Final Fantasy Tactics Advance: Grim Grimoire (Latest version: Beta 0.993)

[thedarkfiddler]

I've been giving it a go, but laws still seem to be in effect. Do cards simply do nothing now?

The laws are set per battle, now. It's a bit tough to plan around that, since unless I've missed it you can't see what the laws will be in advance.

Went to reclass my starting clan only to realize that weapons all cost way more than I could afford without selling off all my consumables and armor. I get you want money to be more meaningful but ouch, that's tough to start with.

Also, it seems like nearly every item that doesn't teach something else gives the Dragoon Dragonheart. Was that on purpose?

Soldier's First Aid doesn't seem to be giving Regen like you intended.

Also, Mythril Blade apparently teaches three glitched abilities to glitch classes, and it costs 0 AP. I can get a screenshot if you'd like.

[vc]

That's a shame. Laws like "no repeating the previous action" really make the game frustrating and I was hoping to see them gone.

[Eternal]

Just a heads up, VC, a law-free version will be released in the future once I release an official 1.0!

Darkfiddler: Money is really rough at the beginning, but it evens out -really- quickly. Just keep doing missions and you'll be fine in no time. Every item does technically teach Dragonheart due to a bug, but it's known and will hopefully be permanently killed soon-ish. First Aid no longer gives Regen, Nurse does. Thanks for pointing that out, the description will be fixed for 1.0.

Mythril Blade perplexes me. It's literally no different than the other Blades. I'll have to take a deeper look at it.

[chocolatemoose]

Delurking to provide some feedback:

First, thanks so much for putting in this much effort. Even from a lurker's vantage point it's clearly been a labor of love, and, even at this beta stage, very appreciated.

In no particular order:

- Based on what I've read/played so far the class rebalancing seems fair and fun
- The mission-specific laws are fun and require me as a player to maintain a diverse clan. Hope they don't get too onerous as the game goes on, but I haven't gotten that far
- I'm sure I'm far from the world's best FFTA player, but while I found the original game on the easy side overall, this mod is too difficult for me. I can get through the first few missions, but I fail miserably at any of the clan battles. This strikes me as a result of the following factors:

  1. Improved AI prioritization
  2. Reduced party size
  3. Improved unit abilities
  4. Newly recruited units start at a higher level than average, thus increasing the overall clan level with units that have no abilities

I find 1 and 2 enjoyable and natural to the flow of the game.

While I see 3 becoming less of an issue as the game goes on, in the beginning, especially before you've had the ability to learn even a handful of abilities, it's crippling. From what I gather by briefly rifling through Nightmare and the AIO editor, I assume it isn't possible to scale these abilities per clan as the game goes on. Is there something that can be done to lessen the difficulty in the early game? How about nerfing some of the early clans (Dip, Cyril Band, etc.)?

4 is a smaller factor, but still contributes to the overall difficulty.

[Eternal]

I'm glad to see you're de-lurking! I feel honored!

I appreciate the feedback! As I'm sure you've guessed, being in beta still, there are a lot of little balance issues that need fixing. FFTA had so much wrong with it and I've added/tweaked so much that it's going to take a bit to sort everything out. To address your concerns, Clan Dip isn't intended to be battled right away. They're kind of a test-your-mettle-and-be-humbled type of fight early on. A good strategy is to use Poison. That extra damage each turn is a great way to deal a little guaranteed damage each turn and it adds up fast. Buffs and debuffs are key in GG, because without them you'll simply get overwhelmed.

Though it may seem counter-intuitive, the best way to make things easier is to progress through the story a bit. This will unlock more missions (and thus AP, chances for items/Gil, etc). Also, using Limit Chains (Combos) to fell a foe and reclaim the JP lost on said Limit is another good way to destroy enemies without worrying about evasion. Your starting clan all has a Combo learnt, you just need to equip it!

[vc]

Good to hear about the lawless version. When that comes out, would I need to start an entirely new game, or do you think a very early game 0.99 save would remain compatible?

[Marche]

You deserve some feedback:

•laws tend to favor us players
    i completed a mission easily since one of the enemies cannot use magic, missile, swords etc so theyll just stand there and do nothing lol

•some job errors?
    my soldiers now have 3 soldier skills but they still cant unlock the fighter class O.o
    note that other classes also do not work like they should

[chocolatemoose]

@Eternal: with regards to your suggestions, I tried proceeding with the plot but was unable to make it past the Thesis Hunt mission despite several iterations and different team variations (many, but not all). Poison wasn't much help when facing two units with esuna and a 5-6 disadvantage. I was able to beat the mission only by modding my party size back up to 6. After that I made it up to the first totema but hit a wall again (without any additional modding).

As mentioned earlier in this thread, while I love Dragonheart, it's too OP'd this early in the game.

Also, the Twin Bow appears to teach Doubleshot to Snipers for 150AP, but when I equip it I don't see the ability show up on my unit's ability list.

@Marche: it needs to be 3 A-abilities; passive ones like Shieldbearer don't count. I haven't had any issues with unlocking the Fighter class.

[Marche]

@chocolatemoose thanks for clearing that up as for the dragonheart i think its a bug since majority of the items even potions had that.. also thesis hunt mission is pretty easy on my end maybe because i really took advantage of the laws and stuff..

Extra dispatch missions also took care of money problems so i dont really get why people think money is a hard thing to come by when it comes to playing GG

[bcrobert]

5-6 disadvantage? Eternal. Eteeernal. ETERNAL. No.

I can appreciate the computer not being at a blatant disadvantage (vanilla's 6v5 clan battles etc) but that doesn't mean you can arbitrarily give the plot enemies mid-tier abilities and a numbers advantage BEFORE YOU CAN EVEN GRIND.

After Thesis Hunt it's like w/e I'll go grind on clan battles. But all of the missions up to Thesis Hunt need to take into account that you basically have no grinding options whatsoever. (In fact I'd even have a blatant difficulty spike right after Thesis Hunt to encourage players to hunt down rival clans to AP grind but...that's just my mean streak talking.)

Also don't agree with making Clan Dip arbitrarily OP for their placement in-game. Well...can't do that mission that's about to time out. Because Clan Dip is standing on it. I appreciate the "humbled early-game" concept but I'd rather see gradual introduction of difficulty spikes implemented throughout as the player unlocks more options.

Love that you've been fixing the descriptions though. That was my main pet peeve with the older versions, but I knew about the compressed text roadblock so there was really no use nagging.

[Marche]

5-6 disadvantage? Eternal. Eteeernal. ETERNAL. No.

I can appreciate the computer not being at a blatant disadvantage (vanilla's 6v5 clan battles etc) but that doesn't mean you can arbitrarily give the plot enemies mid-tier abilities and a numbers advantage BEFORE YOU CAN EVEN GRIND.

After Thesis Hunt it's like w/e I'll go grind on clan battles. But all of the missions up to Thesis Hunt need to take into account that you basically have no grinding options whatsoever. (In fact I'd even have a blatant difficulty spike right after Thesis Hunt to encourage players to hunt down rival clans to AP grind but...that's just my mean streak talking.)

Also don't agree with making Clan Dip arbitrarily OP for their placement in-game. Well...can't do that mission that's about to time out. Because Clan Dip is standing on it. I appreciate the "humbled early-game" concept but I'd rather see gradual introduction of difficulty spikes implemented throughout as the player unlocks more options.

Love that you've been fixing the descriptions though. That was my main pet peeve with the older versions, but I knew about the compressed text roadblock so there was really no use nagging.

didnt know that was a thing, i tend to steer away from clans after seeing clan dip being op and all haha

[Eternal]

Sorry about the delay, I was out of town until now.

Thank you everyone for your feedback, firstly. I'll address concerns as I see them.

@vc: Since it'd only be laws changing, I don't see why you couldn't use the same save.

@Chocolate: Thesis Hunt is going to be FFTA's version of FFT Dorter Trade City. I decided that from the very beginning. It's literally already been nerfed 7-8 times and is still undergoing changes. Esuna is already being removed from the battle in the next update, and that should be enough to help rebalance it even more. Dragonheart being on everything is a bug as a result of Darth's editor, as mentioned above. I'll look into the Twin Bow issue. That's kinda weird.

@Blank: Remember that you can Flee from battle.

[chocolatemoose]

There's one other thing that seemed a little strange about the build: the enemy level scaling seemed to scale to the max level in my party (Marche) as opposed to the average level, which made a lot of the [non-story] missions difficult.

It finally stopped after the first totema battle, but I can't tell if that's because:

- It was intended
- I started playing around with levels in the AIO
- I corrected something that I previously messed up by tooling around in the AIO (but I don't think I touched levels)

[Marche]

I can confirm that twinbow does not actually teach the sniper doubleshot..

[thedarkfiddler]

Extra dispatch missions also took care of money problems so i dont really get why people think money is a hard thing to come by when it comes to playing GG

I just want to clarify that my comment about money came from the very beginning of the game. I'm used to starting out and immediately reclassing for quick access to Ninja and Elementalist, so not having the money for even a single weapon until two or three missions in was a bit disorienting, is all.

Enjoying the hack so far, making steady but slow progress, but man all these battles where I can only take five people are killing me,

Edit: Also, am I missing anywhere where the Speed growth of the jobs are listed?

Edit2: Also, a lot of the job requirements in the opening post are off. Reaver only requires three Beastmaster skills, for example. Would you like us to mention these as we find them, or are they something you're aware of and just need to take the time to fix?

[Eternal]

The first post is pretty outdated. All the job tree stuff and growth info will be updated when I release 1.0. Since there's still so much tweaking going on, it seems silly to redo all of that until it's set in stone. As far as the job tree goes, the current one is still fairly accurate. If anything, some job requirements have been reduced from the tree posted.

EDIT: I updated the first post with 0.991, which fixes Doubleshot and nerfs the Thesis Hunt battle slightly. Hopefully it's a little more tolerable!

[chocolatemoose]

Caught another bug: Haste - at least as learned by my Nu Mou time mage - seems to cast Hastega.

[bcrobert]

@Blank: Remember that you can Flee from battle.

Cowards flee. Bcrobert kills all the things. ALL THE THINGS.

Glad to hear you're taking Esuna out of Thesis Hunt though. Esuna is a big middle finger that early in the game. Should be plenty balanced after that edit.

[Eternal]

Hmm. I'm looking in AIO at Haste/Hastega right now and they both seem to be correct. Haste: 1 AoE, Hastega: 2 AoE.

[chocolatemoose]

I saw the same thing in the AIO editor. Perhaps I've misunderstood AoE, but my Nu Mou time mage with Haste learned from a Firewheel Rod was able to cast haste on 5 units (the single cross). That strikes me as Hastega.