Final Fantasy Hacktics

Quote from: "White1N"more jobs and abilities

Well... that's sort of a given.

http://www.spoonyexperiment.com/2009/06 ... en-review/

Spoony's review.  He puts it on the same level as Battlefield Earth.

QuoteMake Ramza a Dark Knight, since hes Gafgarion's merc afterall.

It doesn't fit Ramza's character.  He's a Lawful Good type.  He's staying as a Squire/Soldier.

Quote from: "Aquilae"Besides Provoke and First Aid, I can't see how this would make people use Squire more. In fact, they'd use Basic Skill instead, with Two Swords you can break stats two times faster, and not to mention Speed Break is broken (hi 1 speed Altima)

I'm using 1.3 as a starting point, so speed break only casts slow.  Also, I'm probably going to go with the ruin abilities, so they can't be used with two swords.  

QuoteI think heavy armor > clothes and hats is taking away some of the Squires' usefulness and making them into inferior Knights or Paladins.

I forgot that FFTA Soldiers could wear light armor and hats too.  So, for the time being they can do this.  If it's unbalanced, I can change it later.  

Quote from: "Havermayer"2. Ramza and Delita

Squire Ramza is fine as he is. The ability to equip Knightswords, Hats and equip Carabini Mail makes Squire a great class to be in, he can equip a good secondary and support ability and retain high speed.

QuoteParley and Defense cannot be implemented to my knowledge. You'd have to balance out the power of Saint Cross and Holy Blade, IIRC in FFTA they were pretty powerful.

Giving them innate defend seems to do the same trick.  I could possibly simulate Parley by giving them a low % instant death spell perhaps?  I seem to remember Parley actually removing them from the field, which I'm not sure that I like anyways.    

Cover I don't think is possible at all at this point.  

For the time being, I'll just try to make them as much as their FFTA counter parts as possible, and then worry about balancing later.  

QuoteKeep them. They're not broken at all.

Having Soldiers with accumulate might be too much.  Soldiers are pretty much Knights.  For the time being I'm removing Accumulate.  

Disclaimer: I for the balancing stuff, I fully expect to ditch like half of these ideas.  Most of these are just experiments that I've always thought were good, but have not implemented.  

I'm also using the tournaments as a guide.  My goal would be that if people were to make a tourny out of this patch, there would be no banned regular abilities.  

QuoteMasamune on enemy units isn't as gamebreaking as you think, the only Masamune I've seen in story battles is in Underground Book Storage 5, which is already part of the final battles anyway. It makes generic battles less of a cakewalk, its perfectly fine in my book.

I see it casted all the time in battles.  I want to do something that balances the samurai skills for both the player AND the enemies.  And I find it annoying how they use it.  

QuoteI fail to see how Kikuichimoji is one of the best ranged attacks in the game. It doesn't do substantial damage unless you've got a high MA setup, its vert. tolerance isn't high so it can't be used effectively in quite a few maps, and Throw or Bows do more damage anyway.

Didn't say it was the best.  I remember in my last playthrough that Samurai would always one-shot some of the guys on my team from half-way across the map.  It's just a little too good.  I don't know, I might have to do tests to see if its as good as my memory says.  
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QuoteYou're neglecting the fact that Elemental does piddly damage, it is useful for the fact that is has good range, it always hits and it has a chance of inflicting status. You're effectively nerfing Elemental so much so that it wouldn't be used in the game.

Again, I might have to do tests.  But I seem to remember from the tournies that it does decent damage AND is insta-cast.  

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Golem isn't as powerful as it is in the AI tournament. Firstly, enemies are much more stronger then you are so it is doubtful that Golem would last long. Secondly, most of the story battles and random battles have enemies that can bypass Golem and deal major damage. Golem is fine as it is.

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Mimic Daravon is good? I don't think so, even at 99 and maxed MA it still very risky. Its chance to hit is shaky and Sleep is better for the majority of the game until the higher levels where charging it is risky.

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On Paralyze, it isn't too good. Its accuracy is shaky, it requires charging time and Don't Act doesn't last very long. There are tons of viable spells in the Oracle's skillsets, Petrify, Blind Rage, Sleep, Lifebreak, I don't think its fair to say that Paralyze is the only spell that is to be used in Yin-Yang Magic.

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Again, I feel Earth Slash isn't as good as you're making it out to be. To maximise the damage of Earth Slash, you'd have to stay a Monk meaning you don't get to wear Thief Hats or have great HP. Furthermore, Earth Slash, like Kiku has a low vert. tolerance, meaning that it isn't that effective on non-flat maps.

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QuoteBracers Speed -1 seems unneeded, I don't see why they are broken, they cost 50k so you can't just randomly slap one on your units, and I can't think of any situations where they would be broken.

Even when I avoid random battles, I always have a huge amount of money in the game.  Gil never seems to be a limiting factor in the game.  

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QuoteThrow has a huge range but it has limited power. Dual Katanas / Fists would deal more damage than Throw, and the Shuriken and Balls don't do a lot of damage. Weapons cost a bomb and will limit Throw's usefulness. I don't use Throw much unless I'm doing an Assassination mission, it just seems a bit wasteful to Throw around Slashers all the time.

Again, money was never as much of a limiting factor in FFT.  I think the main thing that I'll change is the range of throw.  You can put move +3 on and get some ridiculous range for throw.  And I seem to remember throw + a good weapon doing more damage than Archers.  

QuoteRazele has an ASM hack to scale charging times to speed so that spells' charge time would remain the same, more or less.

I might check that out.  Though would that mean that their spell time is affected by haste?  

QuoteI'm not sure what you mean by "All weapon damage based on PA", are you suggesting that stuff like Books be changed from MA * WP to PA * WP? I don't think that would be necessary, maybe for guns but not for Books, Sticks or Rods.

By that, I mean that everything that should rationally be PA * WP should be that.  So staffs and sticks would be that for sure.  

I'm fine with other weapons that don't use PA to not have PA in their equations.  Guns for instance.  Not sure if I'd change flails.

Status: Just started :P

I'm using 1.3 as a starting point.  I will mostly focus on making Squires useful, as well as adding in Paladins.  

Part A) Making Squires useful

1. Squires

I'm thinking of making FFT Squires and turning them into FFTA Soldiers.  Here are the abilities that I may give them.  

Heal: same as in 1.3
Power, Mind, Speed and Magic Ruin: Same as in 1.3
Insult - Inflicts Bezerk
Dash - same as 1.3

Reaction: Weapon Guard and Counter Tackle

Support: Equip Shield.  

Movement: Move +1

Note: Monster skill given to mediators, and Equip Axe given to Geomancers.  

Armor: Light and Heavy, shields
Weapons: Knives, Swords, Knight Swords,

Not sure if they should keep Axes and Crossbows)

Move and Jump: 3

2. Ramza and Delita

They will be regular soldiers, plus their special abilities like Yell, Cheer Up, etc.

3. Knights become Paladins

This class will be more difficult to create.  Many of their abilities will be new, and I'm just learning how to add in new spells and stuff.  

Here are their FFTA 1 and 2 abilities, plus what I may give them:

Nurse - Recover HP and cure status ailments of the unit and surrounding units.
Defense - Raise Weapon Defense and Magic Resistance for one turn.
Drop Weapon - Weapon Break
Subdue - Severely reduced damage. Useful for aiding Hunters in capturing monsters or to get rid of Sleep, Charm, or Confuse.
Parley - Attempt to remove a unit from the battlefield.  
Saint Cross - Holy damage to surrounding units
Holy Blade - Normal, Holy Damage
Sanctify - Destroy Undead
War Cry - Raises Resilience of surrounding units

What I could give them:

- Dash instead of Subdue
- Wish instead of Nurse
- A swordskill that has a chance of inflicting death instead of Parley

Reaction: None
Support: Equip Armor, Equip Sword
Movement: None

Unlock Requirements:

Not sure.  After Monk at least.  Probably would take as much effort as Samurai or Geomancer.  

This raises a problem of what to do with the gap that Knights leave behind in the job tree.  

Equips: Heavy Armor, shields, Swords, Knight Swords.  
Movement and Jump: 3 and 3

3. Other Squire skills?

What should I do about Accumulate, Dash and Throw Stone?  Not sure.  Having Knights with Accumulate may make Soldiers simply too good.  

What about Agrias?

There will be some overlap between her and Paladins.  Specially if I give them a swordskill.  Not sure how to fix.

Quote from: "Voldemort"ignorant rant is ignorant

Exactly.  

N Korea knows that it couldn't win in a fight.  Any war would cost the lives of countless lives.  Yes, South Korea, America and everyone else would win.  But we'd be left with a smoldering crater where South Korea once was.  Seoul itself is within artillery range for instance.  

Plus, it may destabilize the region.

I love me some movie soundtracks.  Let's start with some Ennio Morricone:

-
Una Pistola Per Ringo and Il Returno di Ringo
http://sleazy-listening.blogspot.com/20 ... ringo.html
    http://rapidshare.com/files/209575489/Ringo.rar
- Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More

Others:
- Superfly OST - by Curtis Mayfield
- The first two Katamari soundtracks
- Silent Hill 2 soundtracks http://bluelaguna.net/music/silent-hill ... k/mp3s.php

You can check out the google cache for that page then:

http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:eXF ... =firefox-a

If you have a graphics card, then you should probably put it to good use in epsxe.  Using the "natural" shader, you can brighten the colours, and add a neat little aliased look.  

The effect is relatively minor for FFT, but it's quite nice.  I'd take screenshots of my game if I knew how to :/

Details and guide here:
http://forums.ngemu.com/psx-plugin-ques ... lugin.html

Wait, I'm confused.  I thought that if they weren't profiting from it in any way, the they can do whatever they wanted.  How could they be legally shut down?

More ideas please :3

Quote from: "Zodiac"Seriously it allowed EVERYTHING in a online Starcraft game, the first example was dragoon shooting mutalisk's thing when they attack IIRC. Since then Starcraft has lost many hacks since people don't really to want to bother changing every special hack in their map every new version.

Also, stuff like iccup has anti-hacking software to prevent you from using hacks :3

Quote from: "KazeKasano"Art direction should follow in the footsteps of FF III DS, in my opinion. Yoshida did that one as well, and it looks phenomenal.

Well, you could do chibi style.  

I was thinking more serious FFT/Vagrant story art direction.  The only thing that I don't like about FFT's characters were the unrealistic body proportions.  



So, imagine VS done with modern graphics.  Realistic medieval inspired architecture.  Different areas would be inspired by different periods/areas.

Here's some examples of architecture that I'd love to see.  These are from Saint-Émilion, which is the french town that partially inspired the look of VS:







More general:

Quote from: "ArkDelgato"How would it handle random battles?

Some of my ideas:

I think it might be best to concentrate the enemies in dungeons, bases and such.  Overworlds would have lots of stuff to do, people to talk to, stuff to find, and so forth.  

The reason is that I rather dislike overworlds that are crawling with enemies.  It makes traveling from place to place a total pain.  Twilight Princess is a good example of this.

I liked the change of pace that Shadow of the Colossus provided with a mostly empty world.  It was actually a lot of fun to explore and go to place to place in that game.  The scenery was so breathtaking.  

As for enemies, there could be some raving bandits, and monsters.  Not too many so that they're a nuisance.

I like the idea from Fallout 3 that Bounty Hunters will ambush you sometimes.  

So maybe the occasional ambush instead of "random battles".  And like anything else, you could see them from far way (especially if you have high-ground or something).  So, to ambush you they'd have to, like, actually hide and stuff.  

For more "regular" battles, you could just do quest style stuff.  "Go kill those dudes at the old fort" or "meet Algus at Dorter and deliver the secret recipe."  And of course, the delivery was a trap and as soon as you meet Algus, a bunch of enemies pop out and attack you.  

QuoteOther than that a 3d system would look really nice.

Well, you could do 2D too.  It'd just have to be higher res sprites.  3D is better because it allows for more camera movement.

Whatever graphical style is chosen, it'd have to feel "natural".  Something is hard to hit because it's a small target.  And this is graphically represented (instead of just being described).  

QuoteAnd it makes me think that it should involve circular movement abilities instead of a grid.  

Either could work.  Spheres are better

Quote from: "ArkDelgato"I severely doubt that a sandbox worldmap would mesh at all with an srpg battle system.
The transition would be so jarring if you found an enemy, or the world would be pointless if it was just a blank slate.
It would be a waste of in game memory if it was pointless.

I don't really see how it'd be all that different from FFT or FFTA.  It'd be just showing all of the stuff that you skip when you move from one dot to the next.

So, Dycedarg orders Ramza and his gang to travel to the thieve's fort.  You actually collect your dudes, and you go there.  Either Dycedarg loans you some Chocobos, or you walk there.  You can have the option of attacking the fort at any time of the day, and from any direction.  

So, perhaps it's at night and you get all the way in before the guards notice you and attack.  Or, you attack during the day from the front and they have sentries who spot you so they get the drop on you instead.  

Battle starts when the enemy notices you, and your forces start in whatever formation they were in when they are attacked.  Battles are done in typical style to srpgs.

wha?

More gameplay ideas please.  :O

Ranged Attacks

My idea is that bows, crossbows, etc, can have a a range that is much larger than what they have in FFT.  Instead, bow range would either be static, or determined through a stat (strength?).

The accuracy of the attacks would be proportional on the distance though.  Farther = less accurate.  The size of the target would also matter.  

Guns would also work on the same system.  They're crappy inaccurate guns from like 1450.

I have no idea what this thread is about.

Quote from: "Voldemort"my prediction: you will wanna get it removed in the not too distant future

The beareded Ramza sprite makes me lol.

I'm a total tabletop noob, so I don't quite understand why it's so complicated.

For just the battle-mechanics, couldn't you just do all the calculations manually, and just use a 20 sided die as the random number generator?  You could have characters move around the maps with the same rules as the game.