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Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grim Grimoire Beta 0.7- Last Updated: 2/25/16

Started by Eternal, February 12, 2013, 01:48:41 am

Madeen

Quote from: Eternal on March 01, 2016, 09:17:18 am
@Bear: Thanks for the heads up! I'll make a fix before I go out of town on Thursday. Naturally, the one thing I didn't test because it seemed so straightforward is messed up because of a mislabeling, heh. I'll try and figure out what happened with Vine, since it worked fine when I tested it ages ago.

@Madeen: Nothing different planned for them yet, really. I'd love to learn how to edit Clan Privileges though.


Yeah some privileges are really OP... though if the challenge is hard, why not?
If you cant edit privileges, maybe you can edit battles?

Zekken

I found something weird happen involving grapple, here is the imgur link.
http://imgur.com/a/YGJSD

The Japanese letters, not sure if they are supposed to be there. Looks a bit wierd.

Otherwise, so far loving the mod! Something i found annoying was how thunder was lawed in most of the battles i played. This was quite annoying as moogle knight had atmos blade, red mage only could use thunder and cure for awhile. Maybe it was just my luck, or it was purposely designed that way.

Monsters were pretty dangerous early on, just had to not stand in a line and then they died pretty quickly. (Stupid wolves and them always getting the disable off)




Eternal

Glad to hear you're having fun! The Rooted status only appears in Vanilla when a unit uses Mortar, and it doesn't display that text, so it was never translated as it was never meant to display. It's a known thing, and I'm not particularly inclined to fix it anytime soon. I didn't change any of the Laws, so they were the same in Vanilla.
  • Modding version: PSX & WotL
"You, no less human than we? Ha! Now there's a beastly thought. You've been less than we from the moment your baseborn father fell upon your mother in whatever gutter saw you sired! You've been chattel since you came into the world drenched in common blood!"
  • Discord username: eternal248#1817

Bonesy

Got a list of Blue M'a'gyk's or is it the same as vanilla but easier to learn now?
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown
  • Discord username: Bonesy#9386

Eternal

Blue Magick is more or less the same as Vanilla, with a twist. When a monster uses it, it'll often have a more potent effect than if a Blue Mage uses it. This was done for two reasons: For one, a Blue Mage is just mimicking the true technique, meaning it won't be as effective. And secondly, it's done for balance reasons.
  • Modding version: PSX & WotL
"You, no less human than we? Ha! Now there's a beastly thought. You've been less than we from the moment your baseborn father fell upon your mother in whatever gutter saw you sired! You've been chattel since you came into the world drenched in common blood!"
  • Discord username: eternal248#1817

Eternal

Hey all! Just a heads up that I'm still working on the next update, but progress has been slow since my computer is out being upgraded. I'm looking to have the next update out by the end of March!
  • Modding version: PSX & WotL
"You, no less human than we? Ha! Now there's a beastly thought. You've been less than we from the moment your baseborn father fell upon your mother in whatever gutter saw you sired! You've been chattel since you came into the world drenched in common blood!"
  • Discord username: eternal248#1817

Bonesy

  • Modding version: Other/Unknown
  • Discord username: Bonesy#9386

chocolatemoose

I've been meaning to give feedback on what I've played through so far. I'm about 180 missions in - haven't played through all classes.

In general: I feel you on wanting to make statuses (buffs/debuffs) more relevant in A2:GG. However, I don't think they're as useful or necessary as they could be for a couple reasons: 1. dealing damage (physical or magical) is still relatively more effective than debuffing 2. debuff accuracy relatively low compared to damage. In other words, if I can take an opponent down in ~4 hits at roughly 90% accuracy, why spend a turn trying to debuff at 50% accuracy (if I'm lucky?). In order to remedy this I think defense and resistance stat growths need to be buffed relative to attack and magick growths. Decrease the effectiveness of damage the regular way and debuffs will become more useful. Alternatively, adding small damage amounts to debuffs can also make them relatively more effective. MP becomes less of an issue as the game progresses, so the MP-restore skills become less useful too.

Also, that first Illua battle. Wow, that was not easy.

I generally don't mention stat growths below; I imagine you want to redo them at some point.

Hume:

  • Soldier: adding damage to their debuffs is a nice addition, but definitely still an early-game class

  • Thief: new abilities are an improvement, but also an earlier-game class. Equipment stealing tough to invest into when you don't get a lot of the abilities early on and you've unlocked a lot of the equipment later on. Might be more worthwhile if enemies had more powerful equipment, but then that also breaks the game earlier on

  • Archer: didn't use

  • Fighter: As much as I love Aurablast, I'm glad you nerfed it. The reduced range, as well as Air Render being wind elemental, make this skill set less OP than it used to be. Overall a good rebalance. I've run into a couple issues with Grapple when Bowen uses it on larger monsters that then puts them on top of characters

  • Paladin: haven't used yet

  • Samurai: An oddball class for sure. I'd probably have avoided it if it weren't for the stat growths. Murasame is great earlier on, but Ashura is the only skill with range (and 100% accuracy, which is nice, but I imagine you probably want to nerf). It's not that its skills are bad, but their AoE is awkward. Much like roundhouse, you're unlikely to use them a lot

  • Ninja: just started to use, the veils/-tons deal higher damage and are more useful than before. Eagerly awaiting picking up Dual Wield

  • Blue Mage: just started picking up skills. Imagine it will be as useful as before, so pretty useful. Druid definitely makes this easier to get to

  • Seer: haven't used yet. Apologies for not scanning through the rest of the thread, but does Magick Frenzy work same as before?

  • Heritor: haven't used yet. So far abilities look the same as before



Bangaa:

  • Warrior: roughly same as before. Didn't spend much time in it

  • Monk: shaping up to be an all-around great ability list. Great as a secondary. Similar feelings to the fighter on Aurablast and Air Render

  • Gladiator: just started using, seems like some mild improvements over Vanilla. Haven't picked up the Materia Blade yet

  • Myrmidon: One of the problems with this class is that there are relatively more monsters than non-monster enemies, and the break %s are pretty low, so you don't end up with a ton of opportunities to use those skills effectively. The elemental skills are a good companion when breaks don't make sense, but overall not fantastic. I'd probably pass on this next time

  • Dragoon: Didn't use

  • Bishop: Seems the same as before. There if you really want a magic Bangaa

  • Oracle: Interesting skill set, but didn't end up being too compelling for me. I mostly used Invigorate and Prescience, when I had a spare turn. The debuffs are good, but too inaccurate without damage

  • Trickster: Still love this class for the range. Looks like the skillset is the same

  • Templar: didn't use



Nu Mou

  • White Mage: mostly same as before, haven't used Holy yet. Esuna's smaller AoE makes things more interesting. Problem is later game healing becomes less useful and there are other classes that can do it half-decently enough to sub for the WM

  • Black Mage: generally useful

  • Druid: great class. Thorns is probably a little over-powered early game, but the class evens out as the game progresses. The exception would be Tame, which is super-useful for the Blue Mage and always works
  • Necromancer: super-useful early on, but less so once Hurdy joins the party

  • Time Mage: useful as always, but the Moogle one becomes more interesting with Snake Eyes

  • Alchemist: didn't use

  • Sage: didn't use

  • Scholar: more useful than before, but I found buffs became less useful later-game, when I really started unlocking the abilities

  • Daemon: I tried getting into this class, but needing to Focus before using the abilities made it not as useful as I would have liked. Even so, Despair came in handy in the first Illua battle



Viera

  • Fencer: seems more useful than before (Reprise), but still an early-game class

  • Archer: didn't use

  • Red Mage: as useful as before, even without Doublecast working on other magicks

  • Occultist: I tried most of the abilities on this, but I can't help but see it as anything but a one-trick pony for Possess, which can be OP when paired with a highly-leveled unit. Note: the Druid's skills are the only ones I can't access using Possess. Everything else works fine

  • Sniper: less useful than before without Doubleshot, although I haven't used all the abilities. I paired it with Dance on Penelo, which I'll get to later

  • Summoner: less useful than before without Doublecast. Not bad, but I wouldn't really use it at this point

  • Kunoichi: Interesting class. Only played with it a little but I really like the skill set

  • Spellblade: Really like this class. Great ability set paired with ranged damage. You might want to add MP costs to some of the abilities



Moogle

  • Animist: didn't use

  • Black Mage: relatively more useful than other BMs with the addition of Snake Eyes

  • Moogle Hero: has its uses, but was more of an early-game class for me. I'm planning to come back to it once I've finished off a couple other skillsets

  • Orator: didn't use

  • Corsair: Is this class using the Tinker animations (minus the animations)? Is that why I see a 100% success rate for Coin Toss and the other, similar, ability but it doesn't always work? The class is good, but best paired with a mage class because of Snake Eyes. Selfish request: can you please make this class use cards instead of daggers? I know that could make things screwy because of the relatively later-game unlocks for cards, but thematically it feels better.

  • Time Mage: Moogle version definitely more interesting than the Nu Mou one. Comet also gives this class more utility for direct damage

  • Fusilier: suffers from some of the same issues as the Myrmidon with its equipment breaks. Aim is useful on Hurdy for buffing Nameless Song

  • Engineer: I've gone most of my game with only Satellite Ray and Healbot as my secondary skill, but damn if Satellite Ray isn't awesome. It's kind of like Aurablast used to be. Just started picking up the other skills, too early to tell how useful they'll be

  • Chocobo Knight: didn't use



Gria:

  • Hunter: looks the same as before, didn't use

  • Vartan: love this class. The wind elemental is a decent angle. Zephyr and Storm are probably over-powered. I only got them after learning Gale, Whirlwind and Cyclone - do Zephyr and Storm let you use them if you haven't learned them?

  • Ravager: same as before, less useful without Unscarred

  • Gourmand: only used a little bit but seems super useful and interesting



Seeq

  • Berserker: didn't use

  • Ranger: used, but seemed less useful than vanilla. Maybe it's because it's taken a while to get the abilities - I still only have 5

  • Reaver: great job. You might want to limit Shadowblade's range to weapon range? It's a great skill either way

  • Viking: didn't use



Other

  • Bard: great class, a must have for a lot of battles. Probably overpowered. Soul Etude and Angelsong render White Mages mostly useless, and Requiem does the same for Necromancers

  • Dancer: totally OP class. I just stand back with Penelo and let Mincing Minuet rip every time

  • Sky Pirate: haven't really used yet. Looks same as before


BearPRIME

I also wanted to provide some feedback aswell!  First of all i really like what you've done with the game and its great!  almost 200 missions and i've used most of the classes.  I also used the ability modifier to make some changes of my own and I will mention some that i thought were interesting, but most stayed the same. 

Hume:

Soldier: found this to be an excellent class, the damage along with the debuff is fantastic.  Great secondary class for ranged units

Archer: The major change i added which i thought was interesting was reducing damage on cover fire (summon AOE damage) and adding a 50% normal hit ratio to immobalize for 1 turn.  I found it a great way to keep some of my medium range units safe from the beastly monsters.  I also raised the speed stat for this class cuz i wanted at least some reason to level as over soldier early game.

Paladin: Decent class, left mostly the same but did find a weird glitch once with cover (also im not sure if you programmed it to be small AOE or if that was me). once the unit covering my other died the game froze when the covered nit was attacked again, only happened once though.

Hunter: Basically my go to range class. I felt that drill shot was not worth the crazy AP to learn but i get that it replaced Ultima.

White & Black mages: white is very useful early on and black mages are great all game but i do feel that the quirk for fire magic and to a lesser extent lightning is far better than the one you set for ice.  HOly for white mages actually was set to deal less damage than holy for bishops (not sure if this was intentional)

Necromancer: I really didn't use it too much but the abilities seem good if a bit situational

Blue mage: pretty much the same as before although i like how the blue magic is a slightly weaker version of the monster spell

Samurai: Found the class awkward with its unusual stat growth for ability set.  The magic damage didnt seem to fit well with the build and the paper thin defence make the adjacent targeting a little hard to pull off for the damage they deal.  I tried to work with them the best i could but i found that they were just outclassed by regular spell casters or primary physical units.  Hard to find a place in my team for them

Fighter: This class was balanced out and i like it quite a bit.  for some reason the AI really likes using grapple alot (I'm looking at you Bowen).

Nu mou

White, Black & Necro: same deal as before

Druid: class is dope! the general utility is fantastic at all stages of the game, although thorn is like a free bio reallllllly early on that can be used pretty often.  I like the situational abilities which determine what kind of unit it can be depending on the battle field.  However i have yet to hit with aqua (multi-hit water attack) cuz i suck.  I used this as a sub class literally all game on one of my units!

Time Mage: I have always like time mages but moogle outclasses for sure with snake eyes.  i haven't tried comet yet and i didnt check if that could be dual cast.  If it cant the higher growth of the nu mou might make them a little closer to moogle

Daemon: I really liked the concept of this class but i felt like the abilities were slightly underpowered for the turn to set up.  I ended up upping the damage on the abilities especially the single target one (dark holy) and i feel like it works better.  I did only try it out at higher levels so i dont know how balanced it is at the begining (magic seems to be OP early but generally balances out later).  I also noticed that Doom status triggers the death spell at the end of the count, but ince Death was replaced with prime the untis are now primed.  This can actually be a really interesting mechanic, i tried it with Banga canoner class.

Alchemist: still great i use as a primary for growth and generally good abilities.

Sage: I have always liked the sage for being more a hybrid class.  Another one of my primaries

Bangaa:

Warrior: decent sub job potential for things like canoneer

Monk: Also good for a sub class, balanced thorough game and utility is always useful

Dragoon: I really dont like the samyness of the vanilla breath attacks. what i did was add a gimmik along with reduced damage for some the the moves to make them more interesting. Don't know what can be done to make him more interesting but the moves are pretty good still so i used one.

Gladiator: Ultima sword with trickster and half mp is still OP late game.  However i like the concept of magic based abilities (even though you need level in other classes for magic growth), I did change them to either provide a buff to ally or damage foe and i think it increases the utility of the unit a lot as it lacks the best moves from the fighter.  Lighting sword now can restore 24mp to an ally (still costs mp), and blizzard tackle adds defending and protect to ally.  all of the elemental blades do damage to a foe (blizzard keeps its immobilize effect)

Myrmiddon: This was probably the only class i really didnt like.  The abilities are good when the opponent has them because breaking your equipment has consequences further than the battle itself but i often find that breaking equipment of enemies is lackluster for the most part.  Surprizingly rending shields is the most useful to decrease evade and its higher chance to hit.  Love the teddy bear icon that appear when you rend something that isn't there though. I dont know what i would do to change them though

Canoneer: underrated class, i really like it! 
I utilised the doom->prime thingy here.  I made mortar 3x damage but only usable when primed (flintlocked one) i also made it remove all buffs and cause addle on self.  Prime now adds the doom effect on self meaning that 3 turns from then you can use mortar.  I found this to be pretty fun and to fit with the whole canoneer concept as a class. 

Oracle: I have similar issues with this class as chocolate moose, debuffs are okay but the lack of damage makes it kinda meh.  Also there are other classes with better debuffing abilities that cost less mana and stuff (sheep count 100% sleep instead of repose).  I messed around with adding physical damage to some of the abilities and it made want to use it more

Templar: like this class, all abilities work well here but i would make soul sphere more useful.  Most mages have alot of mana and soul sphere doesn't really dent it even with imporved damage.  Usually just better to damage directly.  I made the mp damage drain and added hp damage that was 1x damage dealt, so it is only useful for targets with mp.  I found this change to be really useful making mp depletion more viable in this class

trickster: havent used for A abilities, just tried ranged ultima   

Viera:

Fencer: like soldier a good class for most of the game and a decent sub job.  for some reason retreat didnt work as intended.  ALso reprise is pretty much the best ability and used it more often than not

White mage: see above

Red Mage: thank god you balanced double cast! still useful though

Green Mage: I like status effects but i feel like there are better classes to do it: sage and alchemist each have blind or poison and sleep is best used with animist. I can see the appeal of having one unit with all of them though.  Maybe if tranq (accuracy up) was still a thing than green mage would shine (or be OP). still used one early game though

Summoner: I like the only allies/foes addition, really makes up for the lack of double cast.

Occultist: POSSES is great! so useful and pretty OP.  At least the AI can use it well too.  Ohter abilities are pretty okay but i pretty much Posses another unit for some intersting effects.  Cant use druid abilities but can use most everything else even if they are sub job abilities. (cant simply attack though)

Kinoichi: dope class with a dope system.  Well balanced with high risk for high reward and required good tacktics to use. 
I found a pretty interesting idea for this class replacing the utsumi (teleport and evade up) with a remove effect and quicken on hit.  Great for getting rid of weakened enemies and getting out of there. 

Sniper: pretty much left as was but double shot is kinda useless now when fencers have reprise. Also never found the trap setting to be useful. Maybe make it immobilize self but quicken so you can put some down and then act? i dunno

Spellblade: great class with great abilities and awesome subjob for almost any unit. use one all the time. life steal need mp cost for sure though

Moogle: I didnt really change much at all they were pretty well balanced with nice abilities for most classes. Aim is great on fusiler even of the break skills are meh. Moogle hero is fun to play and i use it as a sub job for hurdy. 

Seeq: Basically Reaver is the best class bar none.  the rest can be support jobs but i found seeq pretty bad until i unlocked the reaver.  The utility the ranger provides wasnt really worth it as a unit in battle, could do better with a support mage or something.  Berserker can do damage i guess but not as good as reaver (life steal is OP sometimes).

Gria:

Raptor: Zephr and storm are too good.  the limits you have on them for just the three spells are okay but i would reduce the damage of the spells to make it fair.  I dont think that they should have the ability to do as much damage (or more) as a red mage with a spell and physically attack everything hit. Pretty much made the other jobs redundant except for:

Gourmand: LOVE THIS CLASS! overeating to death always makes me laugh.  Engorge is pretty much the bread and butter (pun intended) of this class, reducing evasion to 0 is really really good.  Also flair is a pretty useful ability that requires actual strategy to use effectively, isolating certain units from the rest of their team.  Fantastic job with this btw.

Overall I really loved all the classes and will provide more feedback when i have time to play more.  Keep in mind that the changes i mentioned were suggestions that i made based on my opinion and may not really be good for the kind of hack you're trying to build.  if anything strikes your fancy then you can totally use and modify them to your will.

Thanks for the hard work Eternal!




Eternal

Thank you all for the feedback! It always makes me feel good when I get feedback, especially since I've been uber busy lately and depressed that I haven't been able to work on A2 as much as I've wanted to, among other life drama going on at the moment. Your timing is rather prudent, since I've been hoping to work more on A2 as things slow down a bit. That said, I've switched around a lot on my computer and I'm having issues with Desmume saves, so I need to play around with it for a bit. I'm currently coming up with concepts to replace jobs like Templar and Berserker. Namely, things like Templar will stay Templar, but with revised/improved themes.

Allow me to first focus on you guys' thoughts about the current jobs:

-HUMES-

Soldier: Soldier is definitely intended to be an early-game class, much like FFT's Squire. That being said, the Breaks are infinitely more useful now, and can still be used for a large portion of the game should one desire to. For that matter, if one has Art of War as a skillset, there's almost no reason to use a normal attack when you can be Breaking an enemy's stats. Since Breaks can be used with Weapon Range, using it with an Archer, a Hunter, etc. is also a great combination.

Thief: Thieves will be buffed by proxy when we have the ability to edit enemy formations and I can give them full equipment sets. As it stands right now, much like in FFTA, FFTA2 enemies are poorly equipped to deal with your party, and once they're buffed, the Steal skills in turn will find more use.

Archer: I disagree that the Rooted status needs to go on a Summon AoE skill, but I do think a Speed boost would help them immensely, to help them get more chances to debuff their enemies and bind them. A quick Archer could be really deadly in the right hands, if they were speedier.

Fighter: I find it kinda hilarious (and unintentional) that Grapple works on large enemies. I think I'll keep that just because it's funny as hell.

Paladin: Cover is single-target, but the Druid's Golem's Cover is not. That's a weird bug though. It's something to keep in mind, too, as I was considering making Cover AoE, but I don't think I will.

Hunter: To be completely fair, I don't like Drill Shot either. It was mostly just a fill-in until I found something better to replace Ultima Shot with. I may give it a linear AoE so that it's more useful, so that it deals AoE damage and bypasses Defense. Not sure yet though.

Black Mage: I agree with you about Blizzard's gimmick not being that great. I think what I'm going to do is give it a chance to inflict Rooted so that mages that use it are protected by slinging spells from afar. You can either go for Range with Thunder, AoE with Fire, or keep enemies at bay with Blizzard.

White Mage: Thanks for pointing out the issue with Holy! That's been fixed immediately. I'm debating whether I should buff Cure/Cura/Curaga, but I don't want it to be crazy.

Necromancer: Definitely a situational job, but things like Seal Evil are ridiculously helpful in Undead battles. In fact, Undead were buffed to a point where Necromancer, White Mage, and Black Mage shines. That said, I want to change some of their skills. Tainted Love will remain the same, but won't be able to Charm Undead, since that's what Styx is around for. Bard is being nerfed slightly, so things like Requiem won't outpace the Necromancer's sheer ability to decimate Undead.

Blue Mage: Definitely still a good job, very versatile, but it's not nearly as overpowered as it was before. Makes for a great secondary skillset!

Seer: Spells that can be Magick Frenzied are also the spells that can be Dualcast, so using Magick Frenzy is a lot less overpowered than it was before, but it's still quite potent.

Samurai: I definitely agree, I'm pretty let down by Samurai as well. Thankfully, that's why testing exists! Part of what I've found is the problem is that stat growths in FFTA2 are very important. By the time you unlock Samurai, you've sunk a lot of points into Physical Attack, and their skills are Magickally based. To that end, I think I'm going to simply switch their Iaido skills to being physically based, and that should make them more useful. Whereas the Fighter is about damage, the Soldier is versatile, and the Paladin is about defense, the Samurai would be about physical AoE skills with the ability to debuff enemies that try to get close to it and take it down. With its low defenses, using evasion tactics would be crucial until the Samurai gets to stack debuffs on surrounding units.

Ninja: Using the -ton skills for their debuffs is what I used them for. Think of it like FFT Geomancy. Not great for damage, but wonderful for crippling enemies! Dual Wield is always a plus, too!

-BANGAA-

Warrior: Much like Soldier, it blends well with Ranged jobs, such as Cannoneer and Trickster.

Monk: Chakra and Revive are great skills that can be used all-game, and makes for a great secondary skillset. Holy Sign also removes all buffs and debuffs, so it can be used for both offensive and defensive purposes. It becomes slightly trickier if a unit is afflicted with both, though! :P

Gladiator: Gladiator is being revised in the very near future, simply because I don't like a lot of it. I only have four skills to play around with on them though, so that's the tricky part. Ultima Sword will probably remain in some capacity though!

Myrmidon: Like Thieves, Myrmidons will benefit greatly from improved enemy rosters. Frost/Storm/Burn are great for non-human fights, especially if Frost gets Blizzard's Rooted upgrade. Ultimately, I think they'll stay as they are, simply because I know they'll be far more useful once enemies get upgraded.

Dragoon: Much like Gladiator, I don't have room to mess with them too much since they share skills with Dragons. I have some ideas in mind, but I'm not sure how to implement them yet. That said, I agree that they feel too same-y.

Oracle: Well, Sheep Count shouldn't be 100% Sleep (and has now been fixed!), so that helps Repose stay on par slightly. I wouldn't be averse to making their debuffs inflict damage as a way of making them stand out a little more. That said, my other idea was to reduce Resilience all around to make debuffs slightly more accurate, but I'm not sure how everyone else feels about that.

Templar: Templars are being buffed. Again. Note that they have a dual use that not many people use them for, and that's (shockingly) outspeeding the enemy. Templars have access to Haste and Piercing Cry (which flat out decreases Speed, and persists, unlike Slow). Rasp will be greatly buffed and Soul Sphere will be becoming something new altogether, most likely, perhaps a Slow spell, or a Reflect ability. To that end, I want them to become veritable mageslayers, so these buffs are needed. A big issue with Rasp at present is that it's considered Magickal, which means three things. 1) Bangaa have crap MA and can't do much regardless, 2) Enemy mages tend to have high Resistance, and 3) Even at 100 Power, Rasp can't dent high enemy MP late-game.

-NU MOU-

Druid: Everyone loves Thorns, which is kinda hilarious since I thought nobody would use it! I'm really glad to hear it's popular. Thorns might get a nerf soon to be on par with Level 1 Magick (20 Power instead of 30), but I'm a little afraid to touch it now that everyone likes it, haha. My other idea is to simply reduce Vertical Tolerance from 3 to 0. 3 seems excessive.

Time Mage: Yes, Comet can be used with Snake Eyes! Dualcast (with your Moogle!) at your heart's content.

Scholar: Scholars at present are pretty damn powerful, and will be even more useful once enemies are able to be buffed. Things such as Paling and Magick Barrier can make you nigh invincible, even if they are single-target. I used them in some difficult late-game fights, and they helped tremendously. Regen, as always, is useful, and Veil is great when you're fighting debuff spamming foes. I used them as a secondary on my healer and had great results. They also make for a great skillset to use before you get into the thick of the fight.

Daemon: Such a tricky class to balance, and I knew it'd be that way from the start. Dark Holy is already slated for a buff from 140 to 180 power, which should make it more usable. Do you recall what ability you used inflicted Doom? I thought I removed all instances of Doom, but I knew I'd miss some.

-VIERA-

Fencer: I'll have to look in to why Retreat isn't working. It was working fine when I tested it. Yay for more testing! Hopefully it at least feels like a more interesting starting job now. It has a lot more depth than it used to.

Occultist: Possess is interesting in that it can only access skills that are in an immediate skillset. So things that require going into a sub-sub-skillset can't be used by Possess. Using their other skills strategically is key. Geist is great for restoring HP and MP and completely undoing (literally) an enemy's hard work. Abomination can quickly prevent enemy advance, Offering is a great desperation move, Elder One deals huge damage and can cause chaos among the enemy ranks, Squassation is great for dealing damage and quickly summoning support Espers, Sanguis flat out deals a lot of Water damage, and Xenoglossia is one of the best mage support skills in the game. As with other advanced jobs, it's all a matter of using it tactically. Granted, Possess (even used on your own allies) is a great way of accumulating damage, but there are many ways to play Occultist.

Sniper: Doubleshot is going to be replaced with a skill that damages and delays an enemy's turn, which is quite valuable (especially against monsters) early on. While not flashy, I think it's a better alternative to current Doubleshot.

Summoner: Summoners are basically glorified Black Mages, but for Viera. Thankfully, they smart target and things like the wide AoE Regen and Reflect are convenient, niche things you can't really find anywhere else. Much like Viera as a race as a whole, they don't excel in anything, but they can always fill a role in your party.

Kunoichi: This was such a risky job to make, but I'm glad people enjoy it. Definitely not my own cup of tea, but it makes me happy to see people using it! Note that I try not to risk adding Quicken to too many things; the AI spams it to no end and it draws battles out.

Green Mage: To be fair, Green Mage is a starting job, and isn't overly flashy. Extend is a great buff, and using Protect/Shell at the very start of a fight when your units are grouped together is great. Evasion Up is a great buff for frail units late-game as well. I think Green Mage will more or less stay the same, but perhaps get a boost in Attack so they can actually hit things fairly hard with their hammers.

Spellblade: Glad to hear that people are enjoying the class! Blitz and Sanguinate will both be getting MP costs in the next update.

-MOOGLE-

Moogle Hero: Dia is great for killing Undead, and Heal is great when things are getting dire as a quick pick-me-up. The Moogle Hero may not be great at magick, but it sure as hell tries!

Corsair: Here's how it works. It IS basically Tinker, but how it works is that even if it displays 100%, it's not lying. It will be a 100% chance. It's just that it only has a chance to hit either all enemies, or all allies in the targeted radius. So if you're not seeing anything, it just means the game rolled the target that doesn't exist within the area. And I thought I gave Corsair the ability to use Cards and Guns. I'll double check it, and if they can't, I'll fix that for the next update.

Engineer: Satellite Ray is amazing, but once you unlock Fallout late game, you'll love it. 100% accuracy and Poison proc can wipe entire swaths of enemies out. Healbot gets outclassed rather quickly, IMO, but it's still great for a quick patch-up job.

-GRIA-

Vartan: You can only Dualcast skills that you know, so if you haven't learned those two, you can't Dualcast/Frenzy with them. I'll play with Gale/Cyclone/Whirlwind and see how I should go about making their numbers a little more fair.

Ravager: On the list to be fully revamped. I'm thinking it's going to be a Shield-related job, focusing on evasion, and bonking things on the head with their Shields.

Gourmand: Gourmand is full of surprises. Keep playing with it and I'm sure people will find some pretty amazing uses for them. ;)

-SEEQ-

Berserker/Viking: On the list to be fully revamped. I have some interesting things in mind for them.

Ranger: On the list to be buffed, just not sure what I have in mind yet. Definitely an increase in Speed.

Reaver: Shadowblade will be gaining an MP cost, just not sure how much yet.

-SPECIAL JOBS-

Bard: Angelsong will be nerfed slightly, and Soul Etude will be changed, just not sure how I want to go about it yet.

Dancer: Dancer is overall pretty damn amazing, as her changes were made long before I balanced everything else. (Same with Bard, for the most part). Mincing Minuet will be nerfed, among a few other tweaks to her job overall.


Thank you everyone for the feedback! Sorry it took so long for the reply, but again, things have been crazy for me lately! That, and I've become addicted to FFXIV...
  • Modding version: PSX & WotL
"You, no less human than we? Ha! Now there's a beastly thought. You've been less than we from the moment your baseborn father fell upon your mother in whatever gutter saw you sired! You've been chattel since you came into the world drenched in common blood!"
  • Discord username: eternal248#1817

Eternal

So, I think Berserker will be the next job I tackle. I need to test if this will work or not, but I think Berserker is going to become a class that focuses on brute force, raw offensive might fueled by devastating combos. Basically, by comboing the various Berserker moves, you'll be able to execute chains of attacks that deal tremendous damage, increased radius, and increased precision.

Proposed Skillset:

Scream: Bestows Berserk, Attack Up, and Critical Up on the user.
Ravage: Deals weapon damage to the target and makes the user's next weapon attack more accurate.
Furore: Deals physical damage to surrounding units, knocks them back, and may Immobilize them.
Bloodlust: Increases the user's next weapon attack damage, will stack with Haymaker.
Sovereignty: Deals weapon damage to the target and increases the AoE of the next weapon strike by 1.
Unfeeling: The user takes no damage for a single turn, but becomes far more vulnerable to debuffs.
Haymaker: Deals weapon damage to the target and makes the user's next weapon attack more powerful.
Combo: Deals weapon damage to the target and increases the amount of attacks done with the next weapon attack.

Basically, the Berserker's bread and butter would be to either Scream and just rampage everything mindlessly, or use Unfeeling and Bloodlust as you draw near the enemy, followed by your combo skill of choice; using Bloodlust -> Haymaker -> Sovereignty for raw power, or using another combination of skills depending on the situation. I need to make sure I can make this happen (since self procs can be wonky in A2), but I think I can pull it off.
  • Modding version: PSX & WotL
"You, no less human than we? Ha! Now there's a beastly thought. You've been less than we from the moment your baseborn father fell upon your mother in whatever gutter saw you sired! You've been chattel since you came into the world drenched in common blood!"
  • Discord username: eternal248#1817

BearPRIME

Berserker change looks real good if you make it work! Will also make dispel a more useful tool removing the self buffs!   

grassmudhorses

Hey Eternal,

Been playing this mod on and off for a year now - really enjoy the variety and updates that gives me insight into the design process. Here's a few interesting things I've noticed:

Trying the traditional Thief leveling makes your base stats very weak.  Probably shouldn't have tried - I assume this was intentional.

Occultists' Possess makes the Cinqlur mage battles trivial
Druid's Tame is like Possess' similar but less useful brother, still OP
Moogle Hero's debuff removal is amusingly useful in the early game
Nercomancers are basically useless outside of fighting undead...


A suggestion for making fencers more useful - add a weapon range skill that ignores facing and always deals side attack damage?

As for white mages, perhaps they need less of a numbers buff and more of a treatment to specialize - a range increase would be useful.

And thanks again for this wonderful mod - are you going to release stat growth charts anytime soon?



BearPRIME

@grassmudhorses

the stat growth is almost identical to vanilla, the best way to check is by using the job editor for ffta2 (I think its by Lennart, you can google it and its in one of the ff hacktics boards).  Just load the rom with the editor and each job has its listed starting stats and growths which you can modify.  On the top of my head the only 2 major changes were the arcanist which is now Daemon (11 attack growth and 7 magic, i think the rest is the same) and the chocobo rider (growths dependant on what colour mount it has; yellow for high HP, red for high attack, black for high magic, Brown for def, green for res and white for MP).  Also note that the editor will list the jobs in their vanilla names.

Other than that Eternal would know more, but I am glad that there are more people than me who enjoy this kind of hack! 

Eternal

Hey guys, thanks for your posts! I've been meaning to reply for a while now but unfortunately haven't really had the chance.

Grassmudhorse: Thanks for playing! I'm glad you're having fun. Although FFTA2 GG may not be the most balanced of my mods, it's sure a lot of fun, and quite different from Vanilla, don't you think? In regards to your feedback...

Thieves: Thieves will be receiving a slight stat buff in regards to Attack and possibly Speed. That said (much like FFT), some jobs just aren't optimal for stat growth, and I'm fairly comfortable with Thief being one of those jobs. Instead, they get a pretty kickass skillset that's pretty good, and will be even better once I can edit enemies. Stealing and being able to drain HP and MP, and having the ability to accrue extra Gil with each attack (Mug) is great, and they're pretty fast little jerks with a fair bit of Evasion behind them as well.

Possess: Possess makes most things trivial, haha. It's extra fun to use it on your own party members, essentially allowing a unit to act twice by sacrificing the Occultist's turn. I want to make it enemy only, but then it'll be able to affect Monsters, too, which would tread on the Druid's Tame, which may be a fair trade, considering how many other things Druids can do in addition to Tame.

Necromancers: Can't win them all, unfortunately. Necromancers definitely shine during Undead battles (as one would expect), but their Putrify, Brainrot, and Tainted Love skills are all really quite useful as well. Though they may not have quite as large a skillset when facing living enemies, they're still rather potent. Putrify, in particular, is very deadly since it can make future debuffs on the target far more accurate (such as, say, the Charm effect caused by Tainted Love).

Fencers: Fencers already get some fun skills, though I may buff Shadowstick to deal 50% Unevadeable Weapon Damage and Slow. Though they're a fairly basic job, they're very effective early on, as intended, similar to Soldier/Warrior. Manastrike may become a Linear skill that deals MP damage to give it some more use.

White Mages: White Mages are plenty useful already, IMO, and I gave them a few buffs recently to make them even more useful. Wall for Protect/Shell is nice to drop on the first turn for some early staying power until you can fell some enemies, and Holy gives them a late-game magickal nuke to drop on enemies' heads. Reraise and Esuna are always useful, and Raise is one of the few sources of ranged resurrection, allowing you to revive a fallen unit at an advantageous position out of harm's way to heal them back to full, since most revival sources now only revive with 1 HP.

As far as stat charts are concerned, I haven't touched stats much simply because I want to perfect skillsets first and work on stats from there.

EDIT: Thinking of a more interesting skillset for Ravager. Maybe something like the below, which focuses on leeching the enemy's stats and then messing with increased/reduced stats for maximum effectiveness.

Sweeping Spin:         Negatory Wave      Removes buffs from units in a line and reduces their RES.   
Sneak Attack:         Power Drain      Deals magickal damage to a single enemy, reduces its ATK, and boosts the user's ATK.
Full Assault:         Guard Drain      Deals magickal damage to a single enemy, reduces its DEF, and boosts the user's DEF.
En Garde:            En Garde         Bestows Counter and Evasion Up on the user.
Overpower:            Execute         Deals 50% weapon damage in a cone in front of the user.
Battle Cry:            Power Aura         Restores a large amount of HP to surrounding units and boosts ATK, reduces the user's ATK.
Tenacity:            Magicide         Deals physical damage to a single target and damages MP and reduces MAG.
Blast Wave:         Force Aura         Deals heavy damage to surrounding units, knocks them back and Roots them, but reduces the user's DEF.
  • Modding version: PSX & WotL
"You, no less human than we? Ha! Now there's a beastly thought. You've been less than we from the moment your baseborn father fell upon your mother in whatever gutter saw you sired! You've been chattel since you came into the world drenched in common blood!"
  • Discord username: eternal248#1817

chocolatemoose

I was playing the excellent Brave New World mod for FF6 and it got me thinking about a class that could imitate Gau.

Gau is interesting because he's a combination of a Blue Mage and a Berserker; an interesting twist on a Morpher. Pro: gain abilities, Con: lose control. Any chance of creating a class that can approximate that?

Eternal

Sadly, something like that isn't really doable in FFTA2 to my knowledge. That said, it's a fun idea, but it's not particularly practical. Loss of control is a huge thing and would be more burden than benefit, IMO. Also, BNW is a great mod. I beat it about a year ago. :D
  • Modding version: PSX & WotL
"You, no less human than we? Ha! Now there's a beastly thought. You've been less than we from the moment your baseborn father fell upon your mother in whatever gutter saw you sired! You've been chattel since you came into the world drenched in common blood!"
  • Discord username: eternal248#1817

Rucession

You could do Berserk+Silence+Prime and lock his "Wild" abilities behind the Primed buff, with his regular abilities disabled by Silence. The biggest problem with this setup is that Berserk/Silence can be dispelled or prevented by Astra, so you'll have to find some way to balance the game without those..

@Eternal
Your Berserker abillity ideas look fantastic, but I can't for the life of me get those Cannoneer buffs to work with melee attacks. They just consume the buffs without getting the benefits. They do work with all ranged weapons though, so that's something at least.

Spazzofspeed

I'm having some major problems with this mod. My units either start off with full MP or no MP. The MP never restores, not even the usual 10 MP every turn. This is a huge problem, due to a lot of my units being magic-based. Is this intentional or a glitch?

Eternal

@Rucession: I'm still tweaking Berserker a bit, but I'm having challenges since I can't get my test file to work, which is why the newest release has been delayed. It's good to know the Cannoneer buffs don't work with melee attacks. It's something I didn't anticipate and I'll have to test out myself. Thanks for the heads up!

@Spazz: Units start with full MP and MP regeneration is not a thing unless you use the Clan Privilege. Are you loading a Vanilla save? If so, that would explain it. Your unit's MP would be 0 and not regenerate at the start of the battle.
  • Modding version: PSX & WotL
"You, no less human than we? Ha! Now there's a beastly thought. You've been less than we from the moment your baseborn father fell upon your mother in whatever gutter saw you sired! You've been chattel since you came into the world drenched in common blood!"
  • Discord username: eternal248#1817