Final Fantasy Hacktics

just started chapter 3, what class teaches secret hunt?

archers have it innate but don't see it on any of the classes I've unlocked to be learned
that leaves blessed/mystic as the only 2 but fftpatcher doesn't have them with it.

should be on thief(they have nothing in the 'S' slot)

JP suggestions
increases in italics

Mercenary

• Accumulate to 500

Chemist

• hi-potion to 150:  available in chapter 1


• remedy to 400:  you removed a lot of status curers for the new debuff items, remedys are more vital

Knight

• magic break to 100:  It's just a crappy ability

Ranger

• Arrow guard to 300:  even with the knight/thief xbow users, too often it's the same as no reaction at all


• Jump+1 to 100:  outside of move-find situations, jump+ just isn't that good

Monk

• Trance^# to 100:  berserk is a HORRIBLE status, it's reward(damage+) is completely outweighed by its downsides(control loss/reaction loss)

White Mage

• Raise 2 to 350


• Barrier to 200:  Only source of pro/shell until Blessed knight


• Esuna to 200:   Same as remedy, status curing is a great deal harder than it should be


• Regen all to 400:   This has actually been amazingly useful to me


• Regenerator to 200

Red Mage

• Haste to 350:   It's haste...

Thief

• Steal sheild to 300


• Every other steal -130:  Steals are horrifically overpriced, steal sheild doesn't get the same reduction due to dual-wield(making it sometimes a steal weapon)


• Gilgame heart to 50:  lol money

Spiritualist*

• Life drain to 250:


• Pray/Doubt faith to 250


• Zombie to 400


• Blind Rage to 200


• Confusion song to 100


• Dispel magic to 350:  other than fixing reflect(which isn't actually castable by humans) alchemist can deal with all those statuses


• Paralyze to 250:   It's actually one of spiritualist's best abilities


• Petrify to 700:   it's death, that works on undead, for 16 mp

Ninja⁺

• Excluding Suiton all ninja spells to 250


• Suiton to 350:   Frog is permanent, all else being equal it's the best status ninja can cause


• Move in water to 50:  Such a waste of JP

Summoner

• Cyclops to 300:  should be closer to its tier mates


• Mp restore to 200:  does very little to actually help you survive the round

Dark knight

• Move on lava to 000:  only one map in game w/ lava


• Jump+2 to 300:  see jump+1

Ramza

• Accumulate to 500:  to match mercenary

Mustaido

• Bio Blaster to 500

# Trance needs to be changed entirely,  There are basically 0 times I'd ever want to berserk myself

* Spiritualist needs a full re-work more than just JP alterations.  go here and look what he did to his oracle.  It's a little overpowered early game, but by lategame balances out nicely(also enemy oracles terrify you, and that's always fun)

+ I've only unlocked 2 ninja spells, I'm assuming they all have the same damage formula.  If not, +50 points per damage tier
+ Metsu doesn't stack with dual-weild making it a regular attack for ninja main, still it has a great deal of value for some class just using ninja's skill set(like a merc) or for a ninja w/ equip xxxx.  not sure what to do here.

Agrias and Black mage are good as is, Dragoon RSM are good, and you mentioned plans to play with its skill set so I'll hold off til then
haven't unlocked blessed
had mystic unlocked but lost it when I backtracked to fix the mustaido bug so can't check costs currently


Few chapter 2 notes(not finished yet but since I'm posting....)

zirekile falls story battle was cake, I noticed you eliminated 1~2 of the enemies that were in the vanilla version, they could stand to be put back

shiva summon displays a blank box on cast

mystic's first sword is a heal on contact weapon, that's not a problem.  But since chapter 2 locks you out of the north section of the map for 1/3 of the chapter, and warjiis/goug don't carry regular swords....  If you don't already have a spare sword for it the class loses alot of its usefulness.  Ideally switch mystic's first and second swords shop availability

I personally think heartshot(ranger death sentence) is fine for 2 reasons:
1) death sentence is a brutally powerful ability that the AI is VERY poor at handling
2) it allows a ranger using a longbow to target/base damage nearby enemies.  yes arrow rain and scatter shot can do that as well, but both have a significant damage reduction AND both are aoe(possiblity of hitting allies)  arrow rain also puts you in charge status(2x dmg/0% evade) until your next turn

wasn't gonna go into JP changes for a while, since that was gonna be part of my overall ability review that was gonna wait until I unlocked every job.  But I'll put up some of the more egregious price problems I've encountered.

next post, its gonna be a long one.

Quote from: dinosaur on February 02, 2011, 02:55:00 pm
Does anyone else thinks many of the skills are too high JP in multiple jobs?

considering their power, no.

gonna have to ask for specifics since I don't have everything unlocked yet, but from what I do have, only 1 or 2 jobs could make any argument for a reduction.

actually It seems that unless he changed/replaced the skill the JP cost didn't chage.  thief as an example, all the steals are at vanilla levels, but since our foes are carrying better items, that makes sense.

white mage could use a nearly across the board drop, and spiritualist could see everything except silence/blind(right score) and paralyze(should be higher) get a decrease

do not have mystic or blessed yet, so no comment there.  mustaido/ramza/agrias specific are at good costs.

I'll need to play more with the abilities(only have doton atm), but after fighting 2 for the first time(gaud), and seeing how ninja swords were buffed... locking all those broken combos innate dual-wield allows might be the path of balance.... I'll comment later as my ninja grows.

was gonna save this for chapter notes, but that won't happen til tomorrow evening at best:

illusionists need a nerf, unless chocobos are weak to wind and I didn't know it.
their persistant attacks come out too frequently for the damage they do(about a t2 nuke, on every enemy, 2-3 times a round)  either needs to be slowed down or toned down, but not both.

barius hill random vs 6ish chocos, 3 yellow 3 black lvl 17-19:

illusionist gets a turn, teleports to the other side of the hill where she can't be reached quickly and casts the wind illusion
illusionist has 77 mp and 11 magic attack
by her next turn, has triggered the illusion 3 times spending 99% of her mp(75 of 77)
EVERY enemy on the map is critical or dead excluding 1 yellow chocobo who got a choco cure off

that's approaching calculator levels of mass slaughter.

ideally you could slow it down so it fires 1 to 2 times a round and leave its power alone.

quick note if you're putting together an update

you forgot innate dual-wield on ninja

mustaido's sprite is SWEET!

that is all

29 days, followed by 1 day of not being able to reach a warraty favorable repairshop

QuoteI could release the fix for that, if you guys want(but if you guys can bare with it for now that would be awesome and i can just wait til a bit more fixes pile up)

just leave it til more come up, since i play with 5/6 different sprites on my team 90% of the time I'll catch any of the ones in chapter 2 so they'll be in my chapter review notes

I'm sorry, i meant fort zeakden(algus fight) I didn't have a save for before thieves fort so didn't replay it.  I really don't like chapter 1 but replayed it for testing purposes.

I'm actually playing through with notebook open, and just typing down things as I find them then do a major post so posts tend to be long

just some info, so you can get an idea what classes i'm running/planning on and can see where my impressions are coming from:

standard set-up is ramza(current ramza/knight, future mystic or blessed) male melee(current merc, future sam) male caster(current whm, will have everything but smn available, is also my chemist) female melee(current ranger, will have ninja and thief, mustaido might go here) female caster(current spritualist/redmage, not really sure for long term, agrias goes here once i train her)

hopefully dragon will hit up smn, drk, and illusionist, since while i will touch on them, unless they prove to be crazy powerful they aren't in my plans for this playthough.


initial notes on chapter 2(no battles fought) 1.20 version in case you chaged something for 1.21

gaf as a blm, twins have some skills learned and rad's a rdm... good choices all around

agrias' sprite is nice, that all grey look was a bit drab, she catches the eye now, will end up replacing my female mage slot so those whm levels will be great once i get her equip sword

won't use the twins(I'm not fond of female melees)  but having them actually have knight skills learned makes that decision a bit tougher than usual.

to work, next notes won't be til after queklain unless something is VERY broken

It's not included in his notes anywhere, but both thieves and knights get xbow access natively, they're actually for THOSE classes, rangers probably should never use anything but a longbow(and I think this is a good thing)

fft's archer/ranger need the boost of good weapons due to how their skillset works, poor hp and evasion, and that minor can't target close enemies(allayed somewhat with the ranger skill set) not to mention charge times on 80% of abilities(which should stay, 1 weapon range instant, and 1 set range instant that doesn't damage is just perfect)

went through dorter 1/1 at level 5, nuke the knights, they got def up yes, but not mag def up
bring your own archer, you easily have access to it by then

what setup are you bringing in to there? dorter is always a tough battle, even in vanilla it was probably the 2nd hardest chapter 1 since weigraf/algus are assasination

side note on ranger: coronach is ff11's ultimate GUN move, just for versimilitude should go with namas' arrow

finished up chapter 1:
windmill has sprite overload
EDIT: crap, fort does to, forgot i brought a wizard 1st time through.

wiegraf w/ flail is horribly overpowered but susceptible to weapon break so meh, wiegraf w/ sword is fine, maybe even a little weak
(could be because i hit him w/ weapon break, then powerbreak x2, without BOTH of those he would have been annoying)

algus' AI means that battle lasts 2 rounds(nothing you can do about that really)

reinforced lance:
A) shouldn't be available as miluda v2 reward(should be plain lance) even though it takes crazy grinding to actually be able to USE it
B) has a description error

encyclopedia(wiegraf reward) doesn't mention spiritualist equipable
spiritualist were removed from rod/staff means that encyclopedia is the first weapon they can equip. was this intentional(fine if it is, just want to make sure sticks are available at chapter 2 start)

repeat, thief/knight aren't listed as crossbow jobs on item descriptions

apply toxin(since not 100%) should be weapon range

time to go see what gafgarion/agrias are like.

so this game IS ffxi inspired!  good i'm not losing my mind.  guess I need to make a ranger/ninja to relive my glory days.

QuoteDid your .ppf not have staggering blow for 200jp?

yeah, staggering is 200, I think its the axes.
default jp for an attack of ~12, 6 allies, 3(ramza, algus, generic) who can 1-shot the squires in gariland, and with innate train, effectively one-shot monsters as well if you haven't done any grinding.  actually the monsters are even worse, since they go attack and make for even less actions performed by allies.

just don't get enough actions done to build past the ~100 or so starting jp.  nerfing the axes could very well fix the jp issue. and its strictly an early game issue so don't do anything crazy like innate jp up to all.

some of that could be my leftovers from vanilla, vanilla squires are for 2 things: gained jp up, accumulate.  even move+1 i normally get from spillover from ramza instead of playing the class

sidenote: ability formulas would be nice, descriptions on merc abilites don't make them sound that appealing.
tried rampage in the demo/intro fight and resolved to having no effect
staggering has basically the same description as dash in vanilla, but with a charge time eww
they're weapon damage based attacks right?  then alot better than what i was thinking(staggering could be very nice on my ranger), I'll unlock a few and play in a random battle.

accumulate needed the nerf, vanilla is WAY to powerful(and the best jp building move in game other than yell)
still 500 for a blowback move? how freaking hard does it hit?
AI might not like staggering, delita had it for dorter and desert, never used it.(he was gonna be my test to see if i wanted to buy it   )

Quote*I managed to save algus a few minutes ago. I just drew out the enemy from the opposite side of the field.*

maybe i just need to work on my AI manipulation, still had multiple "choose to ignore him, thief swings, algus dies"

also want to add my vote that the phoenix down price was probably the biggest shocker of chapter one.  that made for some interesting class decisions that i normally wouldn't have made.  propositions in chapter 2 will largely negate the issue from there on so its fine.  expensive enough to deter offensive use/spam, cheap enough that you'll still have them when you need them(chapter 2 on)


EDIT:  yep sprite limit, made my female redmage a spiritualist(to match the enemy one) graphics are clean

its not me,


that rainbow is a chemist(male) first photo, and a blackmage(male) second photo.

up to thieves fort, few notes:

first, squire replacement jobs' skill sets seem VERY expensive, particularly with no gained jp up.  didn't have a single skill learned til after sweegy woods besides the tomohawk ramza started with.

btw, does monster talk do something I'm unaware of? all talk skills have been removed(mediator class and vanilla-ramza's special moves) so I see no point to it.

starting handaxes could easily stand to lose that PA+1, those things are brutal with the new formula(hit 60 dmg non-crit in magic city gariland battle, 45 as average on lvl 1 mercs)

algus and delita both guest-join as a "new knight," but algus's base class is considered squire(his special version with the two break skills) changing his class at all removes "traitor's skills" permanently

did some grinding after sweegy due to:
A) fear of what you might have done to the dorter battle
B) so I wouldn't be all squire/alchemist through the whole first chapter

not much, was level 5 for dorter, but this let me dig into some of the other skill sets a bit, you probably should have mentioned storyline battles are going to scale.

blackmage and redmage seem to have a bug or 2
redmage:
ice 0.5 costs 100 more jp than either fire 0.5 or bolt 0.5 (200 vs 100)
when hitting a target with fire 0.5, after the attack resolves, i get a "<target> joined" message, just the message, no effect on battle

blackmage:
when I switched from blackmage to redmage, character retained MA save as reaction ability until I manually de-equiped it

unlocked thief class just before thieves fort, ambush still has steal heart's description, couldn't afford it jp wise so didn't test effect

Battles:
algus was oneshotted in mandalia story battle by thief w/ equip axe.  If you chose to try and save him, this battle is nearly impossible, the axe minimum damage will allow him to be mopped up by the chemist before any player character can reach/cure him

possibly the wrong archer has longbow in dorter (the very high one has crossbow)  I'll understand if this was intentional, battle was brutal even without that archer sniping me for 3 rounds, 3 knights with equip xbow...

Ran into MAJOR graphical issues in thieves fort story battle, guessing its a bug w/ miluda's sprite. gonna build a new iso to make sure it isn't me, if it isn't, i'll post a screenie.

vacation just kicked off, firing this up.  I'll be sure to let you know any impressions

stumbleupon sent me a video of a let's play of a FFT hack by Laggy on rpgdl, attempted to google "laggy fantasy tactics" and got a bunch of emulator forums, switched to "final fantasy tactics hack" and got both the rpgdl forum I was looking for, and here.

you do realize there is now a picture of you in a skirt online for the rest of time...

nothing on the web ever gets destroyed,  good luck trying politics

in-game description of oracle requirements is wrong:

says takes level 2 redmage, level 2 alchemist.  unlocked with just level 2 redmage(as per the job web)

QuoteSuggestion for dagger-only skill?

speed slice - weaker damage but ignores reactions

QuoteTalk Skill Br/Fa reducers tweaked to -15 from -10?

with more thought, and the realization you're almost certainly gonna rework battles so I'd have to worry about it being used on me... yeah 15 is good

QuoteOracles lose petrify?

losing petrify is a good idea in itself, but expire as a replacement makes the yin/yang skill set too strong as a whole:
faith, mp recovery, health recovery/damage, a 2 cast death, mage-like mp/ma multipliers and sticks all on one class.

how about this: nix comet(time mages can use their wizard levels for damage) make expire the time magic 0ctr and give them countdown.  death sentence fits the time magic style better anyway. (at least in what passes for my mind)

kill petrify entirely... but really I can't think of a worthwhile replacement that would actually be codeable.

QuoteSummoners lose 2 of Ifrit/Salamander/Bahamut/Titan functions?  (ie, lose the dumb-targetting summons, shift remainder names to fit holes in element and lore?)

salamander and cyclops can go, make what is now cyclops named titan(cyclops isn't in any FF lore besides this game, they just needed another summon name) obviously bring over the earth element with the name.