Final Fantasy Hacktics

Quote from: SpaceCowboy321 on April 04, 2023, 08:12:48 pmI downloaded the new version, but it still doesn't seem to work with the US rom.  I tried several times with different patchers, and they all report an error.

I just tested it with the 2384 build and didn't have any problems. Do you have any details on the error you're getting?

Quote from: Squire Doodad on February 01, 2023, 07:40:33 pmOut of curiosity, do you have any better documentation of the stat growth changes in particular?

Okay, I have these ready but I can't attach them to a reply. I'm going to have to put them in the zip file for 1.1, I'm afraid. If you'd like the notes earlier I can send them to you through Discord or something if you're comfortable with it.

Quote from: Squire Doodad on February 01, 2023, 07:40:33 pmOut of curiosity, do you have any better documentation of the stat growth changes in particular? The file in the .zip mentions things like buffing Viking magic growth but there's no stat numbers given for it so it's hard to gauge whether that's intended to be merely comparable to a vanilla White Mage or on par with the vanilla Moogle mages.

I didn't make documentation for that, but I definitely could! Should be a pretty quick job. I thought about including it but wasn't sure there'd be a lot of interest. Give me a little time and I'll make it available.

Quote from: PeppySSB on December 23, 2022, 12:08:14 am1) I'm assuming you haven't done anything with the Chocobo Knight? I'll just ignore them for now, if so.

So I know I said I didn't change these guys much but actually I kinda did. All Chocobos got their skillsets buffed. I just forgot about it because, y'know, Chocobo Knight. Anyway, they're all boring numbers boosts. Nothing got overhauled, just made a little more competitive. Only nerf was to their MP granting skill which restores 10 now.

Ignoring the Chocobo Knight is safe. I'm not actually sure it's even possible to give them their own ability set, which is always going to make them marginal. Their stats are really good, though, particularly the ones on White Chocobos who get an innate 75% resilience.

And thanks for the heads up on Ninja HP. That is definitely supposed to be 70 base.

Thanks so much for taking a look! Really looking forward to any further feedback!

I am absolutely trying this out after Christmas! A rebalancing pass is always fun, and some of these quality of life changes look great. The American PSX version will always be my favorite for nostalgia reasons, but I have fond memories of the PSP version, too. It'll be fun to revisit.

Quote from: Dual-Wielding Ninja on November 27, 2022, 04:56:03 amSeeq seem more like porcine than sharks to me, especially concerning their Final Fantasy XII designs.

Huh, looks like you're right. I think I was thrown off by their coloration and pointy snouts. Oh well. It'll give me an excuse to change out their elemental properties.

Welcome to the Shrike Patch! This is a mod for Final Fantasy Tactics A2 that aims to make the game more fun and engaging. Features include:

- Combat has been heavily rebalanced to be swingier and burstier. Most of the game's abilities, enemies, jobs, and equipment have received changes to make combat more exciting.

- Enemy gear and ability sets have been massively expanded and their stats and levels improved to make the fights more engaging. This isn't a kaizo hack that aims to kill you in the tutorial, but you'll need to pay attention to what you're doing. In addition, all non-Hume characters now have elemental weaknesses and resistances to consider.

- The Thief, Tinker, Scholar, and Moogle Knight jobs have received extensive reworking to make them more fun and reliable to use.

- AP and gold costs have been slashed dramatically across the board, and gear sells for more of its base value. In addition, which gear teaches which abilities has been shuffled around extensively to give you access to fun toys earlier than normal. Related, it has been made much easier to obtain loot via use of the Thief class, which makes the bazaar much less frustrating.

WHAT'S NEW?

HIGH-LEVEL CHANGES:

- It's the patch of the Moogle! Moogles received buffs across the board, both in stats and abilities. Of particular note are buffs to the Juggler, Moogle Knight, and Fusilier. In addition, the Moogle inherent bonuses were changed to be less bad, no longer crippling their attack stat.

- The Scholar received a complete reworking, and the White Mage, Arcanist, and Fencer received some sizeable improvements as well.

- The base stats and stat growths of all jobs and monsters have been completely recalculated from scratch. Special thanks to ScarletMagi for her help with the math and balancing on this. A lot of the weaker and slower jobs got stronger, as did most monsters, whereas a few of the high-end jobs and monsters got a touch weaker. Raptors and Lanistas are also now more focused on their role as tanks and less on their role as physical bruisers. Due to the stat changes I recommend starting with a new file for this patch, but if you really want to keep using your old file it should work.

- Mid-to-late game weapons with few or no abilities on them gained substantial buffs to their stats to make them more exciting to obtain, and make endgame gearing more interesting. All weapons and armor have had their gil costs recalculated based on their stats and rarity.

- Abilities were moved between weapons to smooth out when you have access to which skills, and some abilities were given AP cost adjustments. Passives are available to more jobs and they're available on much earlier gear. Some very powerful abilities like Geomancy have become rarer and more exclusive, while other key abilities like Dual Wield and Halve MP are now available to more units. The basic stat boosting passives like Attack UP and Magick UP have been made much more numerous and accessible, being spread mostly across the intermediate jobs and put on more common gear. And a couple of passives (Immunity and Maintenance) were removed entirely.

- Reduced the difficulty of late-game story missions and made serious nerfs to the difficulty of Lord Grayrl, The Cat's Meow, The Eastwatch, Lanista's Pride, Ravager, and Banbangaa! This should make it possible to do them earlier and unlock the advanced classes more easily. They're still challenging fights, I just toned down the absolute insanity like Magick Frenzy Dual Wield Ninjas and max evasion Monks with Bishop spells and Halve MP. I also made smaller difficulty adjustments to many, many other fights. I'm still in the process of doing more fight editing, but it's taking a really long time and I didn't want to hold the next update hostage for eighteen months while I dig through all of them.

KNOWN BUGS:
- Random encounters with the Bangaa Brotherhood are locked to levels in the 30s instead of scaling to the player.
- Two of Vaan's abilities, Crime Spree and Jackpot, do not function.
- Steal Life and Feeding Frenzy do not show HP gained by the user (visual bug only; HP is still restored.)
- Forbidden Lore does not show MP gained by the user (visual bug only)
- Vicious Clash does not show damage taken by the user (visual bug only)
- Swarmstrike sometimes does not display damage numbers for all of its hits (visual bug only)
- Power Within does not display buff to Move (visual bug only)

WHITE MAGE:

White Mages were suffering with the global increase to the MP cost of healing abilities, so I decided to swap out Arise for Benediction. This new spell has very long range and no MP cost, giving White Mages something proactive and useful to do while they're charging up for their spell turns. (I *may* have stolen this basic idea from ScarletMagi's Final Fantasy Tic-Tacs mod >.>) Turbo MP felt like a bad fit for them since their MP costs are already really high, so I replaced it with Regenerate as a nod to the original FFT.

o No longer learns Arise; now learns Benediction instead.
o No longer learns Turbo MP.
o Now learns Regenerate.

+ Benediction: MP Cost 0; Range 7; adds Regen and buffs Resilience of one ally, increasing their resistance to negative status conditions.
+ Cure, Cura, Curaga: Base healing increased by ~50%.


BLACK MAGE:

Geomancy was too powerful an ability to have on a base job. I made it appropriately more exclusive; now Humes and Moogles can't learn it at all, and it's restricted to late-game Nu Mou and Gria.

o No longer learns Geomancy.


THIEF:

I'm honestly not sure why Waylay didn't already deal the same damage as Strongarm. Now you won't have to deal less damage when you're farming gil. I also gave Thieves Gil Snapper, mostly for flavor. Safeguard has been removed from the game entirely since the gear stealing and destroying abilities have been removed from almost all enemies.

o No longer learns Safeguard.
o Now learns Gil Snapper.

+ Waylay: Base damaged buffed by ~50% (Now deals the same damage as Strongarm)


ARCHER:

Concentration has been bumped from the basic ranged jobs to the more advanced ranged jobs.

o No longer learns Concentration.


PALADIN:

Like several other healing abilities, Bright Halo got a bit overnerfed by last patch's global healing MP cost increase, so it's getting a buff to its throughput.

o No longer learns Reflex.
o Now learns Defense UP.

+ Bright Halo [Nurse]: Base healing buffed by ~50%


FIGHTER:

o Now learns Attack UP.


BLUE MAGE:

Immunity, like Safeguard, has been removed from the pool of passives.

o No longer learns Immunity.


HUNTER:

Vital Shot was a mediocre dice roll of an ability that I never really found myself using, so I figured I'd give Hunters a new ability in its place. Seal Evil is a more powerful anti-undead tool than Silver Arrow, and is a reference to Mustadio's similar ability from FFT.

o No longer learns Vital Shot; learns Seal Evil instead.
o No longer learns Regenerate or Attack UP.
o Now learns Concentration.

+ Seal Evil: Petrifies undead enemies (checks evasion instead of resilience) and cleanses undead graves.


ILLUSIONIST:

o Now learns Magick UP.


NINJA:

o Now learns Reflex.


SEER:

+ Cura: Base healing buffed by ~50%


WHITE MONK:

I was unhappy with how Chakra was working out, so I threw in the towel and changed it back into a healing and status dispelling option; it also got a higher MP cost but greater potency, to match the other healing abilities.

o No longer learns Reflex.
o Now learns Regenerate.

+- Chakra: MP Cost 12 > MP Cost 16; Base Healing buffed by ~100%; no longer restores MP; now cleanses all debuffs.


DEFENDER:

Vicious Clash was one of several abilities that was reworked from an earlier ability with a high AP cost, and then never got its AP cost adjusted, so I bumped it down quite a bit. Absorb Damage also felt much more useful on Defender than on Trickster.

o Now learns Absorb Damage.

+ Vicious Clash: AP cost reduced


BISHOP:

o Now learns Magick UP.

+ Cura: Base healing buffed by ~50%


GLADIATOR:

o Now learns Attack UP.


MASTER MONK:

Unscarred has been moved to Dragoon. It doesn't fit Master Monks very well since they like to mix it up in melee and have a pretty potent self-damaging attack.

o No longer learns Unscarred.
o Now learns Reflex and Charged Attacks.


TRICKSTER:

Tricksters got quite a few new reaction abilities, including the extremely powerful Replenish MP which helps defray their relatively high MP costs. It's also nice to put on Bishops and Templars.

o No longer learns Absorb Damage.
o Now learns Critical: Haste, Gil Snapper, and Replenish MP.


DRAGOON:

Dragoons get Unscarred instead of Master Monks because I feel like it plays nicer with their Jump ability. Lancet felt really clunky with an MP cost - you were barely getting any MP back with it until the extreme late game. After some testing I realized that it doesn't need one. Its melee range does a lot to keep it balanced.

o Now learns Unscarred.

+ Lancet: MP Cost 10 > MP Cost 0


TEMPLAR:

I wanted to lean more heavily into Templar's identity as an anti-mage job, so Evade Magick seemed like a natural fit for them. Final Judgment now deals Holy elemental damage as well. I also fixed a bug where it couldn't be used if the caster was in the AOE.

o No longer learns Attack UP.
o Now learns Resistance UP and Evade Magick.

+ Final Judgment [Soul Sphere]: Now deals Holy damage; now deals magic damage instead of physical; fixed a targeting bug.


CANNONEER:

o Now learns Concentration.


BEASTMASTER:

Beastmasters now have a pretty nice pool of passives and reactions which are available on very early gear, which should help with the way Nu Mou often had empty passive and reaction slots until way too late in the game. It also makes the early Beastmaster dip to unlock Sage feel less onerous, because you'll be picking up some useful stuff along the way.

o No longer learns Immunity.
o Now learns Reflex and Defense UP.


ALCHEMIST:

Transmute was hard-coded to suck, so I decided to just replace it altogether. Alchemists get early access to Mirror Items now, which fits thematically and gives them some more versatility. Alchemists now also gain Ribbon-bearer. This leaves Seeq as the only ones who can't wear Ribbons at all, and given that the most reliable way to handle a rampaging Berserker or Lanista is status effects it'll likely stay that way.

o No longer learns Safeguard or Magick UP.
o Now learns Ribbon-bearer.
o No longer learns Transmute; now learns Mirror Items instead.


SAGE:

Blind and Rasp felt out of place on the Sage's move set, so I replaced them. Final Judgment is a big upgrade to Rasp in terms of MP damaging spells, and fits with the Sage's theme of high cost wide AOE spells. Arise is now exclusive to Sages, no longer being learned by White Mages. Healing Light [Esunaga] has been greatly improved, now being a smart-targeting healing spell and anti-undead tool in addition to cleansing status.

o No longer learns Rasp; now learns Final Judgment instead
o No longer learns Blind; now learns Arise instead
o No longer learns Reflex.
o Now learns Evade Magick and Resistance UP.

+ Scathe: AP cost reduced
+ Esunaga: Now called Healing Light; now restores HP in addition to cleansing status effects; damages undead and banishes undead graves in area.
+ Final Judgment [Soul Sphere]: Now deals Holy damage; now deals magic damage instead of physical; fixed a targeting bug.


TIME MAGE:

o No longer learns Evade Magick.
o Now learns Pierce.


ARCANIST:

The Arcanist's level-based spells were unique and it pained me to simplify them, but this is for the best. Arcanists have a couple of reliable darkness-based attacks now. They also gained a strong but short-ranged AOE haste ability. Syphon got some substantial buffs because it's more situational than I initially realized - you need to have an enemy with a big stockpile of MP for it to do anything too crazy. They also get access to Turbo MP now, which restricts the ability to Nu Mou.

o No longer learns Pierce.
o Now learns Turbo MP.

+- Lv. 3 Dark: Now called Dark; base damage nerfed by ~66%; Target All > AOE 1, Range 4; Targets Level Divisible by 3 > Targets Anybody
+- Lv. 5 Haste: Now called Umbral Wings; Target All > Target Self + Adjacent; Targets Level Divisible by 5 > Targets Anybody
+- Lv. ? Shadowflare: Now called Shadowflare; MP Cost 18 > MP Cost 26; base damage buffed by ~66%; Target All > Single Target, Range 4; Targets Level Divisible by ? > Targets Anybody
+ Syphon: MP Cost 12 > MP Cost 0; Drains 25% of damage dealt > Drains 100% of damage dealt


SCHOLAR:

The Scholar got completely reworked, Tinker-style. Ever since I removed the elemental absorption from the majority of gear way back in the first version of this patch they were just trash Illusionists with a few gimmick spells. Now they're a proper endgame job. Their elemental spells no longer target all allies and enemies; instead they are now wide AOE spells that do better than smart targeting. Not only do they not damage allies, but they apply mass buffs. Mad Scientist got a boost to its AOE and also grants random debuffs to enemies in the area. Throw any of these into a huge melee and watch the fireworks. Study has been reworked into a free debuff that makes enemies more vulnerable to spells of all kinds, which gives you something constructive to do when you're not using MP. Forcefield [Force] got its MP cost reduced so that you can use it on your first turn and still have 16 MP for your big spells on the next turn. And Natural Selection was replaced with Forbidden Lore, a powerful MP charging option. To top it all off, they get access to the insanely strong Geomancy passive, which they learned by studying Geomancers. I initially wanted to restrict the ability only to Gria, but ultimately decided that it makes a nice endgame capstone for Nu Mou as well. They're your big magic guns, after all.

o No longer learns Natural Selection; now learns Forbidden Lore instead
o Now learns Geomancy.

+ Forbidden Lore: Drains 25% of the user's max HP in order to gain MP equal to 25% of the damage dealt.
+ Force: Now called Forcefield; MP Cost 6 > MP Cost 4.
+ Study: No longer reveals loot and items; now debuffs Resistance and Resilience with perfect accuracy.
+- Earth Dragon Tome: Now called Earth Dragon Scales; MP Cost 28 > MP Cost 16; Targets All > AOE 2, Range 4; damages enemies and buffs allies' Resistance in area.
+- Rime Bolt Tome: Now called Glacial Wall; MP Cost 28 > MP Cost 16; Targets All > AOE 2, Range 4; damages enemies and buffs allies' Defense in area.
+- Thunder Flare Tome: Now called Cacophonous Storm; MP Cost 28 > MP Cost 16; Targets All > AOE 2, Range 4; damages enemies and buffs allies' Attack in area.
+- Umbral Ghost Tome [Shadow Shade Tome]: Now called Whisper From Beyond; MP Cost 28 > MP Cost 16; Targets All > AOE 2, Range 4; damages enemies and buffs allies' Magick in area.
+ Mad Scientist: AOE 1 > AOE 2; now grants random buffs to allies and random debuffs to enemies in area.


FENCER:

The Fencer has been slowly drifting toward more of a magic knight job and I've decided to just embrace it. Their abilities are slightly stronger and deal elemental damage but have MP costs. Swallowtail in particular got a substantial buff, closer in power to the Paladin's Storm of Vengeance. Manastrike can now be used in conjunction with dark absorption to restore MP. The only thing to get an undiluted nerf was Checkmate because, uh, did you know that Doom is actually a really good status effect? Imagine my surprise.

+ Swarmstrike: Non-elemental > Wind Elemental
+- Featherblow: MP Cost 0 > MP Cost 4; Non-elemental > Wind Elemental
+- Swallowtail: MP Cost 0 > MP Cost 14; Half Accuracy > Normal Accuracy; Non-elemental > Wind Elemental
+ Manastrike: Non-elemental > Dark Elemental
- Checkmate: MP Cost 14 > MP Cost 16


GREEN MAGE:

The Green Mage loses Absorb MP mostly because I needed something to give to Elementalists, who had no passives or reactions at all.

o No longer learns Absorb MP.
o Now learns Resistance UP.


RED MAGE:

Magick Counter is a much better reaction ability than Sticky Fingers, and makes a ton more sense for this job.

o No longer learns Sticky Fingers or Magick UP.
o Now learns Magick Counter.

+ Cure: Base healing buffed by ~50%


ELEMENTALIST:

The Elementalist was one of the few jobs in the game with no passive or reaction abilities of any kind, so I spread things out a little bit to give them a new toy to play with. I also buffed Earthsalve and Whiteblaze's output, since they were falling off really hard in the midgame.

o Now learns Absorb MP and Magick UP.

+ Earthsalve: Base healing buffed by ~33%
+ Whiteblaze: Base healing buffed by ~50%


SUMMONER:

I fixed a bug that was causing Phoenix to always deal 0 damage.

+ Phoenix: Now properly deals damage.


SNIPER:

Sniper had two abilities that got reworked from gear rending abilities, and as such had really high AP costs for no good reason. Fixed now. They also get Concentration, since it got moved up onto advanced ranged jobs from intermediate ones. Death Strike felt like a natural fit for them as well, and is pretty good with Doubleshot.

o No longer learns Regenerate.
o Now learns Concentration, Death Strike, and Attack UP.

+ Ebon Arrow and Masterstroke: AP cost reduced


SPELLBLADE:

I wanted to give the Spellblade some options for a build that doesn't rely on Blood Price, and Doublehand pairs with their stat spread pretty nicely to make them strong physical attackers.  Of course, they have an even better option in that regard now, because...

o Now learns Doublehand.


ASSASSIN:

Turns out Viera can actually learn Dual Wield (giving it to anybody else besides them and Humes will crash the game.) How could I not? Enjoy! Critical: Vanish is also pretty great for the fragile Assassins, ambush predators that they are.

o Now learns Critical: Vanish and Dual Wield.


ANIMIST:

Animists are the most defensive of the basic Moogle jobs, building into Moogle Knights, so they get a suite of reaction abilities that should help them in that niche. They get Regenerate right from the start of the game, which should help with how fragile early Moogles can be. Evade Magick and MP Shield are learned later, but combined with the Moogle Knight's new acquisitions should give you a wealth of options for Moogle builds.

o No longer learns Archer's Bane.
o Now learns Regenerate, Evade Magick, MP Shield, and Resistance UP.


MOOGLE KNIGHT:

I needed to increase Moogle damage, and buffing Moogle Knights was a no-brainer. The damage on their main attacks was kinda pathetic. Combined with their stat boosts they hit much more solidly now. They also get somewhat early access to Absorb Damage, which can help them tank more effectively. And I couldn't resist giving them Dragonheart - it just feels right for them. I also reworked Unstoppable [Moogle Aid] a little bit, making it a stronger tanking tool at the expense of its status healing potential. This way it's not just an exact copy of Chakra. It also got another, more referential rename.

o No longer learns Critical: Haste.
o Now learns Absorb Damage, Dragonheart, and Defense UP.

+ Blade of Peace: AP cost reduced; Base damage buffed by ~100%
+ Blade of War: Base damage buffed by ~100%
+- Unstoppable [Moogle Aid]: Now called Determination; no longer removes status effects; now reduces damage taken by half until next turn.


JUGGLER:

I was really unhappy with where Jugglers were at. They're one of my favorite jobs and for some reason I can't fathom I nerfed the absolute bejeezus out of them. Time for a correction. Dagger Toss and especially Molotov Cocktail got their raw damage output drastically increased. Ring Toss and Ball Toss got unique updates; if they connect they now have a chance to critically hit and apply an extra status effect. I did drop Ring Toss's base effect from stop to immobilize, however, both because a free stop spell was pretty overpowered and there really isn't anywhere further to go from stop anyway. Having both Gil Toss and Juggle [Weapon Toss] was redundant, because they're both ways to turn your spare endgame gil into damage. I kept the more interesting of the two and replaced Gil Toss with the Trickster's Traumatize, which Jugglers can capitalize on beautifully now that they can inflict multiple status effects at once. And Smile Toss is now a free haste spell that has a chance to critically hit and quicken the target. This allows it to be stronger without the guaranteed infinite loops of the old version. (NB: Allies with higher resilience will have a lower chance of getting quickened, so keep that in mind.)

o No longer learns Gil Toss; now learns Traumatize instead.
o No longer learns Sticky Fingers.
o Now learns Critical: Evasion UP and Attack UP.

+ Dagger Toss: Base damage buffed by ~100%.
+ Molotov Cocktail: Base damage buffed by ~150%.
+- Ring Toss: Now inflicts Immobilize instead of Stop; has a chance to critically hit and also Stop the target.
+ Ball Toss: Has a chance to critically hit and also Addle the target.
+ Smile Toss: Now adds Haste instead of a random buff; has a chance to critically hit and also Quicken the target.


FUSILIER:

As part of the general effort to increase Moogle damage output, Fusiliers got some buffs. Fireshot, Boltshot, and Iceshot can now be used in two concurrent turns after a charge turn, which helps round-over-round damage output a lot. Stopshot and Charmshot now deal the same damage as the other status shots, so you're penalized less for fishing for your big status effects.

o No longer learns Concentration.
o Now learns Archer's Bane.

+ Fireshot, Boltshot, Iceshot: MP Cost 16 > MP Cost 14
+ Stopshot, Charmshot: Quarter Damage > Half Damage


TINKER:

Tinkers now get acess to both Absorb MP and Halve MP, neither of which Moogles previously had access to. This should really help your Animists, Black Mages, Tinkers, and Fusiliers in the late game.

o No longer learns Regenerate or MP Shield.
o Now learns Absorb MP, Halve MP, and Magick UP.


FLINTLOCK:

Protect Cannon and Shell Cannon didn't feel like they were worth the Prime turn, so I replaced them with Barrier Cannon and Haste Cannon. Barrier Cannon is still a little meh, but you might have some use for it time to time. Haste Cannon is quite a bit more useful. Teleport Cannon is now perfectly reliable, given that it is both niche and fun to use. I swapped the damage numbers on Ether Boost and Blowback, but gave Blowback recoil based on its damage dealt instead of the user's HP, which should make it a little more dangerous to use all the time.

o No longer learns Protect Cannon; now learns Barrier Cannon instead.
o No longer learns Shell Cannon; now learns Haste Cannon instead.
o Now learns Concentration.

+ Barrier Cannon: Adds Protect, Shell, and Regen to the target.
+ Haste Cannon: Adds Haste and Regen to the target.
+ Teleport Cannon: Half Accuracy > Perfect Accuracy
- Ether Boost: Nerfed base damage by ~20%
+- Blowback: Buffed base damage by ~20%; 20% HP Recoil > 25% Damage Dealt Recoil
+ Ether Cannon: AP cost reduced


BERSERKER:

Vicious Blow, like the Hunter's Vital Shot, just wasn't all that fun or interesting to use. I replaced it with Savage Beating, a low-accuracy spike damage attacking move in the vein of Beatdown or Sneak Attack. Ground Shaker, Thump, and Thrash [Furore] were doing utterly obscene damage. Berserkers have really good attacking stats as it is, and they didn't need a free Earth Render on top of it. This nerf should bring them more in line with other fighting classes. They still hit plenty hard, they just won't be reliably threatening to one-shot squishy units for free any more.

o No longer learns Vicious Blow; now learns Savage Beating
+ Thump AP cost reduced

+ Savage Beating: Weapon attack; Half Accuracy; Double Damage; has a chance to inflict Immobilize on hit
- Ground Shaker: Base damage nerfed by ~33%
- Thump: Base damage nerfed by ~33%
- Thrash [Furore]: Base damage nerfed by ~33%


RANGER:

Ranger traps are fun and interesting, so why not make them easier to use? (Okay, to be honest this is just another thing I'm swiping from Triangle Strategy.)

o Now learns Resistance UP.

+ Sten Needle, Silence Gas, Mana Leech, Love Potion: Range 2 > Range 3


VIKING:

Vikings now get Absorb MP and Halve MP so they can keep up with your other casters better in the late game. Tsunami also became more generally useful at the cost of some of its flavor.

o No longer learns Safeguard or Absorb Damage.
o Now learns Charged Attacks, Absorb MP, Halve MP, and Magick UP.

+ Tsunami: No longer requires the user to be standing in water.


LANISTA:

Absorb Damage was moved from Vikings to Lanistas because it feels more on theme for them.

o Now learns Absorb Damage and Defense UP.


RAPTOR:

Raptors traded in Counter for Blink Counter, since they have a knockback theme now. They also get Absorb Damage instead of Reflex because they're supposed to be lacking in the evasion department. Tank also swapped from Ravagers to Raptors, since Ravagers can no longer equip heavy armor. Raptors are now solidly the defensive job, while Ravagers focus on offense.

o No longer learns Counter, Reflex, or Safeguard.
o Now learns Tank, Blink Counter, Absorb Damage, and Defense UP.


RAVAGER:

Ravagers lost Strikeback for the same reason Raptors lost Reflex. Critical: Berserk is pretty bad and I don't expect you'll ever actually use it, but for pure flavor reasons I felt like it fit.

o No longer learns Tank, Strikeback, or Defense UP.
o Now learns Critical: Berserk, Death Strike, and Attack UP.


GEOMANCER:

Geomancers now have nearly exclusive access to Geomancy, with Scholars being the only other job to get it. Not only does this make a ton of obvious sense, but it's way less broken for them than it is for, say, Paravirs. This will give those finnicky geomancy spells enough punch to be well worth the hassle of using them.

o No longer learns Critical: Evasion UP.
o Now learns Regenerate, Charged Attacks, and Geomancy.


SKY PIRATE:

A couple of Sky Pirate abilities are still broken and I have absolutely no idea what I did. I'm sorry. At least know that when I get these abilities working again they'll have somewhat more generous effects.

+ Jackpot: Now steals double gold four times instead of three.
+- Crime Spree: Instead of stealing one piece of L4 loot, double gold, and one consumable item, now steals double gold and three pieces of L4 loot.


BARD:

Hurdy now gets fighter movement instead of caster movement, since Bard is a hybrid job. I also cut the cost of Nameless Song in half, and fixed a big that was causing Hide to not work.

+ Move 3 > Move 4

+ Hide: Now properly functions.
+ Nameless Song: MP Cost 12 > MP Cost 6


SHELLING:

When I took most of the gear rending abilities out of the game I missed one. Shellings will no longer spike your blood pressure at random points.

- Munch: No longer destroys gear; now deals damage and debuffs Defense.


WEAPONS AND ARMOR:

Mid to late game weapons with no or few abilities got substantial boosts to their stats to make them less disappointing to obtain, and to make late game gearing more fun and intersting. In addition, knightswords and books got some small buffs to differentiate them from each other better. The White Hat, White Robe, and a couple of other high end robes got some buffs as well. Resistance gear in general got better, since it's a less appealing stat than the others. Detailed information on weapon and armor buffs is included in a text file.

COMPLETE CHANGES:










MORE DETAILED INFORMATION IN INCLUDED TEXT FILES!

If hex editing is as easy as referencing a spreadsheet and altering some variables then you bet I'm in.  This may take awhile now just because the scope of what I can accomplish is going to expand so much, I might have to reevaluate some of what I want to do, hahaha.  Exciting!

Quote2. I thought of doing that recently and I felt it would be like breaking what made FF Blue Mage so unique but if I understand why you want to do it. Uncheck Already Mastered in Job Editor and add it in AP index for Hume and in text editor with a Max AP. Also uncheck Learnable or something in those abilities for monsters.

I agree with you that it's a tradeoff.  Blue Magic is a unique and fun concept, and I am losing quite a bit by shortcutting things so much.  I just love the Blue Magic spells but I never actually use them because getting the right abilities on a Beastmaster and then wrangling the right monster is such a time-consuming ordeal.  I have a toddler to take care of, and another baby on the way.  I want to be able to play with it, so for my purposes the tradeoff is worth it.

The actual problem I was having with putting Blue Magic on weapons is that they're not indexed in the Equipment NMM.  Could I just add them to the list and it would do the rest, or are there hex values I need to track down to link those to the actual abilities?

ETA: Just realized I never answered your initial question.  Sorry, scatterbrained today.  Got a lot on my mind.

Quote
I released a patch when I got back to work on the mod with elemental weakness to playable races but I regretted and now I won't include it in the next one. Reason was that even when it seems the number of elements match very well with the races, I felt it could be easily exploited by jobs with abilities that hit all units or large areas. To solve this what are going to do? Or don't you think it will be an issue? I'm interested in your perspective.

To be honest I'm not 100% happy with the outcome.  It's a bit of a remnant of an earlier version of the patch where Bangaa and Gria felt pretty overpowered.  Elemental weaknesses seemed like an effective way to deal with it, since Nu Mou served as an effective counter.  However, as I shaved off the rougher edges of the stats and itemization, the situation is a little more uneven.

I have two potential counters to the issues raised by elemental weaknesses on playable races.  The first is to try to mix things up enough that a single Illusionist or Summoner can't trivialize the whole fight.  If blanketing the whole battlefield in Ice kills the Bangaa but heals the Ice Flans it's at least strategically interesting as a tradeoff.  If some fight can be trivialized through the use of elemental effects, well, that's smart tactics and I don't mind rewarding it from time to time, provided it doesn't turn the whole game into a cakewalk.

The second counter is itemization.  Ice Shields and Robes become more valuable to a Bangaa, and a sword that absorbs Wind becomes a huge asset for a Gria in the right circumstances.  I changed a lot of Absorb effects into Immune effects, but the result is the same without allowing Blood Price shenanigans.  I think this makes itemization a little more interesting and rewards the player for using all the tools at their disposal.  I can use the same tricks when I get around to altering the encounters.

Quoteit is possible if you learn where the job table is assigned to within the Hex Editor that you/you're using, i'll provide the table below as a .txt file.

Thanks a bunch! Actual hex editing is outside my capabilities right now, but I'll take it as a chance to learn.

QuoteFrom this, did you just nerfed the base game MP items/MP recovery? or the Natural MP Regeneration along with the clan privileges around MP? Also Ether Shell can be changed since it's using a fixed value for it's MP recovery amount.

Ah, sorry, realize I was unclear about this. I just nerfed MP restoration abilities. I didn't realize it was possible to nerf the game's base MP regeneration or the related clan privileges.

QuoteFrom your notes for Blue Mage changes, i'm assuming you did the same changes to the base monster abilities as well? Cause most times the Monsters are the ones that have their main abilities way more proficiently mastered than the Blue Mage....

Yes, I did. Thanks for checking, though; it would have been easy to miss. I didn't put it in my notes, but I did quite a bit of refactoring on non-Blue Magic enemy abilities as well.

Ooh, dunno why I didn't think of that.  Thanks for the tip!

Special thanks to Lennart, DeSgeretjin, bcrobert, AGodDangMoose and any others I'm not aware of for developing the excellent tools I used to make this patch. Likewise, special thanks goes to Kuro for helping me iron out some problems I was having and answering my newbie questions.

So, in my opinion FFTA2 is a good game. Unfortunately, there are a few things about it that drive me a little bit crazy. It's not really that the game is too easy, it's that there's a lot of interesting potential that goes untapped. It's a game about exploring lots of cool builds but a couple of first-order strategies crowd everything else out.

When I discovered that there were excellent modding tools available for the game, I got an itch I couldn't ignore: could I make a version of the game I'd enjoy replaying more? One where a lot more strategies were viable and interesting? I couldn't rest until I figured it out.

I want to state up front that this is not a difficulty patch, or at least is not intended to be. Yes, it is harder than the base game, but I'm not trying to make a Kaizo hack here. I want the game to be enjoyable in both Normal and Hard mode, and cater to both kinds of player. The goal here is to optimize for fun.

A zip file with the patch and some notes is attached. Please note that my information is not exhaustive; I wasn't perfectly assiduous in my note-taking. I'll be happy to answer any questions to the best of my ability.

WHAT'S DIFFERENT?

For starters, I rebalanced all of the stat values and growths in the entire game, as well as most of the abilities. I tried to give different jobs and monsters different reasons to exist: strengths to leverage, weaknesses to exploit, choices to make, etc.

I tried to create a wider gulf between offensive, defensive and support jobs. I allowed units like Assassins, Snipers, Summoners and Cannoneers to do their thing, but balanced them out by making them easy to one-shot if they get caught out. As a result, positioning matters a whole lot more, and defensive jobs like the Paladin, Defender and Lanista see their stock rise considerably.

I added or altered a lot of MP costs. The game actually has an interesting MP system but doesn't use it as much as it could. I tried to explore a broader range of MP costs and make stronger use of MP breakpoints. My goal was to allow powerful abilities to exist, but to effectively limit how often they could be used.

On the same note, I neutered MP restoration across the board. I didn't remove it from the game, but it is now much less effective at trivializing the cost of spells. The only exception is the Cannoneer's Ether Shell, which appears to be hard-coded. (If I'm mistaken and somebody knows how to fix this I'd be very grateful if you let me know.)

I also play with evasion and accuracy much more than the initial game does. Jobs now have inherent evasion values, and Moogles, Gria and Seeq have evasion bonuses or penalties across the board. This makes fights more exciting and swingy, and alows for things like physically frail Thieves and Assassins that rely on their evasion instead of their HP to get by. I understand some people find this kind of RNG completely unpalatable, and to them I'm sorry. They are probably not going to find this patch very enjoyable.

To compensate for the increased evasion, I made the tools to fight it stronger. High-accuracy abilities like Blitz, Featherblow and Take Aim now deal full damage instead of half. This gives jobs like Fighter, Gladiator, Fencer and Archer a niche at taking out stuff like Assassins and Jugglers. Likewise, enemies gained more pronounced typing. I'll let the player discover this on their own (there's some fun surprises in there, let me assure you.)

I played around a lot more with elemental reistances and weaknesses. I gave a lot of monsters elemental interactions that didn't exist before. I tried to keep things consistent across types; plant enemies are weak to fire but absorb water, winged enemies are weak to wind but resist earth, etc. In addition, player characters interact with the system now, too. Bangaa are weak to ice (due to being cold blooded), Gria are weak to wind (due to their wings), and Seeq resist ice (due to their thick blubber.) It's not Pokemon now, but I felt that the system was underutilized in the base game, and I feel playing around with elemental effects makes the game more interesting.

I also changed almost every single piece of gear in the entire game. I cut the amount of stats gained from gear across the board so that players no longer easily outscale monsters as the game goes on. I also lowered the effectiveness of defensive gear across the board, especially as regards the resistance stat; this makes faffing around with MP more rewarding since spells are now more generally useful. Clothes and hats now grant very low defensive bonuses but boost other stats, while heavy armor almost exclusively is used for its high defense and robes for their high resistance. Many accessories had their stats shuffled around. Boots now all grant at least one point of Move, for example.

As for weapons, I flattened the attack growth curves quite a bit. This is a game where gear is used mostly for learning new abilities, and yet the base game gives weapons and armor a progression like it's a straightforward RPG. I kept some of this intact to keep a sense of growth and progression and maintain the excitement of new gear drops, but I limited weapons and armor to specific breakpoints to keep things more manageable from a stat growth standpoint. Gear now has effective upsides and downsides, and different kinds of weapons serve different purposes. This makes gearing up more interesting while the player is not learning new abilities, and allows for different kinds of builds as the game progresses.

And on that note, I cut AP costs across the board. This is a really psychotically grindy game after the player unlocks the Auction House, and I don't think it's fair to assume every player wants to use Bonus AP 3 in every single fight. This also cuts down on the dead time where units are stuck in the "wrong" class on the way to something else, as well as the early game doldrums when your whole party is stuck as Soldiers, Black Mages and Thieves. The only job I was unable to do this for was the Bangaa Warrior, since the editor I was using kept mistaking their skillset for the identically-named Soldier skillset. (Once again, if anyone knows a fix for that I'd be very grateful.)

I reimagined the Tinker. It now hands out AOE buffs and debuffs in a big area instead of its original design. I actually think the OG Tinker is pretty interesting from a purely theoretical standpoint, but uh... did anybody actually use them?

I reversed the baffling decision to put all of the key Animist abilities on gear locked behind late-game missions. Tail Wag, Sheep Count and Catnip now show up on much earlier weapons, while 100% Wool got pushed to the Conch Shell.

Special jobs also got some work. Hurdy and Penelo's abilities now cost MP but affect your whole team like the Bard and Dancer from the original Tactics. Vaan's skillset got some buffs, mostly because I feel sorry for him. I didn't bother with Al Cid because I've never even unlocked him. If there's enough demand maybe I'll revisit the idea. Also, the Heritor got a few buffs but no major overhaul. I'm planning to revisit it at some point.

And lastly, although this is not a balance or challenge patch, I did nerf some first-order strategies to make player choices a little more interesting. Hi-Potions and X-Potions now heal for less. Mirror Potion/Hi-Potion/X-Potion now check resilience instead of evasion. MP restoration is nerfed across the board (although I also nerfed MP damage by half to compensate a little.) Absorbtion shenanigans got nipped in the bud through the nerfing of elemental shields and robes. The Ravager's abilities are now balanced through accuracy nerfs to sell the feeling of a devastating but wild berserker. The Raptor's crushes deal half damage. The Juggler's abilities now have a range of 3, and Smile Toss grants Haste instead of Quicken. Super high-range weapons like guns, cards and hand-cannons got various nerfs to make them less totally busted.

There's probably a little more that I missed, but that's the gist of it.  Feel free to explore the patch and peruse my notes. I welcome feedback.

WHAT'S NEXT?

Here's some stuff I'd love to do but either haven't found the time or haven't figured out quite yet. If anybody knows some of this stuff I'd welcome some guidance:

- I've heard you can turn the Keeper job into a playable job? Because I have this idea for a new Gria job...
- I want to put Blue Magic abilities on weapons. I'd keep them learnable the old way and give them high AP costs, so there would still be a point to all the rigamarole, but as it stands acquiring Blue Magic is such a pain in the ass that it's not really worth it.
- I'm planning to do more shuffling of which weapons teach which abilities like I did for the Animist, but that's going to be a big project.
- I want to make Hi-Potions and X-Potions more expensive. Does anybody know if there's a way to change their cost?
- I'd love to alter the amount restored by Ether Cannon and change Warrior JP costs, but unfortunately if they can be changed I can't figure it out.
- I'd like to alter a lot of unit names, but boy oh boy are there a lot of them to alter by hand. I'll probably grind this out over time.
- Likewise, I want to mess with enemy formations, but for right now I'm leaving them as the base game until I can develop a comprehensive game plan.

The patch and my notes are linked below. Eagerly awaiting any responses!

Actually, since you offered to help out, there's a few more things I've been unable to do.  A push in the right direction or conformation that they can't be done at the moment would be a big help.

1. Some single-target abilities such as Expose Weakness and Chakra soft-lock the game if turned into AoE abilities.   Is there a fix for that?
2. I'm interested in making Hurdy and Penelo's abilities affect all allies or enemies, like the OG Bard/Dancer or Illusionist.  Can this be done?
3. Is there a way to make specific spells ignore evasion or resistance?
4. Can anything at all profitable be done with the Tinker or Chocobo Knight?  Could I replace the Tinker skillset with AOE buffs that use something like the Steal formula, so they're free but get less effective with each successive use?  Could I teach the Chocobo Knight abilities from the Chocobo enemy skillset by putting it on gear?  Could something similar be done to give Blue Mages a couple rudimentary abilities on Sabers?  Anything like that?
5. Will I screw anything up if I mess with the AP costs of abilities?

I'll figure some of this out with experimentation over time, but my dev time is really limited and your experience on these matters would be invaluable.

Oh, thanks!  I actually figured it out myself this morning, hahaha.  I'll gladly grab the updated abilities.txt too, though.

Thank you for the reply, and oh my God, you're right!  I just checked the job list in my equipment nightmare module and it's lacking all the Seeq, Gria and special jobs!  I can't believe I didn't catch that before... the thread I downloaded it from said that the list in the OP had been updated, so I assumed it had.  Ah well, these things happen.  Where can I get an updated jobs.txt?

EDIT: Never mind, I figured it out myself!  Thank you so much for pointing me in the right direction.  I've attached the updated jobs.txt for anybody else who's stuck.

I am 99% done with a mod I've been plugging away at for about two months now.  I was doing a final playtest run before starting a writeup so I could upload it to the forums when I ran into an absolute disaster of a bug.  For some reason my Seeq and Gria can't learn anything; their abilities all show up as Soldier abilities and cost 0 AP.  I ran into this bug earlier when I tried messing around with which weapons teach which abilities, so I reverted to a previous version and haven't touched that sort of thing since.  I'm also 100% positive I didn't have the bug in my latest revision before this one.  What could have caused this?  Is it fixable?  I'd be crushed if I came this far just to blow up at the finish line...

Sorry, still working on my first playthrough.  I'm getting married in two weeks here so I won't have a ton of free time until after then.  Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about you.

You can count me in, of course.  I'm already working on my notes and playthrough.  Would you like my feedback in this thread, or do you want me to send it to you privately?

Updated the OP with some notes on game balance.

I apologize for the inaccuracies in my statements.  I should have done some better research beforehand.