Final Fantasy Hacktics

'Ey look who it is, to make your forehead frown a bit more with yet another (possible) bug report

...No, seriously, I dunno how I keep stumbling on them, it keeps happening. What's with me and bugs!

So. Archers. The latest version of the patch changed their Innate to Defense Up, except... Nnnnot really? Because I can certainly equip Defense Up with that Innate all the same. So I was thinking up until two days ago that it was doubling the effects, until I found out that it's actually barring Brawler to be equipped due to "being the Innate" as the pop-up says, not Defense Up. What's happening in here?

Quote from: BleuVII on May 14, 2019, 06:43:15 pm
I can definitely add in a Chocobo-only encounter with a black Teioh. Where do you want it? I'm thinking either Mandalia Plains or Finaith Creek. (...)

Finaith sounds peachy. Make it challenging enough, like two yellow for support and two red for offense. I wanna savor the moment...

Oh yeah, something I forgot to ask before. This game doesn't have an ice-variant for Hydra, right? Or a "Tri-Ice" of sorts that Reis can learn?

Eh I was half-expecting the multiplayer suggestion to be shot down. So I was thinking, would it be difficult to add the enemy teams used in these modes into the random encounter pool?

Main reason I keep suggesting this: I heard one of these teams is a flock of aggressive chocobo led by a black one named Teioh, as a reference to the same chocobo that was your biggest rival in the races from FF7's Gold Saucer. I wanna clobber him. I wanna have payback for all the frustration over the years losing to that freaking cheater specced with (player chocobo status)+20%, even when trespassing the max limit!

Also hey, glad my suggestion worked so well! Got an ETA for that new version? Would the changes be too invasive to use on an ongoing save?

1) Move+1 would be the obvious choice, but if you wanna remain with an innocuous choice, Jump+1 would be the most balanced option. Since most of the maps have plenty of ledges for even  an unit with 2 Jump and maxed Move to remain mobile, and Jump not really being a necessity until the endgame portions (all the castle sieges, Nelveska, Deeplight's shortcuts etc.), Jump+1 could be better considering how early is the Archer class available.

2) Ah well, I can see why such a choice but I'll still miss it.

3a) Wouldn't that make the Magus class not worth the trouble, however? Making these three skills exclusive would make Luso more interesting, true, but... Or do you plan to add three other enemy-exclusive skills to the Magus class, for compensation? The three Bios, for instance would be a great replacement, what with each of them inflicting different debuffs in this game.

3b) On the flipside, by making Orran's skill exclusive to Luso, you could set them up with a forbiddingly high JP cost (3k or higher per each of those skills), which, assuming it'll be yet another "Squire Class Custom" like the other unique classes, will make all that spill JP from Agrias and co. contribute to Luso's progress in the long run.

And if I may make a suggestion. Given that the PSP multiplayer is pretty much forgotten nowadays, would it be possible to open up the Melee and Rendezvous modes for single player, with a generic, randomized NPC team filling in for Player 2, picked from the same pool of those human NPCs from the random encounters? Of course, they'd be considered the same kind of "rental" filler from other games, with purposefully underwhelming skills, levels, and gear. And maybe introduce reward tiers to these missions hinging not only on completing the mission, but on having these NPCs survive the ordeal as well. That... would be a hell of a lot to work with, but it would be a good way to try out these underrated modes nowadays.

Quote from: Nyzer on May 05, 2019, 12:19:07 pm
It becomes more useful in PSX patches that make W-EV automatic instead of wasting a reaction slot on them. Otherwise, it's not that great.

Stuff like this are what makes me believe in that "l i t t l e m o n e y" theory from the original release No bugfixes, only a passable translation, because they weren't being paid enough to care. Lest of all with the PSP remake, which compensate the polished script with that annoying slowdown. If it wasn't for this community, eh?

Quote from: BleuVII on May 02, 2019, 02:27:16 pm
Yes, I did switch the Crossbow and Knightslayer names for aesthetic purposes. Everything else about the two stayed the same. I'll look into the blind thing.

EDIT: I checked into the blind bug, and you're definitely on to something, but it's not caused by the Emergence patch. I loaded the same save file between Vanilla and Emergence, and the blind status worked the same way in both.

Huh... Was this status behaving the same on the PSX original? Could anyone here confirm?

Another small oddity that I found. On Chapter 2, at the batte at Zeirchele Falls (where Gaffgarion turns cloak and you've to rescue both Delita and the princess), one of the enemy units is an Archer equipped with a Longsword, and no Equip Swords in sight. He ends up being quite useless for the enemy squad, unable to do much more than spamming Focus and being one of the first preys to Agrias' long-range I'd hardly call that a disadvantage for me, but yannow~♫

Quote from: BleuVII on April 30, 2019, 03:59:05 pm
I just double-checked, and that bug was present in version 1.01 too (the one I had up for 2 years). (...)

It was? I swear I used to have Agrias spam it on the previous versions for Slow... Could be wrong myself tho, it has been two years...

One minor thing that I only noticed recently because I'm still relatively newbish to FFT, but... Did the Crossbow and Knightslayer got their names switched? I checked on the wiki, and the blind-inducing one was supposed to be the one with the edgy name Instead of the greenish regular yet stronger version.

Oh yeah speaking of which, another thing that I'm not sure is an actual glitch or it has been always like so. The Blind status. It's not affecting anything at all. Skeletons routinely push it on my men, anyone wielding either the Crossbow mentioned above or Blind Knives do the same with a number of enemies... And the afflicted are still swinging swords to people's faces with 100% accuracy. Could you check on that?

Thanks once again for the patching! I'll be on the lookout for anything else.

Thanks a lot for the update, Bleu. I forgot how your mod made this game fun <3 And thanks for not nerfing the Magus class as well. I enjoy a measurement of OPness in my games, especially when you have to put the effort to get to them, like you did with that class in particular.

But, as I always do, there's a "unfortunately" somewhere in my messages, apologies for once again coming to report a problem. It's something minor though: the Judgment Sword skill is now conceding random buffs to its targets. This has escalated to the point that a CPU-controlled Agrias is purposefully targetting my own units to bestow Shell on them. And Regen. And sometimes Reraise...?!

I gotta ask, how was that even possible? xDD

Found a few more things that I thought should be reported:

- Now here's something I should be able to notice earlier, thanks to myself not trusting you actually made Marach a very good unit now, and postponing using him until that late in the game Nevertheless, the problem is, his Nether Terra got somehow mistaken with Nether Aqua. The name, the description and the parameters refer to the skill itself, but the attack animation and the applied elemental is from Nether Aqua, and vice-versa as well. The same is also happening between Nether Ventus and Nether Fulmen. It's not something that serious, just a minor bother, but I thought you'd like to check on that.

- Since there were no mention of these on the readmes, were any of the Treasure Hunter item pools changed? I'm at Nelveska Temple trying to get the infamous Escutcheon II and Javelin II, but instead I've been finding, respectively in their spots, Flame Shields and Chameleon Robes, instead of the usual regular Escutcheons and Javelins. Did they got moved somewhere else?

- Apparently the same "monks with bows" weirdness happens with Samurais as well past Chapter 4. Somehow they're able to equip bows, the Artemis Bow specifically, and still be able to use their Draw Out skills even without a katana in sight. In fact, until said Sluice Gate battle, random encounters included, not one of them got katanas anywhere, only bows. How is that possible?

- This is probably an unintended mixup, since the readmes and the in-game prompts say nothing about it. Thieves not only got innate Reflexes, but Poach as well. Odd, helpful too, but I'm kinda afraid this'll mean enemy thieves can snipe my monsters before I can revive them. Can the CPU even poach? Won't this cause a crash?

- And lastly, since it's been almost a week with no answer (merged post), I decided to restart my file. And I've noticed that any enemy from the Skeleton line got an innate 50% dodge modifier against bows and bowguns. Concentration doesn't even affect these odds, they always force the hit chance to stay between 54% to 32%. In-game prompts about them say nothing about any innate ability that permit this. Could you please check how them bones suddenly got fast enough to dodge arrows so much?

Oh, shoot, I thought the equipment availability was still the same even with the class name change In that case, other than ninja and soldiers (also Ramza), who else from the special classes can equip them?

Also, the readmes mention that low faith boost their damage, but what's the exact formula for that boost?

Heya Bleu, thanks for making this mod. Even though it's been more than a decade since I've played with the original PSX one (for only a short time, it was on a loan), your mod was the main reason I'm tackling the game from start to finish. I've been introduced to it on Romhacking, but I'm happy to find an updated version right here on the forums. It's been entertaining me for more than a month so far!

Unfortunately I also came to report about a few bugs I found while playing it Hope you don't mind me listing them.

- I too saw the "archer monks" in a few missions in so far, even though I started the game from the 1.1 on an european WotL. First time was at the slums on Chapter one, where Wiegraf makes his first appearance, there are two monks with unexplained Longbows. I remember seeing one or two more carrying crossbows, with no Equip Crossbow ability, during Chapter 3 on a few random encounters as well.

- Speaking of weird archers, during the battle where Balthier joins in, I found two completely glitched Archers with Missingno-ified portraits and no map sprite on them sans their shadow on the ground. Occasionally when they attacked, the game would crash. That unfortunately made the mission touch-and-go unless they were rushed before having a chance to have a turn, could you have a look at that? (it happened in the same map from above and all, the shantytown slums, might be related?)

- As of this post's moment, I've finished the Fort Besselat Sluice battle, the one that prefaces Orlandeau joining in. During that battle I found one of your many edits, as in having the two Knigh... Uh I mean, Soldiers, guarding the gate switches, both holding an Arondight each. Of course I stole them with a bit of effort (read: resets) and a Black Chocobo~♫ But for some reason I cannot equip them on my Magus characters. For the record, those Arondights have their item sprite looking like shaded Defender knightswords, instead of the crystal blue short ones from the original game. And unlike the fellsword class, they can be equipped by Ninjas as well...? I'm honestly confused, why is that?