Final Fantasy Hacktics

So, I won't lie.

I AM FUCKING PISSED

I worked very hard on CoP. Very very hard. The ammount of problems, of little things that were wrong, graphics, getting people to help me, trying to get a good story, getting a good battle system and finnaly dealing with incredibly annoying bugs.

As such, I finnaly gave a very-non perfect patch but still, it's the first story hack of the site, so I expected people to comment and enjoy CoP at it's fullest.

But so far i've got 2 streams of CoP, no youtube videos, and 37replies in the main topic. 37 is nothing, especially since about only 8-9 of them are genuine comments that help me get a vision of what is wrong/good with CoP (thanks mike, but where did you go?). I am very dissapointed, and pissed...

I mean, seriously, the stupid ammount of hours passed to do everything just killed me, it was long and harsh, very painfull and I tried to get it to everyone... Bah I know from the little i've got that - CoP is a good work, but it's not that fun nor that entertaining. Is it worth pursuing?

I know many of you are angry at merc for being stopped working on, but If you get pissed at me for not wanting to continue, well it's your problem. I took an ungodly ammount of hours to make this, I delivered what I think is a good enjoyable game, and I had to put up with more crap than you can immagine. But now this? A complete desert of comments and ideas? Have I wasted my fucking time doing this big anticipated projet to get only so very few comments? This pisses me off greatly to see that CoP here is nothing really to the eyes of a community that seems like it needs a big projet doing. I understand that no one can really get involved completly in it, but the job topics got no comments either, that's not asking much - There is more comments on the custom jobs topic- those not even in a working/new patch, those that will never be used! There is nothing said about the story (I agree that it IS bad, but THAT bad?) nor the caracthers really, nothing nothing nothing and this over-the-head frustration for me.

So what now? Chapter2 could be make in way less time than chapter one (4 months?) but I don't feel at all like trying to make it now. I feel like it's not even worth to keep this version up, since there is no interest in it. I leave this topic to discussion about the future of CoP, but let's say the present is almost innexistant. Is it so hard to comment on what can be a great, working projet ?

TL:DR : I am pissed because you guys don't comment on my shit that seems worthwhile while complaining nothing is happening. What the fucking hell.

I am one of the few persons that can understand the incredible amount of time required for hacking. I've done pretty much every kind of hacking on FFT and most of them are very time consuming. Not just that, but I know the other hackers may take much longer time to do some things, mainly Event editing which is easily the most time consuming.
A small example is my DEB vs Kanbabrif video event... Guess how much time that took me for under 2 minutes of footage? 5-6 hours. And that event didn't even have fucking custom sprite animations. Map editing is very tedious too and personally I'm pretty sure I would've dealt with what was already present in the game since there are other priorities in a hack.

CoP honestly has been over my expectations. You published a lot of events and battles with very unique objectives i.e. : Opening iron gates by force and running past minions to reach a door to make an escape.

Of course CoP as its flaws and that's very understandable. In my book most flaws should be gone by Chapter 2 completion, which supposes it would be a solid game.

It's hard to comment on the story as it only starts when Chapter 1 ends. And all I can say with this is that it looks good.

I'd like to comment of the feedback and popularity problem, but I can't much. I've completed Chapter 1 of KoI and I'm pretty sure that I'm not working on it anymore because of the lack of attention. Even by setting the goal as my own and not making the patch for others I have a hard time working on it. Perhaps it's too much work for a single man, I don't know... I definitely have much more asm hacks in KoI but without a doubt you invested at least 3x more time in CoP than I did with KoI. Also I agree with what LD said, CoP made way more progress than Mercs did; completely outclassed.

If you ask me I don't want this project to die. I'm not the "since you made it this far, might as well finish it" kind of guy. What I think is that CoP has what it needs to make a solid, great (which means better than most RPGs) on the market, made by a small group of fans. Just achieving that would be priceless.

Why have I not said anything earlier? I know I spoke about it a bit in chat, but it's mostly because I'm lazy as fuck. I posted today because it deserved a worthy explanation.

It can definitely be frustrating to have all your work under appreciated. I think a part of the problem is that the people on this forum are more focused on creating their own work than helping with others or even playing it. I for one haven't played a single hack that has come from this site, though I have been meaning to play through COP (I will get back to this later). To boost your motivation I think it is important to reach out to other communities and get word about your project out there. I think some of the best compliments I have recieved about FFT:C have come from random users finding it on Youtube. Try romhacking.net too. Though it is dissappointing the lack of input you have been recieving especially since this project as moved along so smoothly and definitely has some great innovation and custom content (as mentioned by Zodiac). I really don't know why, you are nice and do good work. Perhaps it is because you post most of your progress and updates in the chat and not as much in the forum? Your organization seems good to me, but maybe just more clearly defining what you need input in on? Just having more previews available, your older videos were good but you personally didn't have much showing around the actual release I think? These are just some thoughts, they might not all be on target.

I'm not really sure. Are you planning on release a update to chapter 1 to do some bug fixing? Releasing with some bugs is fine, but I think many people are expecting and perhaps waiting for a release that has a bit more polish on it (don't you even have a topic for reporting bugs?). I also know that I and others were working on a new custom sprite for Gospel, but that wasn't included at all. I know that I was a bit dissappointed to not see it included, and I'm not sure we got any explaination about why it wasn't. I don't mean to be pointing fingures or to knock you down further than you already are, I'm just trying to help you think about potential reasons.

The bottom line is that the COP is a good project and you do good work. I agree that the response has been a little lack luster and it is unfair and I certainly haven't been part of the solution. I don't think it is because of the project or you, but probably some small factors that can be addressed to get the momentum back and your motivation back. If you would like I could do a playthrough with commentary, I have been giving that I try for my own reasons and if you think it would help out the project I would be happy to help out. Send me a PM and we could talk about it, or if there is anything else you want to go over privately. I don't post as often as much as I once did, but I'm still happy to help out as I can.

I thought you would have gotten more feedback than you apparently have. I'm the sort of person who doesn't say anything about things like this unless it adds to the conversation. It's the reason why I hardly ever said anything about Mercenaries besides what LD asked me to write for it. There was always a bunch of people throwing around ideas left and right, so I didn't really feel like throwing my own ideas out there since they'd be bad/unworkable/already suggested. I assumed you wouldn't need any more commentary because what you've done so far is great and that there would be enough people offering up commentary, feedback and criticisms.

To be honest though, I've only played the first battle and I didn't really want to give feedback on only one battle. Why haven't I played past the first battle? It's because I hate using PS1 emulators on my laptop and I haven't gotten this to work as a PSP EBOOT yet. If I could get my PS3 controller to work with one of the damn emulators, I'd have no problem using them.  But I can't, so I'm forced to use the keyboard, which to me is clunky as hell when playing FFT. And while the controller might work with my desktop, the desktop's a POS that isn't really capable of running ePSXe well.

Still, the first battle and the events around it was more than enough to show that this is an awesome WIP. And I think it gave me a decent glimpse into what this project as a whole is going to be like. Enough that I could give some feedback in the suggestion thread (sometime tomorrow, since it's late as I'm typing this).

I'd say don't give it up just yet, since this is already pretty damn good and can only get better. But that's already been said, so now I'll shut up since I'm repeating others.

If you want, I can do a complete playthrough of the whole chapter 1 and upload it on youtube
It should earn you some more fans
Personally, I'm not that good at balancing stuff, I'm usually better suited as a player, so this is all the help I can give you Koko
P.s: I could also help you reorganizing the section, but I don't know if you need such help...

If you were working on COP for attention, you were doing it for the wrong reasons

You should continue to work on it if you enjoy it, if you make something that's cool and you finish it for yourself, other people will come

but expecting anything from something you do as just a hobby is unreasonable, this is just a hobby for us, and should remain that way whether we get lots of attn or none

About Gospel, its my fault. I'm lacking of time to continue the sprite. So far, the progress only reached rear walking frames. I'll try my best to complete the sprite so that it can be include in the next bug fixed or Chapter 2.

As for feedbacks, I actually haven't got time to play CoP yet. I'll try to give feedbacks once I play it.

You've done great, Kokojo. No doubt about it. Though, like Sir Cheetah said, perhaps try get more videos on events, main battles and those stuff that will get people excited and wanting to try on it.

Anyway, please don't give up. It is a great project that will go waste if you do.

If I had time to play the demo, I'd have given you feedback. Unfortunately, I've been waiting idly for someone to upload videos, so I could watch and comment accordingly. Frankly this project is completely underrated, and although the demo should have rectified that, most members and onlookers aren't gonna give you the appreciation you deserve. I know you're not doing this for attention, but don't let it be the reason you get discouraged. Keep up the good work, man.

New around here, and just finished playing through the demo today. I have to say I'm pretty impressed, it's amazing really what you were able to do with this great game. The jobs were interesting. Gospel's main class had some good abilities, and I really got to like thieves with crossbows toward the end of the chapter as I started to use them for their speed and versatility. Daredevils didn't seem that strong to me, though I only tried them once. The Knight's fury ability where it gets hasted/berserked was interesting to see. I used an elementalist through almost the whole chapter, sometimes using their skillset as secondary abilities Their abilities were strong, but seemed pretty balanced with each other and the rest of the game. Really liked healing mp. :P Still a nice battle though.

It is quite sad that you haven't gotten more replies on this great hack, and that you don't wish to continue on it. It's your choice, of course, but you really got something great going here and it would really be awesome to see what you would do for chapters two and three.

Wow. Some quality posts up there.
First of all, I understand what you're going through.
It's a developer's Achilles heel = 'Selling' the game.

I'm still here, Kokojo. I'm glad to hear that my comments were appreciated.
I was gone mainly because I really have to organize my time. Actually, I wasn't... I visit the forums
often, but I seldom post, just waiting for updates. In addition to this, I mentioned that my computer
was failing me. It shuts down when I play too much. :)

Quote from: "Voldemort"If you were working on COP for attention, you were doing it for the wrong reasons

You should continue to work on it if you enjoy it, if you make something that's cool and you finish it for yourself, other people will come

but expecting anything from something you do as just a hobby is unreasonable, this is just a hobby for us, and should remain that way whether we get lots of attn or none

I totally agree with Voldemort.
Me too, is a game enthusiast.. I have so many ideas in my head that I want to convert into a patch...
That's my dream. I want to be an author no matter what. I want to have something on my own that I can be proud of and share to
others. I don't care how much it sells: not all have the same mindsets!
Hopefully, that goes the same to you as well, because you have done great!

QuoteMy biggest complaint, by far, is that it seemed to take forever to kill each enemy, about 6-8 hits and sometimes more.

@Kokojo
TBH, I really like that it takes forever to kill the enemy, because I think that after battles, the gameplay is a bit linear. This adds more playing time on the battlefield, avoiding the fast-paced linearity.

Finally, ironically, this topic makes me want to play it more.

Post was removed at the request of its former creator ~ All watching god of Internet

Is Koko dead?  
Why he isn't answering to this?

He is thinking about what to do...

Quote from: "Kokojo"He is thinking about what to do...

Ah, then it's fine
If you see him, tell him that if he stops working on CoP I will kick his ass so hard that it will become purple

Koko. People wouldn't be complaining about something like this if they didn't like it.

There's another factor we haven't weighed in on yet, noone really knew how people would react to a playable event edited patch. It might take awhile for people to get interested, especially if there's no Ramza. Thats why everyone was so into Merc. It had the characters everyone knows. So it's only natural it'll take a little longer for something like to catch on. Then there's the fact that aside from here, there's been little to advertising on places like gamefaqs. Rather then getting pissed off and demotivated maybe finding out the root of the problem would be better. Something like a survey.

No, it's just because Merc was presented first. And honestly I didn't have hopes for neither patches because they hadn't proven themselves then.

edited out some stuff.

I have had a lot of experiences with making products / project that take months up to over a year to finish, working up to 5AM in the morning fixing up bugs, polishing pixels, etc. And then, sometimes there'll be products that ended up with very little reviews or that major magazines/blogs aren't picking it up - therefore reducing my product's visibility. Make no mistake that hacking in FFT is very time consuming. What you probably forgotten to do or failing to do was coming up with a reasonable estimate ratio for effort/value. Or any kind of estimation at all. Whenever you commit to a big project, you ought to make estimates and give yourself deadlines; A project with no deadline is a dead project to begin with. But at least you carried the project forward and set a deadline for yourself which makes you a lot better--more determined-- than most of the people I have seen around here. If the project is going to take 8 months to do, and you don't think it is worth your time to finish, it's probably a good idea to stop.

Sorry if this sounded harsh, but really, nothing is lost here. I am sure you have acquired a lot of skills building this project, whether it maybe related to FFT or not. As you have already said, the comments so far seem to indicate that the project itself presented here is a good accomplishment, that's about as far as you'll get here unfortunately. I mean, what else were you possibly expecting? If you really wanted to have a bigger reach, you'll need to do more on the promotional aspect; you can't always have people do this for you for free.

I don't mean to discourage you, but if you want to avoid getting yourself "pissed off" again in the future, learn you lesson here and don't make the same mistakes. Starting with a plan. Whether it is a FFT Project or a project in RL. If you wanted more visibility, get started on making promotional videos, posters, a promotional website, newsletters, have people talk about it on Twitter and Facebook. There will always be people that are disappointed in your work -- Don't let them discourage you. Do what you need to do to get a good product out, just always remember to evaluate and revise your plan.



PS: I know this post will probably make some people here angry (especially if you have never worked on a big project before). If you fail to understand or disagree with my comment, please ignore.

17:44 < wareya> zodiac I'll read it and see if he's playing with words or if he's thinking
                or badly
17:44 < wareya> okay I read the first three things and gave up
17:44 < wareya> he doesn't understand what he's looking at
...
17:45 < wareya> he doesn't even understand that cause and effect are inexclusive
17:45 < wareya> he has the "equation" backwards if he doesn't mean it to even be an equation

I played it and enjoyed it. But explaining why I like or dislike things is not something I do well.
I disliked the bugs and spelling errors, of course.. But those aren't part of the game and are meant to be fixed.

The only think I disliked about the game was the lack of the world map and it's random battles.
The map gave you a chance to explore, to feel like you're actually travelling to the next places..
And the random battles gave replayability.

I'm sorry I couldn't do more to help it out, but I was busy with school.. Also I'm a procrastinator! (I'm surprised I managed to do what I did. xD)

Even though I may not have said much about the game, I did enjoy playing it quite a bit.. Short as it was!
And I look forward to playing the next chapter, if it shows up.

I've done a bit with event editing, and I realise it's a long process.. But I agree with one of the things I read above..
You shouldn't make the game just for people to say about how good it is.. Make it because you enjoy it!
And if you don't enjoy it.. Stop working on it!

Hey Koko.


Dude: Do. Not. Quit.
I for one can tell you I am interested and I enjoy it.
May naysayers be damned, you have 100% of my support.  

Please dont quit. Its a very intresting patch but i have no ideas for anything.

I played the demo and loved it, so please dont quit

Decision taken.

I WILL continue CoP, but first il take a undeterminend-long-break. Dome and Cheetah are making videos, so il at least wait for their uploading.

I'm working on fixing his spelling and grammar errors in chapter 1. And in future chapters, too, if he wants.
I'm also gonna have to take a break, though it will be a real short one, as finals are here and I'm near failing my classes!

Events are done and I've started on job descriptions.. Still got a little ways to go!

Well I will just have to do that playthrough all the sooner then.

I'll try to find sometime to play and hopefully, give some good feedbacks.

Can't wait til the vids are up, but really can't wait for the patch. Don't take too long of a break now.

edit: I just read some of the other posts on the CoP forum and realized that some of this information maybe belongs elsewhere. Sorry for dumping it all in one post! In the future I'll look for the most appropriate place to post my thoughts before writing a screed like this

Hey, first time poster here. I just played through most of Chapter 1 (in one sitting!), and I'd be happy to lend you some feedback. Before I begin, let me say I love, love, love the patch! If my comments ever sound overly negative or nit-picky (as peer review often does) remember that overall, I think you've done superb work here. My suggestions aim only to polish what is already a very impressive project. And also, I apologize for the wall of text that's about to be unleashed; I'm pretty verbose, and this project has got me all worked up.

Now, since this is my first playthrough I'll start with some general impressions. I plan to play Chapter 1 again soon and document that playthrough in more detail. It sounds like Mari is handling typos and things of that nature, so I'll try to avoid listing them as well. ***It should be assumed that everything below this point contains spoilers!***

First, there are some wild inconsistencies with the "help text" (is that what we call it when you push Select?) for many abilities. For example, they often list a different amount of MP than the ability actually costs. I find the Defender class especially vexing in this regard (edit: I guess on the forums this class is called Fervant. I don't know if my memory is faulty or if the info on the forums is out of date, but just so you know what I'm talking about: Defender=Fervant). After reading the class description, I was pretty excited about switching my Knight to a Defender, learning Lightning Stab and Storm (sorry if the skill names are incorrect; I'm going off of memory here). But when I went to use them in the next battle (against Barinten), I was lucky that I noticed that Lightning Stab is a healing spell before casting it on the enemy! Instead, I cast Storm on him, but when it was done charging my poor defender did a little animation and.... nothing happened. No spell effect, no "Missed!" or "Guarded!," and no damage or status was inflicted on the target. Then Barinten clobbered the poor sap two turns in a row for 14 damage each time (the highest damage I've seen yet by a factor of 2!), killing the frail little guy on the spot. Let me say up front that that fight was my favorite of the chapter so far, so I'm not complaining about Barinten being overpowered at all. I'm just puzzled and disappointed by the Defender class. Neither of the abilities I've tried worked as advertised, and instead of the defensive powerhouse I thought he'd be, he's the only character who's died on me yet! He might just be the wrong Zodiac sign for that fight, but it was still disheartening. It sounds like maybe Mari is working on class and ability descriptions too, so maybe that will address some of my disenchantment with the class. I'm not sure how much of my disappointment stems from having the wrong expectations and how much of it is stuff that needs to be "fixed."

I really like that everyone has lower HP and that attacks do less damage, but one nasty side-effect I'm seeing is that it reduces the usefulness of abilities like "Magic Attack UP." I was really looking forward to my Elementalist learning it, only to see no noticeable effect on spell damage. I was doing 4-6 damage without it, and 4-6 damage with it. It made me wonder if the ability was increasing my damage by less than one and the game was just rounding it down. That's just my impression--it may have been caused by Zodiac compatibility or some other factor canceling out the bonus. Frankly, I didn't stick with the ability long enough to test it. After the first battle I ditched it for "Half MP," which I could at least be sure was doing something. Another problem with the extremely low HP levels in CoP is that it inflates the usefulness of weak attacks. 1 damage is literally the least you can do, but when enemies only have ~20 HP even that can be significant. If you can have 5 ranged attackers doing 1 damage apiece, why would you send in a melee attacker to do 3 damage at much greater risk? I know the extremely low HP levels are a design choice, and I actually do enjoy it for the most part. I just think they might be slightly too low currently.

I think the healing abilities, with the exception of Gospel's party-wide heal, are basically useless. I've never seen one heal for more than 2 HP, which doesn't feel like it's worth a turn, even with everyone's low HP. I'd like to see either a dedicated healing class that gets more bang for its buck (maybe around 6-8HP per heal?) or an increase in the difficulty of reviving fallen allies. Right now it's easier to let folks die and rez them for free (albeit with a chance of failure) than to waste precious MP and turns healing them for minuscule amounts.

I pushed the wrong button one time and accidentally exited the party screen and was forced into the next battle without being able to learn new abilities or strip down the Loot characters (which is an ingenious way of distributing loot, by the way!). I guess it's my own fault for pushing X, but there was no "Are you sure you want to exit?"-type warning or anything. Is it possible to put in a warning like that before leaving the screen? If not, is it possible to include a world map, but just disable random battles so we can't power-level? That way we could have more control over saving as well. I like to save after learning new abilities and getting equipped, but the way it stands you only get to save one time between battles.

My last criticism for now: I really don't like the name Gospel. It's too heavy-handed and too overtly religious. He might as well be named "Jesus II." I don't want to offend anyone, and I know this isn't the place for a religious debate. It doesn't matter if you're a devout Catholic or an atheist. There are plenty of great artists in literature and film who make allusions to Christ, but doing so without verging into propaganda requires a light touch.

All that being said, I am enormously excited about this project and have high expectations for the remaining chapters! The decapitation scene gave me tingles, both from the drama of the scene and excitement over the possibilities of event editing--if you can do that, what else can you do?!

Just finished my playthrough, and got an answer to my closing question from the last post: What else can you do? A LOT! Again, ***everything beyond this point may contain spoilers!***

I left off during the prison battle last night, so this is going to discuss from that point forward. First of all, the prison gates are a brilliant use of the game engine that was only hinted at in the original Tactics (I believe there were only two places where you could interact with the environment during a battle: a gate you could open with a switch in one battle, and a floodgate you could open by simultaneously standing on two switches in another battle). I look forward to many more treats like this in the future chapters. The fight itself was challenging, but not too bad. I'm not sure why some of the prisoners are armed, but I like the urgency of having to bust the door down before the guard tears them apart. My only complaint is that the enemies here can break all of your equipment, which you may not be able to replace.

The puppet battle was another interesting twist on the game. I totally buy the plot setup and rushing to a given point on the map makes for an interesting new objective. I found the battle itself on the easy side, but my guys were very mobile ("Move +1" skill and boots with move +1 on them). Don't Move is annoying, but it was just a matter of waiting for it to wear off and advancing whenever I could. At no point was I afraid of dying, and the only time I bothered to attack was when I was stuck in place and there was an enemy in range (and even then it was more just a way to vent frustration than a strategy for winning). I sort of wish the enemies were a little more aggressive so that it felt more like a struggle to move forward and less of a waiting game.

The final battle was a pushover as well, but man, what a cut scene beforehand! There's nothing new about a character jumping in front of an arrow/bullet for someone, but the way you execute it here is beautiful. The camera moves, the special effects when the bullet hits, Gospel's self-recriminations... that's some groundbreaking stuff for FFT! I know I said the battle is easy, but that's not a complaint. That's kind of the point--this isn't the real baddie, it's just an impostor. And you're PISSED because your girl just died. A quick, easy battle is more appropriate from a storytelling perspective. The original Tactics barely entered this territory: balancing battle length/difficulty with the surrounding story. Even when you were supposed to be in a rush, you'd have to stop and fight a long, protracted battle (or several) to continue the story. The exception that comes most readily to mind is the roof of Riovanes Castle (which coincidentally is also sandwiched between cut scenes involving someone taking a bullet for a loved one!). My one complaint about the closing cut scene is that Gospel seems like kind of a douche when he yells "Wench!" I understand that he's upset, but he reveals some latent misogyny there that makes me question his supposed righteousness. On the other hand, if your intent is to show the unraveling of a high and mighty leader, then this is a subtle way to have the cracks start to show.

Did I mention that I'm excited about Call of Power? I'm really, truly, deeply impressed with your work, Koko. I'd love to see a cleaned-up version of this patch that incorporates some of the more straightforward suggestions from the forum users (e.g., SilvasRuin's ability translations) before Chapter 2 comes out. But either way, I'll be waiting with bated breath for the next CoP release!

Hey Kokojo, just gotta say I love your work.  I've tried out a ton of various hacks of FFT and yours is one of if not THE best I've played.  I love the complete revamp of basically everything, new story the whole shebang.  I want to finish ch. 1 but I am falling over asleep.  Just so you know it is very much appreciated and I like the fact that its basically an entirely new game just using a premade engine that is fantastic and amazing difficult to pull off, I cannot wait until you're pumped about it again and continuing work on it.