Final Fantasy Hacktics

Projects => Completed Mods => Journey of the Five Ch.1 => Topic started by: RavenOfRazgriz on April 21, 2013, 02:37:17 am

Title: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: RavenOfRazgriz on April 21, 2013, 02:37:17 am
I figure the first Chapter's been out long enough to warrant this.  NOTE: If you decide to ask your own question, know I will not tell you anything about the story that isn't already revealed, will not give you any gameplay advice that isn't already listed here, etc. I will only be answering questions related to the design aspects of various parts of Journey of the Five and the kinds of thought processes that went into them.  While my main involvement originally in Journey of the Five was gameplay, I eventually ended up doing a lot of everything so I can offer a lot of insight as long as it follows the above criteria.  Now, onto the "FAQ" part of this OP:

This concept is silly, and you're all silly!

Yeah we know and we don't care, and that's not a question.

How much of this game is actually edited?

Basically all of it.  Firstly, and most obvious as soon as you press the New Game button - the story has been obviously completely rewritten and all the spritework completely redone, setting the game as a sequel to the original FFT we know and love.  This would include a new, fully-functioning World Map to explore as well, allowing you to battle and grind to your heart's content.  Every Description, Help Text, etc. has pretty much all been edited in some way.  The Brave Story has been retooled to follow the Journey of the Five storyline, some unused menu entries have been adapted to create the "Letters, Journals" section where you can learn much about the gap of time between the original game and Journey of the Five, etc.  Obviously, like any FFT mod, this also applies to items, Jobs, stat growths and multipliers, available skills, ASM-related thingamabobbers, and even some things other patches don't touch like the raw stats of monsters themselves along with the effects and interactions of various Status Ailments.  There is also now a more expansive sidequest system (Marks) which will become more prominent as the game progresses.

Help!  I can't seem to unlock more jobs but Base and Chemist!  What do I do?

All Jobs in Journey of the Five require Levels in at least two or more Jobs to unlock.  In this case, the second Job "tier" requires 3 Base 2 Chemist for Knight and Ranger (physical Jobs) and 2 Base 3 Chemist for Priest and Wizard (magical Jobs).   As far as unlocking Jobs beyond that, you're on your own, good luck.  If you're wondering why we chose to make the Job tree this way, there's two answers:

1. AI.
2. To force players to make use of Chemists.

This is important because we know most people will want to run around in the unique Jobs of the Five, but the lack of new Jobs should quickly be a hint that they need to change to Chemist for a while.  This way, the player (you) will be guaranteed to have enough JP in Chemist to at least buy basic Item skills (Potion, Ether, Phoenix Down, Sapling) and in turn will have a much easier time in Chapter 1.

Why does everything always become Crystals?  I want that asshole's Bow Gun!

This originally started as a technical quirk of one of the ASMs we used, and we had intended to fix for the actual release.  However, we found that for various reasons, the game just played better with the 100% Crystal drop rate.  Many Journey of the Five-specific quirks such as the slower JP gain were easily addressed by simply making Crystals more common to ensure the player always had a basic set of skills, and it added more to the strategy and comeback-elements of fights by always having Crystals pop up for the player or enemy to grab.  It also meshed well with the "loot" system of Journey of the Five where every enemy in every fight already drops you an item upon winning - so not being able to get a random Treasure Chest here or there wasn't particularly a bad thing outside of making it impossible to Treasure Chest farm random battles for gear.

Why is the difficulty higher than Vanilla?

Because, we wanted a game that was more reminiscent of a NES or SNES era RPG (I think the Japanese release FFV would be a good example but my memory escapes me at the moment), and we wanted a game that would challenge fans of the original game in ways beyond just adjusting to the new content.  A few fights (namely end-Chapter bosses, a handful of optional battles, etc.) dip into the "Nintendo Hard" area, but this patch is ultimately designed to be playable on a Console once some ASM quirks are worked out, so there will never intentionally be anything that rates "Kaizo Hard" on the difficulty scale or require mass resets + RNG abuse to complete.

Wow, Gil is a lot harder to get! I can't afford Phoenix Downs!  Why?!

Honestly, we're encouraging you to stop between battles and "grind" (or at bare minimum, fight any random encounters you run into naturally on your quest), because the design of the game expects you to have fought more than the bare minimum battles.  If you're skipping all random encounters, you are intentionally making the game more difficult on yourself and your ability to equip your party or keep up with the enemy's skills will reflect that.  Fighting random encounters will not only reward you with (some) Gil, but also a number of consumables equal to the number of enemies you battled against.  Fighting what appears to be a large and complex random battle (the one at Bariaus Hill North should be well known by now) may take a while, but it will offer tons in terms of monetary and consumable rewards as well as plenty of EXP, JP, and Crystals for your characters.  Yes, this means you will be rewarded in random battles directly based on the fight's difficulty, assuming you can win without using tons of Items in the first place.  Which is kind of a small caveat to this - we're also trying to encourage you to explore other means of playing the game beyond "Item, win.", which was a very easy way to beat the original game.  Many "good" things in the original were altered simply to make you look over your in-game tactics and knowledge of the game in general, so you can adapt yourself and have an experience that's actually different from the original game.

Why doesn't X Member of the Five have Y Ability?  He totally should!  This is stupid, you're stupid!

There's actually a short answer to this - FFT has very limited design space, and to make each character feel unique as the Five should, they had to be boiled down to the 'essence' of their character.  (Design space, for those wondering, is a term that simply means how much new and different content can be made before things overlap.  FFT is actually far shorter on this than you'd imagine because it's honestly a very simple game on a mechanical level.)  Basically, we had to pick a particular game or incarnation of that character (when applicable), then further narrow it down to what truly makes that character 'feel' like that character.

For example, Dante is based on his Devil May Cry 3 incarnation where you would choose one 'Devil Style' and are stuck with it for most of the level unless you visit a Goddess Statue.  In the case of Journey of the Five, you "choose" your Devil Style by setting Dante's equipped weapon, and can't get access to Equip Change because Dante can't change his Devil Style mid-battle.  Whereas Link, while he has many weapons known to him such as the Bomb, Boomerang, etc., the thing that truly makes him 'Link' is his great ability to make use of whatever items his current environment give him access to and switch between them on the fly in a tough situation.  This is why Link not only gets Equip Change, but his primary Job gets it innate as well as a learnable Support Ability on top of the ability to use most items without restriction.  Snake focuses on his 'sneaking' skills (Hide, Smoke Break, Sleeper Hold, etc.) but doesn't really get any damage-based skills such as CQC moves or a grenade because this would both not mesh with the majority of his skillset (where Snake is mostly a status-dealer), and would cause a lot of overlap with both generic Jobs and other members of the Five.  Other skillsets such as Martial Arts can make up for Snake's lack of damage-based CQC similarly to how they make up for weaknesses other members of the Five have.  Cloud and Ramza are mostly as you'd expect them to be from Vanilla since there's not as much for them to overlap with, though Cloud lost Cherry Blossom because it's stupid and Ramza lost Throw Stone and Dash because they no longer fit in with his Job, gaining a healing spell instead.

Will you be posting a Master Guide of all the changes in Journey of the Five?

No.  We're designing this as if it's an actual separate game from FFT and not just a mod, so we neither intend to or have reason to give a precise changelog that lays out exactly how everything works for the player.  Part of the fun of exploring a new game is the discovery of awesome skills, combos, etc. and this is intended to be no different.

Well, there's your FAQ.

Yes, there it is.  If you have something to ask that isn't covered here, feel free to ask, and if it doesn't violate anything I said above I MIGHT answer it.  But I promise nothing.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: kyozo22 on April 21, 2013, 12:20:23 pm
Hey, good read. Just out of curiosity, what consoles are you planning on making this playable on? Psx and Ps2 (modded of course?) Just wondering as would be good to change the Iso to an eboot if possible for use on my psp?

Thanks for reading.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: RavenOfRazgriz on April 21, 2013, 01:56:21 pm
It'll be compatible with modded PS1, PS2, and PSP EBOOT when all is said and done.  When it works on one it pretty much works on all three.  The bigger issue is actually bugtesting those platforms as none of them are particularly convenient to work with.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: kyozo22 on April 21, 2013, 02:59:11 pm
Well, that would definately make it one of my favourite all time patches of FFT! Can tell you now that if you can get through the first battle without it crashing then it should be fine - would crash on bartholumes second or third turn.
Seems to be guests that crash it - I imported my file from epsxe and it crashed as soon as Leesha(? olivanders sister) took a turn.

Yeah, so, ramblling aside, that would be pretty great.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: The Damned on April 24, 2013, 08:45:32 pm
(I suppose I might as well indulge in asking this while preparing.)

About a week or so, Elric mentioned that "Ashley was scripted to be in Jot5 at the beginning. As were Alucard, Marche, Rei (bof3) as well as Crono". As someone who didn't really pay attention to the development of Jot5, I have a couple of simple, related questions:


1. Why is The Five composed of the characters it is outside of the obviously necessary character of Ramza?

2. Of the current Five, who would was the last to get in and why?
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: RavenOfRazgriz on April 24, 2013, 08:59:37 pm
That's one of the few things I really can't give you much insight to at all.  The Five was already decided long before I put any investment in Journey of the Five.

Originally there were 10 main characters, including Ashley Riot, Marche, Alucard, Crono, and I think Tir McDohl?, but Elric trimmed it down to 5 before even posting his original topic on the forum.  Why he went with this set of 5 I wouldn't know.  The notes are somewhere around here in a notebook but I've never remembered to ask him to read them over in detail and we never went into super huge detail talking about what his idea was like before it got trimmed down.  (I think it's pretty obvious to say the overall plot to Journey of the Five has changed quite a lot over the progress of Chapter 1, so originally the game was very different from how it is now.)
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: Jumza on April 24, 2013, 09:17:23 pm
I would Imagine that Elric changed it after realizing that the sprite limit was 9... Just a hunch though ;)
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: 3lric on April 24, 2013, 09:19:12 pm
Well since I was the only one in the team back then, I guess I have to answer lol.

Honestly, out of all the characters listed, I know the most about Cloud, and the fact that he's already been to Ivalice once
made that choice a bit easier, giving Ramza at least someone familiar to him would ease the adding of 3 completely new people
also appearing in Ivalice.

Link made it in because when I wrote the original "storyboard" of Jot5 Chapter 1 a while before I joined FFH, the goal was
always for Link to be on a quest to find Zelda, as always. Maybe this was because I had just finished beating 7 Zelda games
back to back right before I wrote it, or maybe it wasn't who knows lol.

Snake and Dante I choose at the same time, because they both seemed wonderfully out of place in Ivalice, while they themselves
are what I would see as exact opposites in terms of Heroes. There was always meant to be conflict and bickering between Dante and
Snake, and although a bit of it has been removed, a good portion of it remains in the script. As for why I choose them, I suppose it
was to cater to my own needs.

When I started making events, I had trouble thinking up the actual intros for people. I wanted to have fun with this, as well as make
scenes you would never expect to see in FFT, Cloud gets thrown across a room, Link is playing his flute, Snake is all stealthy with his
little box and Dante is just... well, Dante. These events were too fun to pass up, and while I did have ideas for the other characters slated
to be in Jot5, they didn't seem nearly as doable nor as fun to make.

Another thing to note was that Cloud, Link, Dante and Snake for the above reasons were the first 4 events I ever made, and by the time I
was done with Dante, I had learned the sprite limit and realized how hard it would be to actually fit in 9 or 10 main characters... Impossible.

As for specific reasons why I didn't pick characters, I can go a bit more in depth with that as well.

Alucard was not very hard to lose, I've never personally played SotN, I've seen bits and pieces, and had his intro planned out to be similar
to the beginning of SotN right before he loses his powers, it was just not something I felt I could do proper justice to, since I didn't know
the character of Alucard well enough to properly portray his mannerisms.

Marche, well I never really enjoyed FFTA. Marche was mainly going to be added to pay tribute to Luso joining in WotL. However when
it came down to actually picking the final five, even with how silly the story can be at times, I just couldn't find a good enough way to
implement him into the story, if you can believe that.

Rei is someone I was actually sad to not be able to add in. The thought of eventing his Weretiger transformation just seemed awesome,
but the fact is, there was never a sprite that I could've used for him, or his transformation, so I regrettably had to scrap him. There were no
spriters in Jot5 at this time and even if there had, we already had 1 character with the ability to transform, not to mention there is no
practical way to make him transform mid-battle, which would've been half the fun.

Ashley Riot is another character I simply didn't know enough about, I originally chose him because he is also from Ivalice
but just like Alucard, I didn't feel I could give justice to the character without having to do a lot of research first.

Crono is the only one that I actually had a full event written for, and I still do. It's still undecided whether or not he will ever make an
appearance in Jot5, though I would like to at least make his intro event and include it in the bonus scenes at some point, since it was
a pretty awesome idea. If I hadn't found out about the sprite limit when I did, and hadn't already thought up many ideas for what is now
the Five to fit together, Crono could very well have been one of them.


I hope this answers your question, I honestly never thought I'd have to answer it, so I guess I rambled on a bit more then I should've.
Either way, there it is.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: The Damned on April 25, 2013, 12:14:29 am
(Hmmm...I wonder why spacing of that reply is off.)

Regardless, considering this was purely a matter of curiosity, yes, that answer things rather well. I would have liked to see Alucard or really anyone but Marche, but that's because I pretty much know all of them a lot better than Link, Snake or Dante; this even though I never really played very much of Vagrant Story unfortunately. I can see why you would have chosen to leave them out even had the sprite limit thing not have been an issue though. For the most part, personality-wise they're still well enough represented. For example, Ramza's politeness and formality is rather identical to Alucard's; only real difference is that Alucard's less naive and Ramza's not a half-vampire.

But enough talk! Have at you! With another question, this time extremely self-serving since I'm trying to list all of the music credits before I post my videos:


1. What's the song used in Cloud's opening cut-scene? I can't seem to find it on the OST and it doesn't sound at all familiar on top of that, so I'm pretty sure it's not the unreleased Epilogue music.


Regardless, thanks for both answer and the celerity of it, Elric. Thanks to you as well, Raven, for at least attempting to answer despite it being of the things weren't certain of.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: 3lric on April 25, 2013, 12:28:08 am
It's called, Fear After
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: Durbs on April 25, 2013, 04:20:55 pm
Quote from: The Damned on April 25, 2013, 12:14:29 am
but that's because I pretty much all of them a lot better than Link, Snake or Dante


Shame on you; play the games. :P
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: RavenOfRazgriz on April 25, 2013, 04:57:10 pm
Says the guy who never played Devil May Cry or Metal Gear Solid.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: Durbs on April 25, 2013, 09:46:04 pm
Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on April 25, 2013, 04:57:10 pm
Says the guy who never played Devil May Cry or Metal Gear Solid.


DMC only out of the five. What are you talking about, I love MG. +_+
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: The Damned on April 26, 2013, 04:34:30 am
(I can't find where "Fear After" is from, but oh well. I'll just ask these while I'm putting in annotations in the next four videos.)

This just occurred to me while I'm beginning to annotate the fifth video:

1. Where did the concepts for Tesnya & Romar come from? And why did you choose specifically both to make them twins and use the Cyan sprite for them?


Quote from: Durbs on April 25, 2013, 04:20:55 pm
Shame on you; play the games. :P


What? I've played some Legend of Zelda and Devil May Cry. Just not every much.

As for Metal Gear Solid, despite my vague respect for Kojima saying he'd beat the crap out of Uwe Boll if he ever tried to touch his franchise, I currently still have very little interest in the series, especially since I pretty much know everything that happens.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: Durbs on April 26, 2013, 07:40:33 am
Quote from: The Damned on April 26, 2013, 04:34:30 am
1. Where did the concepts for Tesnya & Romar come from? And why did you choose specifically both to make them twins and use the Cyan sprite for them?


I can answer that in part (Elric / Raven, correct me if I'm wrong on any of this); having a secret information network of spies in place is actually mildly important to the plotline and Delita himself. Basically, we needed two characters working under him for this express purpose, so we drafted up their shady personalities to accompany that and in came Tesnya and Romar. The general reason for making them brothers was just that it seemed to fit (how many mafias do you know of that don't have family ties?), but there were a few smaller much less significant factors.

As for the Cyan sprite, I think it was by mutual consensus. I'm not sure if I was the one to specifically pick it when I wrote the basic script, but it is definitely the most fitting to their characters I think. (Don't view it as Cyan, my padawan, think of the sprite itself.)
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: The Damned on April 26, 2013, 02:43:48 pm
(Not sure how I feel being referred to as a Padawan. Not exactly a fan of Star Wars either.)

*collective gasp!*

Anyway, I'd ask this the Download thread, but I don't want to post there and clutter up with a question. This is rather specific with regards to the version just released:


1. When you say that Bariaus Hill was nerfed, do you mean the Story Battle for it? Or the Nintendo Hard Bariaus Hill North random encounter?


If it's the latter, then I'll want to try to record it before I finally update. Otherwise, I can finally update to the latest version after recording the past glitch at Zirekile East.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: 3lric on April 26, 2013, 09:14:39 pm
ACTUALLY... Tesnya and Romar was completely by chance. When we made the original script, Durbs forgot to write a scene for Bariaus Valley. So i made the scene we currently have there. Though it had still the enemy we first met in Dorter slums. However this did not evolve into being the Twins until the script was later redone to involve Delita. At which time this enemy from dorter was tied into a storyline with Delita and given a twin brother named Romar.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: RavenOfRazgriz on April 26, 2013, 09:18:41 pm
The Story Encounter was nerfed.  And by "nerfed", I mean Babus lost his Buckler and Spiked Shoes so he's easier to pin into a corner and gang up on.  I don't have any intention of nerfing the "Nintendo Hard" Random Encounters now that they're fewer and farther between since most of them are pretty easy once you get into a mindset that isn't "spam Attack and pray everything dies."

I will say that the Bariaus North one is probably the most difficult of the "Nintendo Hard" Encounters initially but it has weaknesses you can exploit after you begin learning a few more skills.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: The Damned on April 26, 2013, 10:28:48 pm
(Ah, I see, on both accounts. Interesting with cards to the Twins.)

I'm glad to hear that actually, even though I didn't find the Story Battle difficult at all, though I can understand where people might have problems with it. I wanted to be able to beat Bariaus Hill North without it being nerfed, though I suppose that me recording getting my ass kicked there (again) wasn't for naught given the interesting things I cataloged for completeness's sake; those should all be fixed by now and if they aren't, well then you'll see Sunday I guess.

Hmmm...I feel bad replying in here without asking a question, but at the same time, I would feel bad monopolizing the Q & A. As usual, I am Damned if I do, Damned if I don't.

That said, given you said we could ask about design aspects and I can't think of anything else to ask that probably wouldn't end up having to be denied to potential spoilers, I'll just ask these two "final" questions for now. I suppose I'm also reminded that I still haven't updated the Human Advancement thread--thanks for the poll fix, Raven--just yet, so design space is on my mind anyway:


1. When it came to design aspects, what were the reasons for sticking Charge on generic-only Squires, for Ranger turning out as it did (read: as all damage abilities with 66% of them as damage + 100% status, but with steep MP costs) and for the changes to Chemist's Items, obvious "need" to eliminate Elixir aside?

2. This is a really basic question that I'm surprised no one has asked: Without spoiling the plot, though one can guess a bit, how many chapters are you guys doing for Journey of the Five, especially now that Chapter 1 has been more or less a large success?
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: RavenOfRazgriz on April 26, 2013, 10:46:27 pm
1)

a. Charge is on Squire because at it's core, it's a CT based, weapon ranged, evadable, single-target Swordskill.  That's a lot of qualifiers but on a formulaic level that's all it is.  Putting it on Squire meant I could minimize redundant skillsets for the Five and other Special units, make Squire a useful-ish class if anyone actually bought a Generic, and not need to waste actual Ability slots on it at the same time.  Giving Squire Charge also let me buff and differentiate Ramza's skills a bit more from Vanilla without those changes carrying over to Generics, as well, so I could show his skill growth from his experiences in the original game.

b. Ranger is basically filling a design gap as early game needed a utility skillset and access to some form of debuffs besides Snake.  It draws upon some of the FFTA and FFTA2 archery / gun classes for flavor but it was very much designed bottom-up with the skill utility coming first.

c. Chemist, as you've noticed, isn't designed to be able to lug 99 Phoenix Downs and 99 X-Potions to every single fight, so in order to be worth keeping around as a skillset or even main class, it needed more stuff to do.  Basic buff consumables and a better spread of anti-Status consumables were a simple answer to making Chemist able to compete with other support units like Priests (which also received buffs to their lesser-used support skills) and to make them more worth the added Gil and/or time investment.

2)

It's currently slated to be a 4 Chapter story across 3 disks.  (Oriignally 2 disks but we decided it'd be better to play it safe and just use 3 to make sure we can make everything fit on a technical level.)
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: brittmarv on April 26, 2013, 11:14:08 pm
Quote from: The Damned on April 26, 2013, 10:28:48 pm
I wanted to be able to beat Bariaus Hill North without it being nerfed, though I suppose that me recording getting my ass kicked there (again) wasn't for naught given the interesting things I cataloged for completeness's sake; those should all be fixed by now and if they aren't, well then you'll see Sunday I guess.


I managed to beat that one early on with some lucky "Finishing Touch"es from Cloud. I highly recommend that ability. It is sort of a crapshoot  but man is it satisfying when you can target multiple mobs with it.




Question

Is the "9 Sprite Limit" (mentioned before a few times) only for extra sprites? As in, completely new data added ( rather than just edits of existing sprites )

How does the equipment list compare to the vanilla equipment list?

and finally, at what point in the storyline am I going to want to start using Move-Find Item? Is it worth bothering with early on?

Thanks!
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: RavenOfRazgriz on April 27, 2013, 12:02:37 am
9 Sprite Limit means that any scene can only have 9 unique Sprites loaded in RAM at a time.  This is why during battle you only ever see the enemy with 4 different Jobs instead of 5 or more like the player uses unless there are monsters involved.

The equipment list is completely redone.  There are some "returning" pieces of equipment as you've probably noticed in Chapter 1 but all the values are different, and of course there are new items later on once you've moved beyond basic gear.

You can always use Move-Find Item to get items better than you currently own as long as its your first time visiting that map.  Every Move-Find Item is a 100% find and either equal to or better than anything you can buy at the time of you visiting that map for the very first time.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: brittmarv on April 28, 2013, 09:56:54 am
Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on April 27, 2013, 12:02:37 am
You can always use Move-Find Item to get items better than you currently own as long as its your first time visiting that map.  Every Move-Find Item is a 100% find and either equal to or better than anything you can buy at the time of you visiting that map for the very first time.


This is going to sound sort of dumb.. but..

The first time you visit a map, do you find the better rare item with Move-FindItem or was I reading that wrong?

If I read it wrong - are there still a common and a rare item or is it just one single item with a 100 % success rate?
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: sellat on May 03, 2013, 12:22:17 am
I am a bit curious... i came to know jot5 recently... and just devoured it in one day... can't avoid replaying it, a question poped up in mind though... how much time this team spent on the production? oh! and i can't leave without thanking you all, you all deserve praising for this hard work! Congratulations!
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: RavenOfRazgriz on May 03, 2013, 12:59:13 am
The original Journey of the Five concept was posted by Elric @ October 11th 2011.  The release for Chapter 1 was March 29th 2013.  So you're looking at almost a year and a half.  However, that number's a bit misleading because there was a lot of re-development, downtimes, etc., and a lot of framework for the other 3 Chapters was also being decided upon.  It was definitely a lot of time and effort on everyone's parts regardless, though.  A lot of polish went into everything and no one on the team really had an 'easy' Job, which is why things took as long as they did.

The good news is that Chapter 2 is in the Design stages now.  (This would be things such as script finalization, figuring out sidequests, etc.)  I can't say exactly when it'll enter Development stages (where we actually start putting things on the disk) but it should have a much shorter Development Cycle than Chapter 1 did.  So you can expect your Chapter 2 fix to come much faster than Chapter 1 did once we're happy with our Chapter 2 design and push it into development.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: The Damned on May 14, 2013, 11:39:29 am
(In trying to get an actual winning recording of Sweegy Woods still, I'm tempted to ask: Why the hell are Dragons such [powerful] bastards?)

What I really want to ask is something I could have sworn I had asked already though:


"Why was the name of Seymour chosen as Ramza's pseudonym?"


I'm pretty sure I can guess, but I just want to see what the official answer is.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: Kagebunji on May 14, 2013, 11:52:14 am
To be honest, higher tier monsters need to be tougher. I always missed that in FFT, since in original Final Fntasy games, if you encountered a Malboro, a Dragon, a Behemoth, you could either expect a game over screen if unprepared, or a really tough battle. Thus I fully support bastard Dragons, though I agree they appear kinda fast, heh.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: The Damned on May 14, 2013, 12:23:35 pm
(This isn't the really the place to get into this, but....)

Oh, I'd be fine that.

I was talking, however, about the starting Dragons as they first appear at Sweegy Woods where you have two Guests that are potentially very useless against them. It's like an absurd difficulty spike, especially given the fight that comes immediately after it (and even before it); I am sure my level is part of it, but dear Hercules, why.

Anyway...might as well ask another question:


1. Given that there isn't any permanent (?) Brave and Faith alteration, where motivated the decision to have Mediator no longer be a generic class? (At least, I'm relatively sure it isn't anymore even though I haven't opened everything since Bandit basically is Mediator.)
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: RavenOfRazgriz on May 14, 2013, 07:37:41 pm
Mediator was removed and replaced with a different class because Mediator is kind of boring and in a lot of ways a rehash of Oracle and Thief, at least conceptually.  This is why most of the Mediator skills that weren't outright removed were placed in the hands of either the Rogue or the unique Bandit classes.  Both Rogue and Bandit have more to them than just Mediator skills, though.

Dragons are tough as nails because fuck you they're Dragons.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: The Damned on May 21, 2013, 09:34:34 pm
(I could have sworn I asked something else, but perhaps Raven's response broke my heart thoroughly enough.)

Whatever the case may be, while waiting for Elric to answer the Seymour thing still, I figure I might as well ask this before I go walk my daily 8-ish miles. Otherwise I'll forget since I need to finally get up video descriptions for 6 videos when I come back before talking to someone for...a while.

Regardless, I'll ask two questions here; one that I keep forgetting to ask:


1. When it comes to the original side-characters, how were Bartholume, Leesha & Olivander conceived? I suppose I should ask the same of Tesnya & Romar even though I already kinda did.

2. What is the max level of this game? 50? 99? ...49? If it's still 99, then how did you come to a consensus to keep it at 99 given I know at least Raven has considered capping at least theoretical patches of his at Level 50 to keep the balance?


That's it (for now). Thanks.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: RavenOfRazgriz on May 21, 2013, 09:45:36 pm
There's nothing terribly complex on how most of the characters were conceived.  Many were conceived bottom-up to fill a gap in the story.  I don't think there are any particularly grandiose stories to tell about the OCs though at this time.

The Level cap is 99.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: 3lric on May 22, 2013, 02:17:39 am
Quote from: The Damned on May 14, 2013, 11:39:29 am
(In trying to get an actual winning recording of Sweegy Woods still, I'm tempted to ask: Why the hell are Dragons such [powerful] bastards?)

What I really want to ask is something I could have sworn I had asked already though:


"Why was the name of Seymour chosen as Ramza's pseudonym?"


I'm pretty sure I can guess, but I just want to see what the official answer is.


Sorry man, I must've missed this somehow.

First off, because they are fucking DRAGONS  :twisted:

Second off, The name Duke Seymour as you and most of you know is a disguise put in place by King Delita, however the name itself was something that I'm sure Durbs just pulled out of a hat. (honestly, it always reminded me of the principle from the simpsons, but whatever)

Quote from: The Damned on May 14, 2013, 12:23:35 pm
1. Given that there isn't any permanent (?) Brave and Faith alteration, where motivated the decision to have Mediator no longer be a generic class? (At least, I'm relatively sure it isn't anymore even though I haven't opened everything since Bandit basically is Mediator.)


Because Animist > Mediator. I'm a HUGE fan of Blue Magic. In fact the 4 (not from Ivalice) were actually supposed to only have 4 jobs each , all unique to them (using RAD3) and one of Clouds was suppose to be Enemy Skill, which was later loosely adapted into the Animist generic.
(these early ideas were obviously scrapped for the final version)

Quote from: The Damned on May 14, 2013, 12:23:35 pm
1. When it comes to the original side-characters, how were Bartholume, Leesha & Olivander conceived?


Like Alma, Bartolume did not exist in the early script, it was not until we went back to fill all plotholes (fucking Raven) that we added Delita, Bart, Alma, Rad, Alicia and Lavian. Due to the story change we had to adapt the story of Duke seymour, as well as the helper that gets them out of the castle, which would be someone on the inside, more of a caretaker of Ramza and Alma themselves.

Leesha and Olivander exist for the same reason as Tesnya. Originally there was no scene written for Bariaus Valley. So I made that one up using the enemy from Dorter, these where nothing more than random unique joining chars originally. Once again, once we went back and redid a good portion of the story, and Delita came into play with his Twin(ees) assassins these characters were given names and a real story.

As for where the names Olivander, Leesha, and Bartolume came from? Idk, probably some random thing Durbs was into that week.


Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: kyozo22 on June 03, 2013, 02:48:40 am
Hey guys, another annoying/ trivial question from me! I remember reading a comment (think it was from Elric) that said that chapter 1 used 150 event slots and I was just wondering how many slots were/ are in a the regular vanilla game?

Cheers.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: 3lric on June 03, 2013, 02:51:13 am
499 Total slots available in Vanilla, however, quite a few are unused.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: kyozo22 on June 21, 2013, 03:23:55 pm
'Kay, so its me again! Bet the team are cursing inwardly! :D

So, given that Chapter 2 is now in development, was just wondering what that actually entails?

I realise that battle system, jobs, etc have all been done from chapter 1, so does that leave 'just' the ENTDs and events?

(Obviously thats still a ton of work, with EVTCHRs, Marks, balance, the remaining monsters etc and probably other stuff that I really can't think of at the moment!)
I had another question but its slipped my mind! Will edit it in.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: RavenOfRazgriz on June 21, 2013, 05:34:51 pm
1.  All of the Event scenes need to be made for the bulk of Chapter 2.  (Most of them were scripted, edited, and formatted back over the course of April, but that's really only the first third to half of the work at most since the text-action ratio of cutscenes obviously varies by a lot.)  This is the part we're at now, where most of the work falls on Elric, Jumza, and Pride, the core Eventers of Chapter 2.

2.  Chapter 2-specific gameplay needs to be ironed out.  A lot of groundwork was done in advance but things that were planned for Chapter 2 will likely be changed somewhat as its playtested.  This is the main stuff I usually do before passing it off to other people to playtest*, though I do a lot of other 'pickup work' like the scripting related stuff for Chapter 2 that Elric and co. needed to start doing their part.  (Durbs writes the original drafts of each Chapter's scripts, though, as to not steal his credit - I merely do editing, adaptation, formatting, etc. to make sure everything runs smoothly when it comes to this stuff.)  Since this is mostly stuff I'm responsible for, you can toss on pretty much everything regarding Mark planning onto this point, as it's something I'll be getting to soon.  Elric should be going through the ideas list we've compiled for Chapter 2 both privately and publicly and passing me all the ones he feels have potential, at which point we're going to iron out what we can use, probably change or adapt a bunch of stuff, etc.

3.  Chapter 2-specific Sprites need to be finished, as well as some other miscellaneous artwork-related stuff.  For this Chapter it seems like it will mostly be falling on Kagebunji and Lijj with a few final Sprites from Twinees.  The art workload is nowhere near as large as Chapter 1 but we also want to get Chapter 2 done in a much shorter timeframe without losing quality.  Any EVTCHRs we want to add to the game (either retroactively into Chapter 1 or into Chapter 2) would also fall in here, though most of those are usually done by MikeMitchi.

4.  There's obviously the new Special Units in Chapter 2, ASM related to their mechanics, etc. that will need to be done.  There's also completely unrelated ASM that will be required for Chapter 2 and the work to get everything to be console compatible which we also want done for Chapter 2 at the latest, so this is oddly a much bigger part of the workload than you'd think.  (Some of the stuff we're working on like the Animist's new Support Abilities, Guests in Random Battles, etc. I'm trickling into new Chapter 1 updates to give people more things to toy with while they wait for Chapter 2 to be finished.)  This work falls mostly on Chotokukyan, Pride, and a few others.  The ASM Xifanie released in her thread recently regarding Random Battles is another byproduct of stuff we've been working on, though it's one we ultimately decided not to include.**

5.  We have a few Really Awesome Things planned, including one Really Awesome Thing to crown off Chapter 2.  These are technically related to things already mentioned but will take enough work that they deserve their own entry on this list.  I'm not mentioning anything about these though, as we're putting a lot of work into planning and implementing them and want them to remain a surprise for everyone.

6.  If we have time, we also intend to go back through Chapter 1 to pretty up a few things here and there.  We know a few things there are sloppy beyond simple text errors but we're focusing all our efforts regarding events on Chapter 2, so they won't be fixed until that's released.  But once we have at least most of Chapter 2 under our belt, we do intend to go over Chapter 1's script, etc. and try to smooth over some of the more 'derpy' aspects of it, so there will be reason to replay Chapter 1.  (It won't be mandatory though - unless we fuck something up royally your save should always be compatible between Chapters on-release.)

I think that's a really rough idea of the stuff that goes into each Chapter.  It's a lot more than you'd think, even after we frontloaded a lot of work into Chapter 1 to save us grief later on.

----

*If you can tell from Chapter 1, we didn't have as many playtesters as we'd like beyond me so on release it was probably more difficult than it should have been.  The Beta actually makes the 1.0 release of Journey of the Five look disgustingly easy.  Someday I may make a Developer's Edition release that includes Beta setups, starting money and items, loot drops, etc. for Chapter 1 and adapt subsequent Chapters to follow its curve.  It's an entirely different kind of beast from what was actually released as Chapter 1, and waaaaay different from the mostly-balanced game that v1.96 is.

**There's nothing wrong with this hack in either coding or content and it's a very awesome hack in general, just to note for everyone, and you should (SHOULD, at least at the time of writing this) even be able to apply it to your Journey of the Five ISO yourself if you want to.  It was only not included because it broke the feel of being a late-90s RPG, something Elric, myself, and most everyone else has been trying to keep alive in Journey of the Five.  While we obviously pay homage to a lot of series, some of which came after FFT's release, we also are trying to keep the game as being, at least in spirit if not in content, something you feel like you could've picked off the shelf and bought as a kid in the late-90s when you play it.  This means we're very careful about combining modern convenience with 90s design tropes, etc., and a lot of mechanical things end up not being included simply because they don't seem like something we'd expect a game designer in the late-90s to make.  Or they just violate FFT so thoroughly that they feel completely unnatural and we scrap them for that reason, too, but you get the idea.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: kyozo22 on June 21, 2013, 06:08:43 pm
Thats all you guys have to do? Piece of piss! Couple of weeks till release tops, I reckon... No biggy. :P

Thanks for that... mammoth readathon. Nah, seriously thanks for all the info, definately a post that needs linked to if anyone makes any 'y u no release quicker1!1'

Awesome things that are so really awesome that they get capitalised? Damn! Already thought chapter 1 was awesome enough...

p.s Developers edition? Yes please, sounds like the 1.3 of JotF!
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: 3lric on June 21, 2013, 06:27:59 pm
Thank you for all your interest.

And thank you Raven for summing up everything, there's a bit more small things, but basically that's the
gist of it.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: kyozo22 on June 21, 2013, 06:36:44 pm
That's no problem, Elric.

Lemme put it this way: if I had a computer that wasn't an archaic piece of crap and could handle the patcher, as well as regular internet, I'd be there to help!

(with eventing, that is. Looks fairly easy to pick up, in comparison to other aspects of modding FFT!)

edit: Finally remembered my other question. Will you be releasing the various ASM hacks, unique sprites etc after the project is completed? Assuming, of course that they aren't already available.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: ArkthePieKing on August 29, 2013, 04:22:53 am
I have a quick question, and apologies if it hasn't been answered yet. All of the animations in the game are amazing. Stinger feels like Dante's stinger, I when snake hides it genuinely looks like something Snake would do, however, there's one animation that has stood out and bugged me for a while: Whirlwind 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.

The patch is incredible, and I love basically everything about this. This isn't even a nitpick, just a curiosity I had. :D
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: shoruke on September 11, 2013, 01:23:56 am
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.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: RavenOfRazgriz on September 11, 2013, 05:15:47 am
Link doesn't spin during Whirlwind Blade because the only human-compatible spinning sprite animation is the one used with Spin Fist, meaning it's impossible for a unit to animate as spinning with their weapon drawn.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: DaTruthDT on September 11, 2013, 01:53:51 pm
Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on September 11, 2013, 05:15:47 am
Link doesn't spin during Whirlwind Blade because the only human-compatible spinning sprite animation is the one used with Spin Fist, meaning it's impossible for a unit to animate as spinning with their weapon drawn.


Actually the Spin Fist animation would be cool. At least then Link would be spinning.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: Pandemoniu on May 27, 2014, 02:58:22 am
So, I finally decided to start a file.

I've just gotten Agrias. I've also recruited a Chocobo from that one battle in Araguay Woods.

I'm trying to get it to breed for a Black or Red one, but no such luck.

Was it always this hard to breed? From April 'til September and still nothing.

Has something been changed with Monster Egg Laying?

Thanks in advance.

Also, I'm lovin' this mod. Brings back so many memories, and at the same time, it's also making new ones!  :D
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: RavenOfRazgriz on May 27, 2014, 05:04:35 am
Quote from: Pandemoniu on May 27, 2014, 02:58:22 amHas something been changed with Monster Egg Laying?


Monster egg-laying was disabled to circumvent a few bugs caused by some of the ASM edits we use, among other reasons.  If you want a monster based party you'll need to tame each one individually. Battles like the one you found in Araguay Woods where monsters join automatically at the end were added to help offset this for people who enjoy using monsters, though.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: Pandemoniu on May 27, 2014, 05:39:50 am
Thanks again for the response. It's good to know I wasn't going crazy.

I suppose then that means I'll have to get me an Animist or something.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: Hyraldelita on September 26, 2015, 10:58:26 am
i know it's an old post, but still i wanted to say something about Alucard.

I have feeling in contrast for Alucard, because i LOVE that main char, i played Sotn a lot, the point is that , i have to say.. i don't think it would be easy to put him in the storyline you guys did for jot5. Simply cause if cloud don't speak much , alucard talk even less, and i have no idea how could anyone replicate his personal skills in FFT XD
i might say something stupid but probably, Yuna (FFX) would fit well in the story, and as a special char, no one ever made a summoner as main char in patches.

But Sotn is a must play game, if you like platform rpg!^^
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: DaHammerCrush on October 02, 2015, 06:14:40 pm
Really rough Job Tree. I'll clean it up and add the 2 missing jobs as we get info on them

-Crush
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: 3lric on October 02, 2015, 10:25:32 pm
I've no idea how to even read this thing lol. However, if someone from the team can vouch for it's validity, then I'll have Lijj post our job lung.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: alkarl on October 03, 2015, 02:00:36 pm
Quote from: Elric on October 02, 2015, 10:25:32 pm
I've no idea how to even read this thing lol. However, if someone from the team can vouch for it's validity, then I'll have Lijj post our job lung.


It looked pretty confusing at first, but it aligned nicely with all the work that was done over on the wikia (http://jot5.wikia.com/wiki/Jobs). Looking at all this stuff makes me want to load up my old save file and poke around some more. I think I got to level 40~ or somewhere around there... Welp until after work.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: DaHammerCrush on October 05, 2015, 06:12:34 pm
Still a little tough to follow because of all of the crisscrossing but its a lot cleaner. If I can unlock Redguard, Bard, and Mime I'll put them in too.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: DaHammerCrush on December 19, 2015, 12:59:10 pm
Bard Unlocked, I'll add this to the Job Tree
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: KingUrameshi on December 20, 2015, 09:46:02 am
I really like the way Samurai looks, it dosen't look like a baseball umpire anymore and looks all regal. I used to like the female Samurai much more than the male verision in the original game.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: Guru on December 20, 2015, 01:22:29 pm
redguard
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: KingUrameshi on December 20, 2015, 06:49:14 pm
Thanks for the info. I'll be sure to use this when I get further into the game.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: Guru on December 21, 2015, 04:54:36 pm
Agrias can dance for me anytime  :P
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: Guru on December 21, 2015, 04:55:13 pm
lol
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: Jumza on December 21, 2015, 05:31:50 pm
I'm amazed you got Agrias that far down the job tree as a guest :o
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: Hyraldelita on December 22, 2015, 12:52:20 am
me too lol thats some patience XD
I would be able when i was 16 , but now its kinda impossible for me to have that kind of patience ^^
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: 3lric on December 22, 2015, 01:31:14 am
Level 59? Good god man, that's impressive.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: Guru on December 22, 2015, 01:56:34 am
Haha had lots of free time this week. Ramza is at 70  :shock: Once she got move+2 it was pretty easy. Long as an enemy was standing she was attacking. Think I'm all done testing everything out now lol :mrgreen: got my builds all figured out depending on what you throw at us anyways. Must be doing something right them monsters are becoming beasts and I'm still able to handle most of em at high levels with low lvl equipment. Long as I don't run into 4+ chocobos I'm usually good. Awesome game guys I'm loving it can't wait for re-release and ch2!
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: Hyraldelita on December 22, 2015, 05:47:23 am
well!! FFT mechanich does allow you to reach lvl 99 with nearly no problem in the first map without even reaching eagrose castle if are persistent, i did it a couple of time MANY ears ago xD

But as i said it take a lot of time, and you have to be carefull with what class you choose, but after you unlock some "Key" skills you become pretty much hard to kill for monsters and human enemies.

I think in jot5 is lot harder to do this , since monsters are totally stronger then vanilla.

But the mechanich and AI is mostly the same, so yea if you get the hang of it, you can do it ^^ it only need lots of patience XD

Still got my respect for lvl 70 hhaha
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: DaHammerCrush on January 03, 2016, 08:07:25 pm
has anyone unlocked Mime? I've seen it on the weapons and/or armor as an option but haven't been able to get it unlocked. lvl 8/8 squire chemist doesn't do it.

Crush
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: Guru on January 04, 2016, 02:48:05 pm
no that's the only class i didn't unlock. I don't think anyone has yet, at least no one posted anything. I did read somewhere(maybe the wiki?) that it was 6 levels of all classes. Might be better to wait for the new jp system on the re-release to try and unlock it.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: DeJ on November 04, 2016, 02:31:22 pm
Hidden Skills

Hey Elric and co. -

I have a question regarding Ramza in the new re-release. I know he is able to learn hidden abilities upon being hit by them, Ikanagi Shock comes to mind.
I love this feature in the game, adds a different element to a battle in which you're able to learn a new skill, it also creates a missable which can drive a completionist mad!

My questions are:
1) Do you plan to have additional secret learnable skills upon being hit? I haven't played the most recent version in awhile and I can't seem to remember if there are additional lined slots in the ability list.

2) If the character is able to learn a secret skill, will it be denoted in the skill list with the aforementioned line? - which of course is a red flag for a gamer.

3) Are there plans to incorporate hidden skills for any other characters (besides Ramza of course) or generics or even monsters (if this is possible)?

I completely understand if you do not want to reveal this information - for the sake of maintaining the wonderment, magic and surprise of starting act 1, scene 1 in a familiar but  brand new (and better) FFT, which Jot5 is and will be.

Thanks all and keep up the great work!  :mrgreen:
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: Nyzer on November 04, 2016, 09:28:31 pm
QuoteI love this feature in the game, adds a different element to a battle in which you're able to learn a new skill, it also creates a missable which can drive a completionist mad!


None of those abilities will be missable by the end of the game, though they are indeed missable in Ch. 1.

Quote2) If the character is able to learn a secret skill, will it be denoted in the skill list with the aforementioned line? - which of course is a red flag for a gamer.


Of course. I don't think there's currently any way to not have that happen, actually.

Quote3) Are there plans to incorporate hidden skills for any other characters (besides Ramza of course) or generics or even monsters (if this is possible)?


The way Monsters are designed, it's not possible to make them learn new spells. It'd also kind of defeat the purpose of their existence. Jot5 Monsters are designed to be powerful units that know their full suite of abilities without any grinding, and the tradeoff for that is they can't get overpoweringly strong the way human units can.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: 3lric on November 04, 2016, 10:49:59 pm
I've removed a few things from Nyzers post. We've always held firm on fans getting their own info and sharing it around the site. All I will say is if the things from your post are what you are hoping for then you will be happy with the final product.

Here's a video to take everyones mind off the fact that I had to admin all over nyzers post

also sorry about the lag, it wasnt recorded on the best device

Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: Hyraldelita on November 05, 2016, 09:19:20 am
ahhahaha what cloud said , it make me laugh like an idiot XD Bad experience with ruby weapon man?XD
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: KingUrameshi on November 05, 2016, 09:47:38 am
Quote from: Hyraldelita on November 05, 2016, 09:19:20 am
ahhahaha what cloud said , it make me laugh like an idiot XD Bad experience with ruby weapon man?XD


God I hated Ruby. Even after beating the living hell out of Emerald without breaking a sweet I just couldn't get around Ruby Weapon.

Cloud + 4xCut + Mega All = Dead Emerald Weapon. :P
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: Guru on November 05, 2016, 11:10:31 pm
Awesome, freakin love cactuars. I hope they are as badass as they are in the other ff series games. Since this is JOT5 we are talking about, I putting my money down that they will be even better. Theres so many of them... this is gonna be a tough fight actually lol. Wonder if you can invite one or if you can learn any special abilities for the animist...
Dante and Snake need a sequel lol they crack me up
Also you may want to edit it out that you had to admin nyzer's post. I can still guess what was mentioned   ;)


Which one was ruby? The one that could eliminate two of the party members? Oh that was my favorite one actually haha, loved the intense 1v1 battle.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: Xifanie on November 06, 2016, 01:14:32 am
Quote from: KingUrameshi on November 05, 2016, 09:47:38 am
Cloud + 4xCut + Mega All = Dead Emerald Weapon. :P

What's the point of that combination? I forgot if Slash-All has a restricted number of uses (through Mega-All), but either way, it's 4x-Cut OR Slash-All, so I don't see the point of using both?
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: Nyzer on November 06, 2016, 03:58:12 am
QuoteI can still guess what was mentioned


Guessing's fine! I didn't mention anything that you can't already find out from the current Ch. 1 release anyway. :P
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: KingUrameshi on November 06, 2016, 08:51:12 am
Quote from: Xifanie on November 06, 2016, 01:14:32 am
What's the point of that combination? I forgot if Slash-All has a restricted number of uses (through Mega-All), but either way, it's 4x-Cut OR Slash-All, so I don't see the point of using both?


When I equipped 4x cut and Mega all the battle menu would show 4x cut but also act as slash all. Broken as all hell. Slash all did not have a number of uses. Pretty sure I did not need them equipped together either just have them both equipped on the same character. Surprised me to when I was hitting everything Emerald had to offer 4x for 9999 each time. All this and still couldn't beat Ruby.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: 3lric on November 06, 2016, 09:28:11 am
O_o

Just go into the fight with two people dead, then once Ruby puts both hands in the ground left him kill the remaining char (and have final attack + phoenix, or just use Phoenix lol)

Then just mime Hades + KotR, and thats' it, battle will be won in no time.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: KingUrameshi on November 06, 2016, 10:07:55 am
Thanks for the help Elric, if I get back into it I will give that a try with Hades. My problem was that my summons weren't up to snuff I think and I only had one Mime. I tried not to break the game too much but ended up OP anyway.

My problem was using the ultimate weapons which gave no materia growth.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: Xifanie on November 06, 2016, 10:53:13 am
I made this a few months ago:
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: KingUrameshi on November 06, 2016, 11:57:52 am
LMFAO!! Serves the big red douchebag right!. Excellent work Xif. Your on my team from now on. lol

Love how you got Spike in there. :cool:

I guess Cait Sith was just there to look pretty.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: DeJ on November 08, 2016, 02:05:56 pm
@ Nyzer, thanks for the response man. Appreciate it.

@ Elric, thanks for sharing this sweet event. I also love the Ruby Weapon reference.

The subtleties, among many other things, is what truly makes this Mod amazing!


Keep up the good work!

Much love!
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: Hyraldelita on November 08, 2016, 05:04:28 pm
I killed emerald in so many different ways that i can't even remember , but yea red was boring, but still i never had problem killing it... i mean there are so many kind of counter and combination you can do, that you can do a fullcure everytime you get hit, and drain Mp everytime you do damage, which mean immortality if you don't get hit for 9999.. but well FF7 it's still one of the best game ever in my opinion, specially the materia system.

Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: ZalbaagBeoulve on January 17, 2018, 10:33:26 pm
....hey.....this forum thread seemed really good and I was wondering if it could be sort of an "AMA" thread...? I'm really sorry about geeking out on this but I feel like I could ask SO MANY QUESTIONS but I don't know if it's a bad thing since people are obviously busy. I only just finished the first fight on the world map so I'm guessing maybe I should just wait till I finish everything and then ask questions (Answers to my questions might become available later in the game)? If not......the thing that looked like a rabbit on Bariaus Hill TOTALLY reminded me of the Mystics from "The Dark Crystal". Should I be expecting lots of references in this game as it's based on a multitude of classic games and genres? Again, totally cool if questions need to be kept to a minimum or delayed till the game has been finished (I'm just very excited). Also, it is slightly more difficult than I expected and that's great :)
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: 3lric on January 19, 2018, 02:07:14 am
Questions are fine lol. And that thing is babus, a reference to FFTA
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: AzelusGrimsight on March 23, 2018, 11:30:46 pm
So I have a question about JOT5. I'm not sure if this is the correct place to post it as I'm newish and It sort of relates to Chapter 2/The Re-release.
Ok, so When Chapter 2 Comes Out Will there be more items in chapter one such as weapons and equipment/armor? The Reason I ask is because I don't mind starting over if that will be the case rather than porting my save over. I have payed through chapter 1 several times and I have enjoyed to an extent I did not think possible so Kudos to all of you heading this project. Anything you could tell me about the item and equipment without giving too much away would be greatly appreciated. As it happens this playthrough I got bored and decided to attempt to write in some cheat codes that worked for Tactics and they did indeed work so I played around with some item modifier codes and I found some very interesting weapons and armor...I will not state what I have found here as I believe some of the items contain massive plot spoilers for Chapter 2 and Onwards, as most of these items are unfinished it seems I am guessing they are not in chapter 1 for that reason, it just got me thinking about what other items you may add into chapter one which would be worth replaying for considering the selection is quite small compared to the awesome array of things I found. Thank You for your dedication and passion which are currently the only things keeping me content while I wait for FF7's Remake!
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: 3lric on March 23, 2018, 11:44:59 pm
You have to start over either way as Chapter 1 was rebuilt from the ground up and the current version not only doesn't work correctly on consoles, but it won't link up to Chapter 2 anyway. The content added to Ch1 is nearly equal to what was already there, and was added to make it worth replaying Chapter 1 since you will have to do so either way.

Unfortunately, the stuff you DID find isn't really spoilers. It's stuff that was originally planned when Journey of the Five was going to have a bunch more main characters than just the 5 that made the cut. There is another thread around here somewhere (might actually be in a earlier page of this very thread) stating which other characters were originally intended to be in the main game but didn't quite make it for various different reasons. This is why those weapons had no backing behind them. Because they were just names I had originally put in tactext back when the mod was in it's pre-pre alpha stage, and were never removed. That's all just dummy data at this point, especially since most things have been redone for the re-release.

Only the stuff that was actually used in Chapter 1 holds true in the Tactext, everything else was just concept data and nothing more.

Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: Nyzer on March 24, 2018, 01:18:05 am
Yeah, basically the entire plot of Chapter 3 has been scrapped and reconsidered just since I joined the team, and that was some time after the initial Ch. 1 release. You're not gonna find a whole lot of useful info behind the scenes with that now :P

That said... the equipment available in Chapter 1 is rather appropriate for what was projected at the time to be roughly a quarter of the game. (It's much less than that now - the end total of Marks alone rivals the number of storyline battle events across the entirety of classic FFT, and I'd have to repeatedly punch myself in the face if I'd gone the FFTA-ish route of making them all weak filler events.)

Unless you're doing mad grinding, you're not gonna be in a position to get far past the third tier of jobs. You're nowhere near level cap. The encounters and rewards have all been explicitly designed for low level characters.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: Swordmaster on March 24, 2018, 05:38:18 pm
...I'm sorry, I think I just drooled on this thread while reading.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: Nyzer on March 24, 2018, 07:45:26 pm
Oh, that's the expected response.
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: AzelusGrimsight on April 02, 2018, 01:33:56 pm
Thank You Guys Very Much For The Response!!!! Haha I was wondering about the save thing. Oh well starting over will be no big because you guys make it so worth it to play over and over! I am a touch disappointed as far as hearing the weapons were for cut characters lol (cough cough <redacted>?) although I am rather surprised Dante's <redacted> has no bite behind it, although <redacted> are great, <redacted> looks beautiful. Well to bide my time while I wait for chapter 2 I at least get to play with the <redacted> and stuff oh and I recruited Sephiroth onto the Team as well who is so well made by the way guys! I would do it with Ganon but obviously I can't and I'm pretty sure everyone knows why lol. Again Thank You So Much You Guys Are Rockstars!
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: Teigan on March 27, 2022, 11:43:48 pm
Hi, I'm not sure if this is the place to ask about gameshark codes, but I was just wondering how to code a duplicate Dante over a soldier, I tried every combo from 01-49 with no success. I found Devil Trigger at 13, and I even tried a couple monsters to no avail. I wanted Vergil instead, but I'm not sure if he's in game. I look forward to your response, thank you so much for the amazing game, tactics will always have a special place in my heart, and I've beaten all the "5's" games, my dream come true, keep up the great work guys!😊
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: 3lric on March 29, 2022, 06:16:02 pm
Jot5 is not open source and editing it isn't something I support outside of the core team. There is a lot of ASMs in Jot5 and what you are asking would break things in more than a few ways
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: Zolias on March 30, 2022, 04:42:05 pm
So, there's three things I'm wondering (mainly about Link, because big fan of the Legend of Zelda series)...

First is that I'm assuming that everyone will be getting their main weapons at some point in the game, such as Link gaining the Master Sword and Hylian Shield, and figuring the same for Cloud and the Fusion Blade (since he's in his Advent Children outfit).

What I'm wondering is if every main of the 5 would obtain their main weapons at some point in the game (though due to never playing any of the DMC or Metal Gear games, I wouldn't know which would be Dante's nor Snake's... and I'm simply trying to think of which would go to Ramza; pure irony if his is this game's Ultima Weapon, and would make me chuckle), and would certain ones allow the use of all of the main class's abilities, if such a thing is possible to be coded...

The second is that I'm wondering if, since this Link is the Hero of Time, and the Hero's Shade from Twilight Princess was confirmed to be the Hero of Time, will Link be able to learn new skills on later chapters, with those being the Hidden Skills of TP?  If so, would that also apply to all of the five?

The final is if there will be level traps eventually placed throughout the certain maps, as either a means to train skills without increasing difficulty too much?

Either way, looking forward to the re-release!
Title: Re: Journey of the Five FAQ + Q/A.
Post by: FateWings on December 02, 2022, 07:09:07 am
Hi everyone,

On the first fight against the Babus and the monsters I surrounded the Chocobo and killed it while it has a reraise. When it revived it cast Choco Cure but missed all the targets including my chars and itself.
Does it's skill has a chance to miss?