Final Fantasy Hacktics

Quote from: "Kaijyuu"I quite like all the original jobs, just not necessarily their implementation. Case and point: Calculator was a great idea, I think, but not charging and no MP cost = what the hell?!

So in my personal patch, all I did was redistribute some abilities, remove gained JP up, balance out total JP cost to master jobs, bump up JP requirements for raising job levels, and other minor tweaks. No giant changes to any one job.

Quote from: "formerdeathcorps"I care more for overall balance between generalized categories (magic vs. physical; status vs. damage; specials vs. generics) than making all unit classes roughly equal in capacity or use.  Personally, I prefer difficulty and tedium over what most people on here consider balance.

More specifically?  I have a massive list.  If you want, I can PM you it.  I'll just say that I consolidated bard/dancer, replaced calculator with red mage, and redid almost all the previously boring unit classes (yes, even partial workarounds for mime, samurai, lancer, and geomancer).  All the specials except Mustadio and most enemies have been replaced with personal RP characters or various online personalities from the various forums I visit.
As for abilities?  I deleted blade grasp (and hamedo, effectively) from player use.  I redistributed all the counter abilities and created FFTA's bonecrusher ability.  Moved Gained-JP Up to a master class.  Made two key unit classes dependent on spillover JP for proper mastery (partly as a workaround, partly as a restriction on the number of physical fighters).  In every instance except one, JP costs for abilities or levels either stayed the same or were increased, but effectiveness was rarely reduced except on the most broken attacks.

QuoteSo when you balanced out the total JP cost to master jobs, did you standardize a set per job total and them split that total among the individual skills?

QuoteBy leveling in a class with strong MA growth and then changing to a class with a High PA mult, you could be very successful at creating a hybrid character. Is this balanced? No

QuoteI'm speaking very generally with broad strokes

Quote from: "Jack of All Trades"These two arguments have very little effect on the mechanics of game play and do little to reward the player as far as fun factor goes.

QuoteToo many games balance at max power and assume the player will reach it before the end. That's a flaw in design -- you shouldn't be able to reach max power before the end at all without specifically intending to.

Quote from: "Voldemort"FFT isn't balanced around assuming the player will reach ABSOLUTE MAX POWER before the end

one look at how easy it is should make that obvious

Quote from: "Kaijyuu"

Quote from: "Voldemort"FFT isn't balanced around assuming the player will reach ABSOLUTE MAX POWER before the end

one look at how easy it is should make that obvious

FFT isn't balanced at all, really Though I'll admit the glaring problems aren't as obvious at lower levels.

QuoteFFT IS balanced, as long as you don't use secondaries or RSMs, and are playing at a low level.

Quote from: "Samuraiblackbelt"no, each individual class is balanced on it's own, the developers just didn't seem to think about what would happen if you did something like mix a wizard and samurai together.

Quote from: "formerdeathcorps"

Quote from: "Samuraiblackbelt"no, each individual class is balanced on it's own, the developers just didn't seem to think about what would happen if you did something like mix a wizard and samurai together.

It seems your concept of balance has three components:
If you define it as any strategy that can be used to consistently to defeat most squads in the game with little modification, than literally any squad of 5 units that has 2 support units, 2 strikers, and 1 hybrid is imbalanced as long as they have optimal attacks and equips.
If you define it as any strategy that can be used better on a non-original unit class, then any unit with high growths is "imbalanced".
If you define it as any ability (especially R/S/M) that is deadlier than average and confers significant advantages that would normally cost CT or void other units' skills/equips; well, the opposite question could also be asked: can or should every ability and class be equal, even in a rough sense?  If that's the case, why are some unit classes harder to unlock/have costlier equips than others?  How much should one unit devote in moves and equips to block another unit's skillset (or should such hard counters not exist)?

What will your ideal "balanced game" look like?  Reaction abilities cannot exceed even counter in power because that would be "too much", or if they do, become limited to a handful of classes as innate skills.  Only the defensive support abilities could possibly be fair; anything that boosts offense or support (even something fairly mild like throw item or concentrate) would be too much.  Anything that can instantly do anything that a mage could charge for would be suspect.  Anything that boosts one's ability to move/act would be reduced or non-existent.  All growths would not only have to be flattened, but would have to be standardized (or you'll see too much of one class).
Of course, I'm generalizing here and not all the above needs to taken to match the vision of balance you seem to be projecting, but I'm just pointing out that I can't agree with this concept of balance you and PX seem to believe in because it literally leaves one with no recognizably similar game to play for the sake of "rebalancing the game".  In other words, according to you, only a complete remake/excision of hard-coded classes/skills could possibly be balanced.  Not only is this excessive, but is flawed in only considering in-battle factors.

I personally define broken as any tactic that requires no thought for victory.  In other words, mechanical tricks that can be repeated (golem + hamedo; Move-MP UP + MP Switch) on any unit with little cost.  Imbalanced is the overall skew of the game towards melee units with swords, lances, instant skills, and swordskills.  There are many ways to fix that, and you don't need to remove R/S/M to do this.