house arrest"
-Incidentally, where are Olan and Balmafula in the Brave Story? Olan wrote one short letter, but I can't tell if Balmafula is still Delita's friend or Olan's friend or a church spy or what.
-The Letter from Agrias is missing a period at the end of the last sentence
-There are all these cool new classes that do cool new things, but they have stricter entry requirements than in vanilla and the JP rewards for actions are smaller, and The Five have really neat Squire-substitute classes that need a lot of JP to master. I'd like to give you the benefit of the doubt and guess that it's set up like this to make it so that you're still earning JP that's worth something near the end of the game (as opposed to Vanilla where having some mastered classes by the halfway point is fairly standard, and having ninjas before reaching Dorter isn't unheard of). But it still feels like the game is just being a big tease with the Job system. "Hey, here's these new classes, but you can't use them. They're for important people." Each fight that has a new AI guest is like that, too. "Here's a new team member! He/She does something cool! See, watch th-" *SMITE* "Nevermind! Revive them and THEN hope they do something cool!"

Quote from: ArkthePieKing on August 29, 2013, 04:22:53 amWhirlwind Blade. Is there any particular reason that Link doesn't spin during it? It's just so iconic. I feel like the animation chosen doesn't do the move justice. Especially after seeing the sword turtle thing (name escapes me) spin. That animation right there would honestly be amazing in itself.

Thanks for that. Now whenever I look at Link's skillset, I imagine him trying to attack people by turning into a turtle and spinning.

I fought a random battle that included a Wizard named Tim 
unintentional(?) Monty Python references FTW


But then, some time later, I'm just doing another random battle, went to check the CT schedule, and suddenly, DUDE, spoiler alert!

Snaaaaaaake~

Yeah, Babus was a dick, even more here than FFTA  . Protip, take down the beastmaster first, or he'll spam monster-type reraise on everything you try to hurt.

Also, so many character, I can't choose which ones to bring 
(2 minutes later) oh right, we bring the ones that aren't guests...

GUYS
GUISE
I FOUND A TYPO
(whoopdy frick, right?)

When This Knight goes up to Delita (after Ramza and co. try to leave Golgorand), and he's like "Cyan lookalike #1 is dead" and Delita summons Cyan Lookalike #2 and tells him "Get ready to gp."

Took me three tries to figure that one out. "Don't they use Gil in Ivalice? And... what is he- OH it's a typo, okay."

Quote from: Elric on July 23, 2013, 06:33:28 pmAs for the donation thing, I've thought about this, but being as we have members in USA, Canada, Australia, Poland, Brazil, Philippines, and a few other places, I would have no idea or right to figure out how to split up something like donations

"Oh, that's simple" is my first reaction, but then I remembered that changing money around involves bankers.
"Why, all you have to do is divide the donation amount by the number of contributors, convert the quotient into each contributor's regional currency at current exchange rates, and if you're lucky, the taxes will be low enough that you will actually get some money from the donation! And if you're really lucky, Square Enix won't care that you're making money off of their intellectual property."
Aged intellectual property that they themselves do not make money off of anymore and likely couldn't if they tried (unless they make an HD remake, which seems to be a fad among developers these days, but still).

So, I've played up to the part where you meet Olivar- Oliv-
Goddammit I was looking at this guy three minutes ago what is his name... *checks the brave story*
*ahem*
So, I've played up to the part where you meet Olivander and Leesha at Barius Valley, and holy gods, this game is everything a fan hack should be. I just can't describe a game with Snake, Link, and Dante all in the same place without grinning like an idiot. It's well-balanced, it's fanboygasm-tastic, it's written in decent English holy crap that never happens with fan works, there's a whole bunch of new content that makes the game so ridiculously different 

With that said, I have a couple nitpicks.
-Link's skillset seems like it's lacking something; notably, his ridiculously large inventory full of bombs and a boomerang and various magical staves/medallions and jars full of magical grape juice or whatever. I thought for sure he would at least be able to stun people with the boomerang. Also, isn't Link supposed to be a badass swordsman? Where are the sword-beams?
-If Snake doesn't have any guns, why does he have tear gas? And why doesn't he have any "obtain loot" (possibly from the dead) skills? Solving problems with what he finds on-site is supposed to be FOX unit's specialty... Also, he could do with a CQC disarm move (possibly one that requires him to be unarmed or using a knife, would work maybe a bit too well with innate Equip Change...)
-One of the scenes (I think it was the opening of the Barius Valley fight) had a br instead of a space. Typo...
-Shouldn't Dante's unique job class be Demon Slayer, or something to that effect? I mean, yes, he is the Son of Sparda, but that's like making Cloud's class "Clone of Sephiroth" or Snake's class into "Successor to Big Boss".
-Why don't they sell knives in Dorter? If they don't sell swords there, why do they sell shields? They cater to... wizards who've spent Job Points on Equip Shield? 
-I know Tesnya was supposed to be unfairly strong because he's a boss character, but... having a fight where you have three guest characters start right next to an overpowered boss, while the characters you actually control are waaaay on the other side of a river... that was just annoying in a "nothing you can do about it" kind of way. "Oh, you wanted to see what the guest characters can do? Well, NO FUCK YOU 1SHOTLOL." Even Snake's Move ability would only be able to save one of the two, if that, and then of course Agrias goes charging in like a lemming... Still, I muddled through it on my first attempt at the battle, much to my own surprise. Encouragement ftw.
-I really wish Dante had Equip Change, or at least the potential to learn it, but that might just be me getting my DMC4 all up in your DMC3.
-I probably just haven't gotten through enough of the game yet, but the plot confounds me. I can deal with the main characters being transported into Ivalice for no reason at all, but only because that's the premise of the game: other video game protagonists get transported into FFT. Sounds fun. But... I thought Delita got stabbed and one of the last lines of FFT was his dying breath? If Cloud shows up again and you don't know why, shouldn't you go to Goug and talk to Besrodio first?

I'll reiterate, these are nitpicks. This patch is an absurdly good one.

Maybe if Mustadio had ludicrous high speed and a skill with Cancel:Charging? With range dependent on weapon.
Interrupt ALL THE CASTERS

Or you could give him (weapon-range dependent) skills to add more status effects... silence, poison... able to petrify all enemies instead of just the undead, using a gun's huge range (just say all of your enemies are "evil"  )...

Maybe give him a skill to do some impromptu maintenance work on his weapon and buff up his Weapon Attack?

Or give him a skill to add Innocent (much like Doubt Faith), he's probably had it up to here with the church by the time you recruit him.

Or give him a skill to shoot twice (or more) with a gun. He doesn't seem to need to reload, like, ever, so...

Delita vs. Wiegraf for the next fight?
"Lightning Stab!"
"Lightning Stab!"
"Lightning Stab!"
"Lightning Stab!"
"Lightning Stab!"

A bunch of Summoners, and a bunch of Mimes.
Can you put on Doubt Faith fast enough to survive? Or will you hope to god that you can Counter Flood hard enough?
(maybe to avoid victory through counter flood, give the enemies immunity vs. earth attacks, with earth clothes or by making them float... make sure there's only earth-elemental geomancy squares...)

Would it be too broken to give Summoners the power to inflict a status effect on the whole field? It would have to have a lower hit rate than the basic summons, but blanket-poison would be a pretty solid tactic, blanket-don't-move would also be helpful for summoners...

FIIK
I'll just go with Ramza 

Quote from: Dome on February 01, 2012, 07:37:56 am
Well, Rad, Alicia and Lavian are not supposed to be uber-strong, because you get them very early XD
I still think they are quite useful, I'm using them for my recorded playthrough and they are very helpful units

How? Do they have super-high stats or something?

Alicia and Lavian. They lack a moveset (wow), and they only thing they have that generic squires don't is that they can learn Dragoon Spirit, Concentration, Two Hands, and Move+1 in their squire class. Unimpressive.

Second (third?) worst place goes to Rad. Most of the other special characters have something that makes them better than the generics. Rad's entire bit is that he has the most basic moves from 4 spellcasting classes. Sure, Haste and Raise and maybe Poison and Pray Faith are all kinda useful, BUT... not useful enough. And putting fire/ice/bolt on his list is like making a big flipping point out of how little combat utility he has, because immediately after recruiting him, you are forced into a fight with enemies who have stronger spells than his base class can give you. He's essentially a generic that joins late.

Quote from: HebrewToYou on January 31, 2012, 10:24:19 am
I would say Worker 8 and Mustadio are the worst by far.

Mustadio can cripple almost any non-boss enemy at range with reasonable accuracy (handy for random encounters, if not boss fights) and utterly perma-own any undead enemies he meets, and Worker 8 is basically a machinegun turret that is immune to all magic (even the goddamn BANHAMMER) and can heal itself. And just for bonus points, you can have him interrupt enemy's spellcasting/performing/etc. if you don't feel like just having him dole out damage like the walking tank he is.

Quote from: Neophyte Ronin on January 31, 2012, 07:35:47 amGiven some thought, I'd say Summon Magic has some real issues, enough to take this crown of most useless special.  It's worthless against the aforementioned Illithids, since their answer to everything is "Counter Flood" and their stats override the original limits of Geomancy.  As for Summoning, all they do is deal thematic elemental damage and, if not, deal slightly better non-elemental damage or do so instantly.  Big deal.  So can the Attack Command, and it's cheaper.  Regardless of cost, Elements are nowhere near as good as they used to be.  Monsters who were originally weak to some kind of element are no longer weak to it, or had their affinities adjusted, or some creatures (goblins and squids) are impossible to face with magic.  That's okay--they're all "puzzle encounters", where you gotta have the proper abilities to ensure a smooth fight.  Which isn't Summon Magic.

Not to mention, Summons were dummied just because the Summoner used to do a good job protecting the party as well.  Can't have the ability to heal and protect and still be considered fair and balanced, it seems.  Mog, Fairy, Golem, and the seemingly redundant Salamander and Cyclops were dismissed from the roster.  When the Summoner's supportive and healing abilities went by the wayside, my interest in the command was lost, chiefly because I never considered Summon Magic to be a mere replacement for the Black Magic command.  It was never that.  Golem seemed like too much of a cheat against human encounters, mostly because it was expensive but quick to cast and operated on the user's Maximum Health.  It didn't cover all attacks and is nowhere near a perfect defense, yet it was dummied.  Mog and Fairy used to heal, but they were ousted also.  To be quite frank about the affair, once Summoners got pegged for doing nothing but wreaking havoc with the classic damage-based Summons, they simply became a homogenized Black Mage with a few extra elements tagged on.  Longer casting ranges mean nothing if they don't deal enough damage to faze the enemy's tactics.

Obviously what you need is MOAR SUMMONERZ
No, but seriously. Summoners are not so great against monsters, but I got past Finath River easily by spamming Summons from across the map.
(I miss Moogle and Golem as well)

Quote from: Dome on January 31, 2012, 04:11:15 am
I won't import new sprites in FFT:+...expecially crappy ones xD

Besides the Onion Knights (and red mage), you mean? Or were those already inside the vanilla game?

Did anybody else notice that that article said MegaUpload was a criminal organization?
No, they're not a free service with abuse potential,
THEY ARE THE FUCKING INTERNET MAFIA.

Quote from: Joseph Strife on January 20, 2012, 08:48:50 am
strativarius... Isn't that the name of a metal band? Anyways, welcome to FFH, where you can make all your dreams come true.

It's a kind of violin.

And welcome to the forum!

Quote from: GeneralStrife on January 19, 2012, 12:48:42 am
can't believe Anyone believed that one crazy old guy

I especially liked the part where, shortly after the first second rapture he predicted didn't happen, he came out with a new date a few months in the future based on "new information we didn't have before". You know, from the bible.

I feel that they should have given Ramza some sword skills during the transition from chapter 3 to 4. By this point, he's fought (and bested): Algus, Gafgarion (thrice), Izlude, two of the Zodiac monsters, Malak (twice), and Wiegraf (several times, one of which was a duel). And by this point, his reaction to "I have your sister" is "well then I guess I'm going to have to just show up there and, one way or another, take her back."

Yes, he thinks that fighting is something to be avoided when possible.
Yes, he is young and- comparatively- untrained compared to other special characters.
Yes, he makes a big masochistic point about maintaining his incorruptible pure pureness and naivete.
No, he is not too cowardly to utterly ruin people, most impressively Wiegraf. Single-handedly. Being able to learn Ultima at this point in the game is one thing, but where are the other skills? If nothing else, he's probably seen Lightning Stab performed enough times to think to himself "I wonder if I can do that, maybe Agrias can teach me..."

The mayans scheduled the world to end on my friend's 21^st birthday. Jerks.
No, but I don't really believe it's going to happen. The rapture didn't happen last year, and I doubt anything cataclysmic will happen this year.