Final Fantasy Hacktics

Great stuff as always Barren!  Every time I come back things have changed so much. 

At the end of battle when you get to select from chests for various rewards, is there any detailed info on that?  Or is it meant to be something the player just has to feel out through trial and error?  Is there a spreadsheet or list of all the possible items that can be rewards, and what the color of chests corresponds with?

Edit: I see, red are for weapons, purple consumables, etc... They seem to be mostly common items, but occasionally rare?

I'm unable to get past the first loading screen.  When Gospel and his comrades are gathered in a house, and prepare to fight, the music loops and it says loading forever.

I'm on Linux, Nobara, using Retro Arch for my emulator.  I tried the Beetle PSX and Beetle PSX HW cores, neither worked.  I'm using the scph5501.bin bios.  I'll try some other cores, or another emulator.  I saw a post with another person unable to get the game to work where a certain emulator was recommended.

Edit: Okay, I used the Swan Station core and it got past the loading screen.  Everything seems to be working fine now.

Edit: Edit: Game is great so far!

Edit: I'll post in the bug reporting thread.

Edit: Edit: Okay that thread's locked, so I made a new thread.

That goodness, it works!!!  You're a life saver, Jumza.   

Hi guys, been a veeeery long time since I've been here.  I was just curious in checking out some of the mods, like Celdia's, but am facing difficulties.  I'm on Linux, and can't get ePSXe to work.  I use Retro Arch, which runs .cue files.  I got the Rumble Chaos Crashdown randomizer working, but I can't get any of the mods here to work.  When I use PPF Omatic to patch a bin file, it only outputs another bin file.  If I try to patch a cue file it doesn't work.  If I try to convert the patched bin to a cue it doesn't work.

Any ideas?

I'd rather keep Mimes and just nerf them if they're too OP.  Maybe go back to reducing their equipment options like they used to be.

What's the arena discord?

There doesn't seem to be much activity... Where is everyone?

Is this still a thing?

Hi everyone. I see you have a tournament going, and lots of new changes to the game. Cool stuff.

I'm kind of dissapointed I missed it, but good luck everyone.

Okay, I added Shiva, Ramuh, and Ifrit to my Summoner for Gastrafitis Cannon.  I could use another test for both of my teams to see if the changes balance them out.

I'm pretty sure no where in the U.S is it illegal to offer prize money for competitions.  Major league gaming has been a thing since the 90's.

The thing I never used to be able to get working is move-hp up/mp up.  I'll have to get set up with the new version though so I can record stuff too.  The more the better.  It's good to see new people too.  I know you were around before, but I'm glad to see you're uploading matches.  Oh and by the way, Magic Attack Up does affect healing spells.    I don't know if you noticed that Moogle was healing for a ton.

At this point I'm just talking about doing the tournaments here online the same way we do the free ones, but with pools and seating.  The payout would just be through paypal.

Doing tournaments live in person would be cool, but we're probably too spread out for that.  I live in Toronto, Canada.

Andrew, of course it's legal.  Mods have tournaments too, they just don't get sponsored at major events because they aren't endorsed by the company that made the original game.  I've been to Project M tournaments, which is a mod of Smash Bros. Brawl, and Counter Strike started out as a mod of Half-Life.

Thanks for the match.  Yeah, I think the most immediate change needed is probably to give the summoner a damage dealing summon.



It's kind of funny, Corsair, how you pronounce so many things wrong.  :p  Like Esuna, you say Ezuna.  And I could be wrong but I believe Gastrafitis is pronounced Gas trah figh tiss (first i long, second i short). 

Should Protect and Shell have a buff?  Increased percentage, or maybe 0ct, and increase the cost a bit, maybe to 100?  Because I think as is they are never used.

Hey guys, so this is actually something I have been thinking about for a very long time.  I know I haven't been around for almost two years, except for the tournament last summer.  But FFHacktics has still been in my mind this whole time.  Free tournaments are fun, but other than people like us who just love the game, they do not really promote or support growth in the scene very much.  For one thing there is no career potential or chance that this could take off and be an event at major gaming conventions without the growth that prize money would bring.

I have been playing Super Smash Bros. Melee for the Nintendo Gamecube competitively for a year and nine months now and in that time I've seen it grow.  I just got back from a tournament that had 90+ entrants and a first place prize of over $7,500.  It was larger that any other tournament at the convention including Smash 4, Street Fighter 5, Dota 2, CS:GO, CoD, and more.  The seating area for the top 8 finals was overcrowded to the point where people where standing blocking booths, and the food area, and taking almost all of the chairs from other games' spectating areas.  And that's a game from 2001 that is dominating over current gen games.

All that is just to say that an old game can be successful at current gaming events.  Although being a mod means it will probably never get official support to be endoursed at major gaming events, we can still nourish and grow this community and this game competitively.

That being said, I seriously want to support the growth of this by offering $100 for the prize pool of the next tournament we run here.  Hopefully that will attract more players.  But we also need to be a bit more serious about how the bracket is set up because random seating simply will not do.

People should be given a seating number based on past results and the quality of their team.  Players expected to do well should not meet each other too early in the bracket.  So lower seatings are given to novice players and flawed teams while higher seating is given to veterans and solid teams.  Pools are a very good way of giving more than 2 matches to players likely to be double eliminated.  They are also excellent for determining seating based on results.  And that way any number of entrants turns into a rounded bracket with no buys.

Any thoughts?  Any interest?  Let's get this scene growing and the competition serious!   

I just figured I'd give my thoughts on some of the topics Andrew mentioned on the first page.

I think Hi-potion's  JP cost does not need changing.  It feels balanced as is.

I don't think I like the idea of changing Grand Cross's AoE, don't know about the MP cost or vertical tollerance though.  It seems fine as is.

I don't know what "sticky targeting" means.  If the CT for Reraise gets reduced to 0, I perceive a problem as a unit gets up and reraises itself instantly could be a bit OP.

Hawk's Eye loosing poison makes sense, and adding Darkness instead could work thematically at least.

Leg Aim inflicting Stop instead  of Don't Move makes no sense.

Weapon Break is fine as is.  Weapon Steal makes less sense to me.

Wave Fist loosing Wind element does make sense.  It was always a non-elemental move and I think it works better as non-elemental.

Protect/Shell giving any healing at all does not make sense.

Dia should not be AoE at all, but 6 range could work, though I think it's fine as is.

Fire adding Oil has never made sense to me, especially since Oil boosts all elements and not just fire.  I would advocate changing Oil to only boosting Fire like in the original game.  Maybe make a different effect that boosts all/other elements?

Haste/Slow should be changed because as is they are never used.  Reduce the CT, MP cost, JP cost, and increase the percentage of success, an improvement of some kind at least should be made I think.

I don't see the need to change any of the Summon Magic.  Making Salamander non-elemental makes no sense.  Fairy healing more would be too OP.  Carbunkle being free to cast would be broken.

In conclusion I would like to say that change for the sake of change is pointless, even harmful.  Changes should only be made in the pursuit of gameplay balance.  Once things are solidified in a balanced way they should remain unchanged.  Maybe FFT Arena can grow into a competitive scene with $$ tournaments.  I'd like to see that, and constantly changing things doesn't help that because it changes the way the game is played and forces people to learn the new mechanics which can hinder the advancement of understanding the mechanics.  It takes time, years in fact, to gain mastery level understanding of advanced strategies and tactics which advances the metagame of competitive play.  So I don't like resetting that advancement unless it's essential.