Final Fantasy Hacktics

Hooooly fucking shit I have been busy lately. Good to see someone picked up the ball that I dropped. Just a couple of quick things I've noticed:

-Yeah the ENTDs should be different. There are boatloads of wizards, archers and knights everywhere. I'll see if I can find time to actually work on this.

-Beowulf might as well keep chicken. Not only is there only one of him, but he appears late in the story, removing one of the main issues with the calculator which is that you can grind for them early and steamroll the game. Is Drain still an issue? I thought there was a hack that capped the amount of damage it could do to lucavi.

-Generally speaking, there are loads of tiny changes here that don't strike me as "core" issues. Like the slight AOE on stigma magic and chakra. Yeah, they're good abilities, but it's not a huge deal. Similarly, I don't think Mustadio's skills need CT attached to them.

-Also, is weapon guard being innate to everyone not a thing that's going to happen now?

The worst thread

just waiting to get the allclear from a virus scare I had a couple of days ago and then I'm going to learn to insert some of these ASM hacks.

In the meantime, I thought of something else: making it impossible to remove all of gafgarion's items before he turns on you at Zirekile falls.

A lot has already been removed from this list via consensus; i just havent updated the OP yet. The equip change thing, boco, changes to sam. and sum. etc have already been dropped. I suggested something ages ago for another patch (cant remember which one) about dropping all the speed growths down so magic didn't become more and more useless as levels progressed. Any thoughts?

Also, I'd like to take away a bare minimum away from the player. I know how bad the +spd on "yell" can be at times, but it doesn't seem like top-tier problem. I'd like to see how it plays out after the other changes are in place.

OP now updated with some other suggestions

And apparently you can buy your enemies' weapons when you break them or something to that effect.

Less money might be a good idea and we need input for jp costs since I know basically nothing about that.

Yeah there are some bugs with that hack at the moment. If it's ever fixed though, I'd like to have it because I am adamantly opposed to permanent item breakage.

Since most patches are moving too far afield of the original FFT, I proposed an idea for a patch in channel that is a very basic overhaul of FFT that only really includes the most essential fixes, balances and changes. Part of this idea is embracing the flaws of the game and not doing anything drastic like ripping out the calculator and shoving something else in. The goal is to make a slightly improved, but harder and more balanced game. Basically what 1.3 was supposed to be when it was first conceived. This thread is for discussing what the best, most essential changes, fixes and balances to the game would be without changing it too radically. My current list:

My list of important stuff:

Blade Grasp only vs blades
Text error correction
JP Scroll Glitch fix
Best Fit Glitch fix   
Global C.ev
25% PD undead
Weapon Guard innate all
Oil Fix
Broken equip buyback (if possible)
Controllable guests
Better br & fa for starting generics
Consolidated move-find (always get 1 item)
Enemy equips set or random (no "nothings")
Swordskill changes (MP/evadable)
Drain/%-based attack change (less damage to lucavi)
Charge skillset PA*WP+Y and MA*WP+Y (same sort of thing)?
More enemy unit variety (fewer battles made up of Wizards, Knights and Archers)
No perm br and fa changes
Special characters can do propositions
Mighty Sword hits monsters?
Death sentence ignores cancel: dead
Soldier office rename any unit
Formulas that use (MA+X)% become (MA*2+X)%? (MA is more important for status effect success)
Secret hunt not required for fur shop
party level cloud
Regen/Poison change (capped)
Party level story enemies
Gear scaled to story (Glain's ASM) (These last 2 are for added difficulty)
Remove Degenerators - FFMaster
Malak Formula Fix - FFMaster
Engineer learns equip gun
Swordskillers learn equip sword
AI cant learn skills that it can't use
Perhaps allow for Elemental to be evaded
Perhaps make Summon Magic do slightly less damage, but let it keep smart-targeting and instead boost other Faith-based magic.
Either completely kill Golem or let it add Protect.
If Knight gets ranged breaks, then it should be the stat breaks ala 1.3.
Knight's equipment breaks should become more likely hit, but should NOT become unable to be dodged.
Thief's equipment steals should become unavoidable.
Lessen the amount spells that Math Skill has access to.
Kill the CT Parameter.
Give Calculators better stats or, at least, close-to-average speed.
Make Speed Break/Speed Ruin add Slow or -20 CT if possible.
Make Speed Save add +CT rather than +Speed.
Kill all other speed-stat increasing or decreasing abilities like Cheer Song, Slow Dance and Ramza's Scream.
Kill Hamedo (turn Hamedo into firststrike?).
Separate MP switch and Move mp by gender
Cap WP for all weapons at 20.
Give Cloths less W-EV.
Give Aegis Shield less M-EV so it doesn't single-handedly shut down Magic with Abandon.
Strengthen weak weapon (types) that aren't Bags, specially (Long)Bows, Staves and maybe Rods.
Weaken all gender-exclusive equipment.
Make Knightswords and Katana's damage formula PA*WP.
Change or kill Level Blast and Please Eat. (Heh. Completely forgot about Please Eat.)
Fix AI flags on some skills

As for PA/MA/SP - Xifanie has a hack that buffs Maintenance to block breaks on these and puts an upper/lower cap on how much they can be boosted or broken.  For something meant to embrace vanilla's faults while making them less outright dumb, this seems perfect here - you can keep Accumulate, Yell, Speed Break, etc. in all their vanilla deliciousness while removing the cheesier strategies most of them created in one masterful stroke.



More dubious stuff:

100% knockback throw stone
Ranged knight breaks OR unevadable
Lower range Lancer jumps
Limited calc skillset
Nerfed Orlandu

Event Editor first. Honestly, as much as I admire people who can stick it out and finish a patch like CCP, there is a hard cap on how much interest a patch like that is going to generate in this here post-1.3 world. A new story set in the FFT world is something that might grab more attention.

New shield on the back diagonal is good, but it he should be holding it up a bit higher, i think, if you compare it to the other frame.

It looks pretty good, but I notice you have the shield aimed in the same direction no matter which way he's facing. I think that would look strange when it's in motion. I think it should be more to his side on the front diagonal. The lower jaw look strange too. It looks like you tried to draw teeth or something. I would probably not attempt that. Sprites dont allow for details that small to come across very well.

Yeah parodies are hard enough to write as it is. I'd hate to think how terrible they would be when written by committee. You're better off just going it alone especially if you already have experience writing plays or something. I can think of a few things off the top of my head that deserve to be made fun of in FFT: The script, The military-sized arsenal you get to carry around with you, That Ramza is running some sort of portable monster ranch during his adventure, attacks based on astrology, using bards and dancers during combat and Rafa and Malak training magic that they can't actually aim.

First decide what it is that you are actually parodying. Is is the hammy script of WotL? Secondly, I would say just write it and don't ask for input. This isn't going to be a community patch and waiting for ideas is just going to bog the project down and nothing will ever be done.

A lot of these effects look really convoluted without a sprite there to give them some context. There's also a lot of awkward pausing and off-center action that comes across badly for the same reason. For what it's worth, a couple of them look fairly seamless. Ramuh and Clops are the best ones. Lich and Ifrit aren't too bad. The rest would need a few more changes. Good job though

Ok yeah never mind. Do Raven's suggestion

I like your idea of merging arrow guard and catch.

It would be good if defend could be added to a skillset as an actual ability since that's basically how it operates.

Just dont give them too many Monk skills. I don't want to basically just be fighting monks when I'm fighting Goblins.

Oh yeah, if Flare is instant, doesn't that ruin your elemental system? Lightning is supposed to be the fast element and here you have a giant nuke going off instantly. Also, in someones videos Goblins were throwing around a shitload of monk skills. Giving monsters a human skill here and there is ok and probably a good thing, but dont give them too many or they'll just be like shittier versions of human classes.

I like the idea of Onion Knights and Red Mage for Alicia, Lavian and Rad. Whatever you settle on, dont give them swordskills please. The amount of swordskilling in the game is fine as is between Gaf, Agrias, Mel, Orlandu, Delita etc etc.

I have basically the opposite view. Your sprites are starting to look good but your portraits aren't. You need to go back through the forums and find that thread where Smash talked about pillow shading and how to avoid it because the hair on that port is truly awful. The rest is ok though.

Someone needs to destroy every instance of this footage so we never have another Dome.