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

[chocolatemoose]

I'm super pleased with some of the changes you've made in GG, including the Myrmidons, Samurai and Moogles in general. I'm excited for 1.0's release before doing a full play through. Any chance for dual-wielding fusiliers in GG:A2? Just for lulz.

Not to borrow too liberally from rfh's A2 mod, but I think he's done some really good things with Soldiers/Warriors, Thieves, Seers, Ninjas, Beastmasters and Spellblades.

- Thieves: steal weapon would probably be OP, so I wouldn't fret over it

- Dragoons: changing the AoE of the different breaths is at least a good way to mix things up. What frustrates me about Dragoons is that Jump has a fairly low hit rate. Anything that could either boost Jump's accuracy or increase its range (4?) would be helpful. The other useful thing about Jump that's been lost in FFTA and A2 is that it's meant to remove the character from the field for a period of time, during which it can't be the target of any enemy attacks. If there were a way to add that functionality back in it would be more interesting. Otherwise Jump is Air Render with one extra range and lower accuracy - not as good imho

- Green Mage: Outside of Leap and Tranq, still pretty meh (maybe Leap and Tranq with a greater AoE? But isn't that just OP?)

- Elementalist: always struck me as being mostly about the non-Red Mage and -Summoner elements. However, since Red Mage has Doublecast and Summoner has the extra AoE, Elementalist always takes third place behind them. If you limit Doublecast to red magick (is that in GG?) then Elementalist becomes more attractive (and Red Mage less so)

Some random thoughts:

New classes: there are a couple classes from other FF games that could be used:
- Dark Knight: maybe a useful replacement for a Raptor?
- Chemist: is there a way to make Items learnable and buff them to a point where someone would want to use them (outside of Grimoire Stone, Eureka Crystal)? Then you could create a scenario in which Throw Items (Chemist P-ability?) could be interesting, perhaps by removing Throw from the Ninja (or not letting them throw non-weapon items)

Mages: one issue that I run into with mages is that for the most part their spells have a max range of 5 (with the center of the 1 AoE at 4 range). Many jobs have 4 move, plus it usually doesn't take that long to get a character with some sort of ranged physical attack (e.g. Air Render), both of which generally neutralize mages in no time (Archers usually don't hit as hard). Mages are generally slower and have pretty crappy DEF. Would there be any way to either boost magic range, spell power or mages' DEF? I guess I could make the same point about most ranged weapon classes as well (except Tricksters, of course).

Equipment: more could be done with the equipment, especially in terms of tradeoffs. Usually you'll pick up a piece of armor that has immune/absorb to a certain element, but no downsides. Another way to make things interesting would be to make equipment strong to one element but weak to another (I'm mostly thinking along the lines of Persona 3 or 4, if you've ever played either). That could also force the player to use certain jobs with hard-to-find elements. Add elemental effects to more weapons/armor and you have an interesting situation.

Stats: vanilla FFTA2 is usually about maxing ATK above all else. What if the other stats were more useful? I think you're onto a good idea with Stances. Speed <> Attack, for instance.

Turn order: outside of Haste/Slow/Quicken/Stop is there a way to delay a character's turn by "x" in the turn order? E.g. 01 hits 02 with ability that bumps 02 to 07 - by a set amount and one time only, not Slow. What about reversing turn orders for 01-10?

[Eternal]

Insofar as RFH's patch goes, I really liked some of his skills. Steal Speed in particular really stood out to me and is serving as inspiration for a job that I might use later on. Beastmasters in particular are getting a facelift eventually, namely based on Charming and buffing Controlled monsters. My focus right now, however, is to add the new jobs and then play around with other jobs a little later, while ensuring that everything remains bugless. I've learned a lot about QA during FFTA GG's development which I'm able to transfer to this project as well.

To respond to your post in regards to each individual job, it's difficult working within the space confines of each skill's name and making each individual skill interesting and balanced. Part of the challenge with FFTA/A2 is making skillsets also viable as secondaries. Art of War, for example, makes for a great secondary on Archers, Hunters, and Paladins. It's not meant to be stellar out-of-the-box. It's meant to be a good beginning skillset that coordinates well with other jobs, especially early on. Steal is intended to be a good skillset for units who want to cripple their enemy by draining HP or MP, and by stealing equipment. Dragoons, however, will always have me for a loss. In FFTA GG I had at one point considered having them be able to Morph into a Dragon, but that idea was scrapped. In FFTA2, that's not even an option. Green Mages are another skillset that's intended to be a secondary, to find use early-battle when most units are huddled together. I'm considering replacing Tranq with a version of Extend to make their buffs/debuffs last even longer. Dualcast is limited to Red Magick, yes.

-Reavers (formerly Lanistas) are Dark Knights. Their gimmick is as it is in every other FF- sacrificing HP, draining HP/MP, and flat-out causing damage. They're slated to have Souleater (same as Vanilla), Bane (damage around self at cost of HP), Charon (tremendous damage around self at cost of life), Shadowblade (Drains HP), Duskblade (Drains MP), Fearful Impact (Deals weapon damage and decreases Attack and Defense), Ravage (Damages and ignores Counters), and Ruin (Damages and ignores Evasion). I'm tempted to replace Ravage and Ruin for Bio and Doom, maybe. I'm not sure yet.

-Alchemists are basically armored Chemists. Throw is hardcoded, and Throw Item can't really be a thing in A2, so that's out.

-As far as magick range is concerned, I much prefer taking AoE away from physical jobs and making it more of a magickal thing. Magick is tough to balance in A2, and I've also been messing around with altering job Move/Jump. I really want positioning to be key in A2 as well as buffing/debuffing, so in many ways I -want- mages to be vulnerable, but at the same time, they should also be able to make things go boom.

-Equipment is the one thing that definitely took a hit in A2. In FFTA GG, for example, I make each Stave able to heal on hit and they generally have status immunity. For example, Heal on Hit, Immune: Silence, Immune: Poison, etc. In FFTA2, items can only have -one- non-stat property. This means that many items I made interesting in FFTA GG aren't going to be quite the same. I still intend on making each individual item at least somewhat tempting though. Elemental boosting/absorption is a little more streamlined now though. DEF as a stat sucks. That is all.

Turn order effects are pretty limited. I can only Haste, Slow, Stop, Delay, or Quicken. That's about it. There are a few more Delay skills in FFTA2 GG than there were in Vanilla though.

[chocolatemoose]

Thanks for the feedback. Had a couple other ideas:

- Is it possible to code average accuracy levels to jobs or job-specific abilities? That could help balance out the usefulness of some jobs (higher atk, lower accuracy)

- Similar to how you're exploring using a draw-in effect on Fighters, what about abilities that could really move units around the battlefield? For instance, while Rush has a knockback of 1, why not have an ability with a knockback of 3? Why not toss the enemy unit behind the attacking unit? What about a recoil effect that pushes the attacking unit back a tile?

- A job whose gimmick is status effects for all enemies with low accuracy (maybe a replacement for the scholar)

- You could always try breaking up white/green mages a little differently. For example, take away some of the white mage's more powerful spells and replace with lower-power green magick like protect/shell (not protectga/shellga)

- Another option along these lines would be to eliminate Esuna and break it up into spells that clear up individual statuses, like items

- You could attune all of a job's abilities to one or two elements

- Speaking of which, I don't know if coding allows for a Mystic Knight-style approach of imbuing a unit with a certain element for a battle. Or the opposite, which would basically be Null Fire/Blizzard/etc. for a hit (Astra for non-status)

- One more job idea would be an anti-Beastmaster: instead of learning abilities that let you control those monsters, you could learn abilities that would let you deal more damage to them (I guess I'm thinking Zidane-style skills from FFIX)

- Is it possible to code custom AoEs such as a 2x2 or a 3x3 square, or a V-shape?

That's all for now!

[Rfh]

FFTA2 Speed system is very similar to FFT, the difference is the CT cap in FFT is 100 and the CT cap in FFTA2 is 1000.
If in FFT haste is a bit breaking status, (it multiplies speed by *1,5) in FFTA2 it multiplies speed by *2! It is exaggerated, and also Slow, that divides speed at 50%. It means that while the rest of the units attacks two times, the slow unit only attack once. Slow and Haste need to be modified, but I don't know how. And the same with the speed down, that has the same effect that Slow, but for always...

[Madeen]

Been wondering, is it possible to add new job slots?  I'm thinking about Seeq/Gria because they only have 4 jobs... would be great if they had more like other races!

[chocolatemoose]

With regard to the Chocobo Knight, animation-wise can he only mount chocobos or can he mount other monsters? If others, then you could make it into a class similar to the vanilla beastmaster.

Edit/update: another thought - borrowing from FF5, any chance of giving some sort of bonus if someone masters all of a job's abilities? Many jobs have no incentive to learn more than 2-3 abilities (I'm looking at you, vanilla Fighter).

[bcrobert]

Dragoons, however, will always have me for a loss.

Go play Tactics Ogre PSP fool. The key to making dragoons strong is to make their signature target a serious threat. Make dragons intensely powerful. Then change Wyrmkiller to like 300% damage only on dragons. This way Sidewinder won't be a static upgrade over Wyrmkiller.

If you balance it just right then it should be -possible- to kill dragons without a dragoon, but much easier to handle them with one.

[Eternal]

@Chocolatemoose:

-Editing the amount of tiles knocked back isn't within our knowledge at the moment, nor is accuracy being tied to jobs.

-Removing Esuna is a sin that I won't commit, though I agree that White Mages/Green Mages still need a little something.

-As far as a job with debuffs on all enemies, that would get broken pretty fast, IMO.

-Unfortunately, imbuing elements for more than a single strike is currently impossible without heavy ASM.

-Anti-Beastmaster would basically be Hunter/Dragoon, making it a little redundant.

-2v2/3v3 and V-Shaped AoEs are currently not possible at present.

-We currently know little about Chocobo Knights, but their animations are probably hardcoded.

-We can't do anything akin to FFV's job mastering system at present.

@Madeen: I don't think adding jobs to other races is possible at the moment, and if it were it'd require quite a bit of spritework and such.

@Blank: Two steps ahead of you. Already working on a TO-themed Dragoon with the ability to glare at Dragons to Intimidate them. :v

[bcrobert]

White Mages and Green Mages suffer the problem of being fragment classes. They're ultimately two parts of the classic school of white magic, with a few more spells like Holy and Raise being notably moved to even more classes.

The White Mage has 3 spells focused on resurrection, 2 on restoring status, and 3 more on just restoring HP. NO VARIETY AT ALL. Ditch some redundant nonsense for Holy and Barrier. The Bishop can still petrify so he's not going to be obsolete any time soon.

Green Mage has Sleep, Leap, and Blind. That's not bad, really. Maybe factor in their access to hammers with something that damages and inflicts multiple debuffs at close range?

[Eternal]

Over the past week or so, I've been brainstorming ideas to rebalance weaponry in a way similar to FFTA GG. Items are split into three tiers of strength, but shops don't upgrade the same way in A2, so the tier really only affects the base ATK of the weapon. I've drafted up a basic list of what I think would be cool for each weapon. Thoughts?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YYfbdf3BE0mq9Iv0Tkr9J00MwIkhs4ji9Pk3iaJHLX0/edit?usp=sharing

EDIT: Also added Shields, Armor, and Accessories.

[chocolatemoose]

Do items need to be tiered in the same way as TA? If anything, you could split them into 5 tiers depending on the A-E rank at the bazaar.

Given how equipment becomes available through loot, instead of shop levels you could always control access to equipment through one of:

• the loot rewards from missions


• the loot dropped by monsters


• the loot needed to exchange for an item at the bazzar

That way you could offer gradual increases, or save a really awesome item for late in the game.

Specifically on your list:

• you've restricted a lot of status immunities to specific weapon classes, as opposed to armor. how do you think that will play out?


• there are a lot of +1 moves on the shoes


• can't say I see myself using accessories for boosts


• Kain's Lance - looking forward to infinite jump


• some of the weapon classes seem to have bonuses that make sense and fit together (like different elemental immunities or gradual boosts in ATK), while others seem to be a hodgepodge (+ATK, +MAG, +EVD). I guess I'm a little confused by the latter

a couple ideas:

• add tradeoffs to some of the items (e.g. +10 ATK, -10 RES)


• you could do something like the ensanguined shield in FFXII, in other words, an item that would confer a negative status effect from equipping (e.g. poison or slow)

[Eternal]

I'm aware of how A2's Tier systems work, but having three tiers is a lot easier to balance than five, IMO.

Status immunity is very rare in A2 GG. I want things like Astra to be more useful, and for debuffs to be more crippling. As such, I'm playing around with making it rarer. Also, as I mentioned in an above post, I can't give items more than one ailment immunity, so it's a waste of an accessory to focus on ailment immunity.

Shoes/Boots are meant to be about traversing the environs more easily.

Everyone can equip one accessory, so why not use that slot for a bonus boost?

Some weapons are hodgepodges for a reason: to promote diverse classes. For example, the Orichalcum Dirk gives +10 MAG, which suddenly makes your Thief having Black Magick as a secondary more viable.

Believe me, if I had more space like I do in FFTA GG to edit items, they would have tradeoffs. Unfortunately, FFTA2 just doesn't have that capability like FFTA does.

[Kaijyuu]

I dunno if this is reasonably doable, but there's one thing I've always wanted for A2...

...the goddamn teleport boots to use the fast teleport animation, not the really friggin' slow one.

[Eternal]

@Kai: Unfortunately, I have no idea how to do that!

@Everyone else, it's been a bit, but here's a new job! Well, new to FFTA2 anyways. Behold, the Reaver! Replacing Lanistas, the Reaver is a Dark Knight to its very core. A great support job, Reavers focus on softening up enemies if they fail to outright murder them. Three of their skills focus on sacrificing their HP, but they have Shadowblade to restore their HP if it gets low enough. They synergize well with Vikings, being able to use Duskblade to restore MP if they get worn out from casting Thunder/Thundara/Thundaga too much.

Souleater: Deals heavy non-elemental damage to a single adjacent unit at the cost of the user's HP.
Shadowblade: Drains HP from a unit, but requires a bladed weapon to be used.
Duskblade: Drains MP from a unit, but requires a bladed weapon to be used.
Fearful Impact: Deals normal weapon damage to a unit, and may decrease the target's Attack and Defense.
Charon: Sacrifices the user to deal damage equal to the user's lost HP to units adjacent to the user.
Unleash: Raises the user's Attack and Magick, but decreases its Defense and Resistance.
Scourge: Deals reduced physical damage, but knocks back all surrounding units and may reduce their Resilience.
Shadowbreak: Deals ranged damage that bypasses defenses, but also harms the user.

Below are some pics of the skillset and other text changes:

http://imgur.com/a/eZx80

EDIT: Grenades are mostly functional. I did some testing and they act similarly to hand cannons, and can be used correctly by sprites that would be able to use hand cannons. They use a hand cannon sprite in battle, but the sound effect is different. Further testing ahead.

[Bonesy]

This is looking to be most excellent and a nice change of pace from regular TA2.

[Eternal]

Thanks, Bonesy! I'm trying to make the game a little more interesting!

Not to be left out, the Gria have a new job to replace the boring old Raptor. Behold, the Vartan! Based slightly on Canopus from Tactics Ogre PSP, the Vartan is a true hybrid job between mage and melee, able to hold their own on both ends. They focus on wind and sky-based attacks, being able to buff and debuff at the same time, and being able to Dualcast and Magick Frenzy with their wind magicks. They're designed to be played many different ways, so one person may prefer to use them as a melee unit with Tailwind, Updraft, and Bulwark, or someone else may prefer to play them as a mage, using Storm and Zephyr to decimate enemies from afar.

Gale: Deals minor Wind damage in a large AoE.
Updraft: Bestows Move Up on the user and surrounding allies, and inflicts Immobilize on surrounding enemies.
Tailwind: Bestows Haste on the user and surrounding allies, and inflicts Slow on surrounding enemies.
Storm: Dualcast either Gale, Cyclone, or Whirlwind.
Cyclone: Deals moderate Wind damage in a small AoE.
Bulwark: Grants total immunity to damage for the turn, but the user becomes more susceptible to debuffs.
Zephyr: Casts Gale, Cyclone, or Whirlwind on enemies and then strikes the enemy(ies) with a weapon attack.
Whirlwind: Deals heavy Wind damage to a single unit and may inflict Confuse.

http://imgur.com/a/3PGmH

[Agentlovac]

Hey I'm new here, probably stating the obvious, but, I was wondering, I too use the Job editor and Ability editor Lennart made, so how exactly do you change ability names and descriptions? I know its not from inside the tool; I've been learning hex editing for a couple days now and I've been wondering cause I could help you in any way you need with this project.

Have also been trying to edit equipment with the equipment editor aka the Nightmare 1 Module and I've had no luck adding the 16 missing jobs to the jobs.txt because of the different offsets between Race specific jobs for the Gria and the Seeq, or maybe I'm wrong?

I too look forward to FFTA2GG, but I also want to learn how to edit stuff myself, I really really really really love this game and ever since I first played it back in 2008 I have fallen in love with it, so I know I can just use the tools and such to edit the game but I want to learn the hardcore stuff too. I have plenty of time on my hands as of late, so I can spend days at a time fixing, editing, testing, etc. and adding new ideas to your mod as well as being able to maybe one day make something awesome like this one.

What I want to do is a version of FFTA2 in which weapons, armors, shields, etc. are the most important stat modifier. What I mean by this is having the right equipment means everything when fighting enemies, also lowering all base stats by quite a bit maybe even 30% so that you spend more time tinkering with equipment and change what items the Bazaar and the Auctions can give you. Shields have actual Defense stats instead of "Evasiveness", Heavy Armors have Negative effects such as speed loss when wearing heavy armor also based on what its made from and the description of what its made from. For example:

spoiler

"Maximillian Made from Low Arcana, Dipraeu Bronze & Wyrm Carapace:

44 DEF so (5% of 44 = 2.2) so (44 / 2.2 = 20) "-20 Speed Stat" + Materials "Metals, Scales & Gemstones"

Dipraeu Bronze: An alloy enchanted with special regenerative magicks. Small scratches in its surface mend of their own accord.

-This could mean "Regen" or something along those lines.

Wyrm Caparace: Together with scales, this thick carapace provides great protection for a dragon. It retains its strength even after several blows.

-This could mean Fire Resistance or Immunity, again an idea.

Low Arcana: This gemstone contains the soul of a monster. Its shape and hue are truly unique.

-I have no ideas on this one but we could work something out or just base the major stats on one or two of the materials, like the one that composes most of the item.

Stuff like that and such. Same thing for weapons Greatswords, have "great" attack but they lower your accuracy and speed, little changes like that to equipment make a big difference in how you play and what you use. Its just an early idea but its something I've been thinking.

Also give every ability in the game a minimum Mana cost of 12(except for fire, thunder & blizzard) to simulate a sort of Stamina cost and a recovery time if 12 or more is used. If 12 is used which I think is the best, you wait one turn but afterwards you regain 10 meaning you had 20-12=8 then regenerate 10 more to have 18 and so on.

What this means is you get to use abilities for a bit until you have no mana/stamina left and have to recover while giving melee based abilities more damage, stat bonuses, debuffs, etc. so that using an ability is chosen over a melee attack always, again this is to make you think of what to use when to use them. Since FFTA2 Regenerates Mana from 0 unlike FFTA its the only way I see of doing this, Unless you change the Base Mana regen to something like 5 and give yourself max Mana when starting the fight like in FFTA.

Have Racial bonuses and weaknesses sorted by the description at the intro video after you let the main menu screen play its music, on top of height, size, and where they each live or maybe something along those lines. For example http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Bangaa and add into account that they're cold blooded and have scaly skin to give them more base defense, but a weakness to ice maybe. Humes would be evened out in all stats and neutral against every element except Dark, etc.   

Also change the three basic elements Fire, Lightning & Ice and how they work, Giving them different Ranges and AOEs like this:

spoiler

Fire: Has the most balanced arsenal, decent range, decent damage, and a magic sized AOE, With the exception of Firaga which has a Summon Sized AOE.

Thunder: Has the most range, the least damage and is the most accurate for those single target attacks single tile only, with the exception of Thundaga which has an Hit all enemy Units range.

Blizzard: Has the least range, the greatest damage because its both magical and psychical, and it has summon like AOE.

This would greatly increase the tactical decision making and difficulty while keeping semi broken abilities limited by their cost. I realize the game might be a little slower to some but since this is a tactical game I would not expect it to be fast to begin with, so to remedy this I suggest increasing the minimum "Move" by 1 maybe 2 before doing all of the actual equipment editing, to have all base stats sorted out and balanced.

Well that's my two cents, thanks for reading this if you did I really appreciate what you're doing here, it takes love and dedication for such a wonderful game to spend the time to make it even better.

[Agentlovac]

FFTA2 Speed system is very similar to FFT, the difference is the CT cap in FFT is 100 and the CT cap in FFTA2 is 1000.
If in FFT haste is a bit breaking status, (it multiplies speed by *1,5) in FFTA2 it multiplies speed by *2! It is exaggerated, and also Slow, that divides speed at 50%. It means that while the rest of the units attacks two times, the slow unit only attack once. Slow and Haste need to be modified, but I don't know how. And the same with the speed down, that has the same effect that Slow, but for always...

Actually wouldn't it be better to simply lower the accuracy on all Haste/Slow related abilities? I mean as a temporary solution.
This would ensure that you think twice before casting a slow of haste spell, thus making you waste a turn if you miss.

[Madeen]

Thanks, Bonesy! I'm trying to make the game a little more interesting!

Not to be left out, the Gria have a new job to replace the boring old Raptor. Behold, the Vartan! Based slightly on Canopus from Tactics Ogre PSP, the Vartan is a true hybrid job between mage and melee, able to hold their own on both ends. They focus on wind and sky-based attacks, being able to buff and debuff at the same time, and being able to Dualcast and Magick Frenzy with their wind magicks. They're designed to be played many different ways, so one person may prefer to use them as a melee unit with Tailwind, Updraft, and Bulwark, or someone else may prefer to play them as a mage, using Storm and Zephyr to decimate enemies from afar.

Gale: Deals minor Wind damage in a large AoE.
Updraft: Bestows Move Up on the user and surrounding allies, and inflicts Immobilize on surrounding enemies.
Tailwind: Bestows Haste on the user and surrounding allies, and inflicts Slow on surrounding enemies.
Storm: Dualcast either Gale, Cyclone, or Whirlwind.
Cyclone: Deals moderate Wind damage in a small AoE.
Bulwark: Grants total immunity to damage for the turn, but the user becomes more susceptible to debuffs.
Zephyr: Casts Gale, Cyclone, or Whirlwind on enemies and then strikes the enemy(ies) with a weapon attack.
Whirlwind: Deals heavy Wind damage to a single unit and may inflict Confuse.

http://imgur.com/a/3PGmH

Interesting.  However I hope Geomancers will make up for this class' lack of elemental diversity.
If they face enemies strong against wind they're practically useless.

[chocolatemoose]

A couple more thoughts:

- Have you thoughts about adding HP/MP boosts to equipment (e.g. HP +100, MP +20%)?
- Is it possible to add more doublecast-like abilities? By this I don't mean doublecasting magic, I'm thinking about pretty OP skills that you can't unlock until fairly late in the game that also take a ton of AP to master
- Can you give equipment negative stat modifiers? (e.g. +10ATK, -10DEF) That shouldn't run afoul of the one additional property per equipment rule