Final Fantasy Hacktics

And where would it go?  Standard fucking monsters?  No thank you, I am full.

It would be funny, though, if non-standard steeds were implemented, like if Behemoths or Dragons could be rode upon.  But I doubt the programming would allow for it, or it'd look pretty weird.  Even so, no more stupid bronie jokes.  You want some jokes?  Go to Newgrounds.com and you'll find a whole section of bronie cartoons there.

If I recall Vanilla Tactics, DD battles involved creatures with Levels in excess of ten to twenty against your Units.  Under no condition will you survive any encounter of any kind in DD in this version of the game without getting to Level 99.

I remember feeling the same way.  With Goblins.  Those guys gave me headache after headache.  The feeling dispersed, and nowadays I consider Squids (Illithids) the worst of the bunch, though.  Counter Flood murders.  And the notion that human classes got shortchanged remains powerful, but not overwhelming.  Simply saying "You're Doing it Wrong" doesn't mean jack shit, but neither does failing to recruit at least one monster and applying Monster Skill.  Some of the combinations are wonderful.  This game requires you to adopt features you would otherwise pass up because it was somehow gimped, but here, it's more like Velveeta in your mouth.

I complain about online help.  Forget everything else: Tutorials need updating and online help needs a major overhaul to accommodate the changes.  If information is incomplete next to what is normally presented, that spells doom for certain encounters.  Goblin Punch for instance: a non-elemental Range 2V2 Wave Fist thing, so stated.  Here's the problem: online help lies.  The Range is 2V3, and that difference meant that even with careful positioning, I still got shafted after they nailed and slew the only healer in a once-imagined unapproachable position in a tight formation.  Lost the battle, pitched the controller.  Several thousand screwdrivers later I returned and murdered those little bastards.  Typos like those are enough to aggravate the living shit out of a player.

The real struggle for any newcomer is figuring out how things work again, because Dome has this rabid infatuation with touching practically everything and rearranging how it works.  Over 600,000 changes.  You can't help but admire his dedication.  Anyway, if you're gonna grind, invest in Train to recruit some monsters and Secret Hunt to slay foes so that A, none of their buddies get to revive them, and B, the corpses don't resurrect (in the case of undead).  The early creatures are horrible when their tricks are aimed at you.  They're still horrible when they're aimed at enemies, but at least it's not aimed at you anymore AMIRITE?

Yeah, well I drew the conclusion that fighting at Level 99 is not too bad, because Command Abilities I thought I would ditch became useful again no matter what phase you're in.  Basic Skill?  Charge?  Even Battle Skill is okay, if you don't mind blowing morale on destroying stats.  If I could figure out some way to improve those powers over time, like have Job Levels mean something and improve the Command Ability's effect, we'd be set.  Anyway, even without the option of adding Short Charge, which you can now do, Charge+20 is still fun as a finishing touch, especially against an incapacitated opponent, which was pretty much the point.  And it is a regular weapon attack, so you can poach with it.  Fun as fuck, even at Level 99.  I shouldn't say much, because it's good as it is and wouldn't want Dome messing with what was a mod well done.

Recruiting Monsters is actually profitable in Plus Edition.  I recommend the "Cuar".  To recruit means beating them to Critical Condition with a character with the Train Support Ability, found on the Archer.  Dome planned these guys to become bona fide Rangers, but people squealed.  I would have encouraged him, though the Archer is far improved anyway.  Play-Testing past Level 50 pays off.

Anyway, once you got the "Cuar", have someone with Monster Skill, either innate or as a Support Ability, stand beside the monster within a 2 Height variance.  Now that Monster has an added ability.  In the case of Panthers, you get Shadow Seal (or something) which works a lot like the Assassin Class' Shadow Stitch technique: a ranged "Stop" attack that hits more often and from greater range.  An entire legion of vulnerable creatures are suddenly at your mercy should they try to get too close.  It won't work on everything--Chocobos with their mandatory Choco Esuna are notoriously immune--so be sure you look up the online help for monsters since they've all been modified to include condition immunities.

I never thought about examining the Unit Lists or seeing how they act during Auto-Battle.  I assumed that, since there is no expressed height variance when in the x-zone, the CPU would be unable to move back to an in-map position.  So no, I didn't check.  I doubt that setting them to Auto-Battle would do anything; they'd just wait and wait and wait until they decide simply to wait for that turn, rinse-repeat.

Getting knocked out happened once, during the Sand Rat Cellar infiltration.  Getting knocked into another character happened more than once, in different venues.  Each one involved a technique that displayed its information twice (like if you used special graphic effects together with a longbow with an as-weapon range technique, or when using the aforementioned Tentacle technique), so if a Knock-Back was possible in the first instance, it's doubled instance would likely happen even if it wouldn't otherwise happen.

Is the Speed Cap something that's hard-coded or can that be adjusted instead?  I'm thinking either 17 or 20, because by Lv99 battles, the quick monsters have around 14.  Every 8 Clock-Ticks they get a turn.  If the caps on Power, Magic, and Speed can be dropped to 33%-40% of their original levels, then that would be far preferable than simply nixing abilities that adjust them.

I recommend the next fight be between...

Boco vs. Worker 8
Green Dragon vs. Grand Marlborough
Rad as a Red Mage vs. a Wizard with Planar Magic (Black Mage)
Altima vs. Hashmalim (LOL)
Meliadoul vs. Isilude (OMG Dual-Wield Lances and Concentrate?)
Aerith (White Magic & Geomancy) vs. that prick extortionist Monk from the port city

No, let's get serious here.  The next fight should be between an Onmyoshi and a Wizard.

I could tell ya what sounds completely iffy as well.

Quote from: Dome on January 06, 2012, 03:20:09 pm
- Reduce the Jp costs of A LOT OF abilities
- Increase CT of Oracle skills
- Death sentence ignores cancel: dead
- Gear scaled to story (Glain's ASM)
- Make Speed Save add +CT rather than +Speed.

JP Costs are fine as is.  It's possible to acquire which abilities are needed to specialize characters for battlefield roles in a few steps with the current values.  Changing the Move~Gain JP value is a perk--able to get it immediately, even though it's nowhere near being Gained JP Up (or needs to be), but 3 JP per move doesn't work if the player prefers tight, stationary formations.

Increased CT: does this mean you're decreasing casting times or increasing them?  If the latter is true, then monster hunts become harder due to greater emphasis on debilitating status effect magic to counter their new Active and Reactive abilities, and their Speed ratings are already higher, making this a chore at higher levels.  Your inspiration might have to do with "Giant Frog" being the answer for most encounters, but rest easy: Frogs can make a battle unplayable if they use Tentacle on you (see below).

Death negating Death Sentence is a nice bug.  I'd say get rid of resistance to Death Sentence entirely, but that would almost be logical.  Anyway, if you insist on making Death Sentence a threat instead of an exploitable defense against enemy attention, have it cast Death (the Spell) upon the Target at 100% power and no checking for Dead Protection (if that's even possible).  At least it'd be more dramatic than seeing blue text over some screaming sap, and it'd instill some urgency for players to not have this happen to his units.  While you're at it, get rid of the loss of priority upon non-doomed characters; a Doomed threat is still a threat, and should be treated likewise.  Losing the change-of-priority would enable either of our suggestions and, for the latter's case, nobody who knows how Undead respond to the Death Spell gets any bright ideas.

Scale Gear to Story: I assume this means that even at Lv 99 in Chapter 1, you don't get anything better than maybe Chain Mail and stuff off of enemies?  This accomplishes two things: it negates the necessity of Maintenance/Safeguard on enemies, letting them use whatever Support Ability they damn well please, and two, it negates one of the biggest, goofiest, most glaring oversights in Vanilla Tactics entirely.  Under current rubric, high-level human random encounters dangle their UBER-EQUIPS at others who may have ground too far before retailers start selling those pieces.  The dangling crap made me quit Diablo II on battle.net eons ago; in-game conspicuous consumption--just go and get awesome stuff just to show off.  Materialism at its worst: in a game, where you're meant to be escaping from the horrors of the world.  Well anyway, while Thieves and Knights are actually attractive units during random sorties now, the gear still ain't incredible.  That's fine: it ain't game-breaking, though everything is expensive nowadays.  To put a plug on the current version's monotony (perhaps the best part of all), enemy units will apply different support abilities and become far more diverse, more difficult encounters than before, thanks to weirdo combinations like Priests with pole-arms and stuff.  It makes for an interesting fight, akin to standard story battles except it's actually a RANDOM encounter.  That, my friend, would be fun: never knowing what to expect!  I fully endorse this endeavor above all others.  If the patch adds an addendum that enemies could also use legendary treasures at really high levels past the traditional story, say Deep Dungeon, that would be even funnier.

As for changing Speed Save to adding CT+20, don't.  Whoever has the current one can ask a Black Mage with a rod to swat their back flagellation style.  It may not be realistic, but the same thing occurs with PA and MA Saves.  In the greater scheme, a minute boost of +20 per hit means standard hits of 30-60% Health Loss will cause the character to respond at least 3 clock-ticks faster, assuming they react to begin with.  The gains decrease as the character levels up, and in terms of scale it isn't doing much of a favor.  It also takes the fun out of beating on people, since you're forfeiting your turn to possibly add +20CT to their gauge, when you could just wait after an action to get the same effect on you all the time.  Other Reaction Abilities (hell, all of them) will look far more attractive, including Critical Quick of all abilities.  Also note how Speed Save augments weapon strikes for Daggers, Longbows and Ninjato, about as fast as Accumulate/Focus.  PA Strike could do it too, but it doesn't help the character respond.  What I'm saying is: adding CT +20 per hit is lamer than if a Fighter could add it to his or her Bonus Feats.  Speed Save is fine.  If you insist, I suggest you treat it like Regenerator or Dragon Spirit--have it cast Haste instead.  That's adrenaline, and it isn't permanent at all, right?



Tentacles are For ******* with Your Game:

I swear I discussed this before in another post or wrote it down during bug-checking, but let's make it official.  Here's the issue with Frog and Berserk: both of them use a strange ability called Tentacle in place of a standard weapon attack, which lists its effect twice.  They overlap, but do not stack.  Meaning they only add their damage or special effect once, even though seeming graphical glitches list them twice.  That's fine, until we approach Knock-Back.  With a ten foot pole.  As a Physical Strike, Tentacle always has a flag for critical and also for knock-back.  Eventually, it happens.  The quirk about Knock-Back is that, if possible once, it happens again without bothering to check again if it is possible to happen for the next panel.  The ability registers the damage result twice, so the knock-back can happen twice, provided it is initially legal.  After which, it doesn't check--it can go into another panel whether or not it was supposed to happen.

Exceptions include height variance, so you're not scaling to a higher slope, thank God.  You go to the next panel of equal-to-or-lesser height.  That includes other buddies' panels and off the edge of the map.  Trouble erupts when it happens: you're not supposed to do that.  You are asked to move to an effective range instead of actually moving there as desired.  This may be constant for all known move abilities, including teleport and flight.  When you cast a spell on that panel, one animation affects one character and another animation hits the other guy immediately after.  Ranged attacks are impossible as the hugging character blocks line of sight.  Melee attacks are possible, but if you got glued to an enemy, you cannot attack them in melee.  The feeling is mutual.  Only way to treat this is with another knock-back that registers twice and gets you out of hugging formation.  Well, maybe, just a theory.  A theory we shouldn't have to implement.

Getting knocked off the edge of reality means that you cannot be targeted by or receive effects from other characters, as you cannot get the cursor out there to work.  BIG problem.  That's the sort of thing that made my eyes glaze over after it had happened three times so far on separate battles (often with Mustadio and Agrias, which is more than a little ironic).  I still don't know if Teleport or Flight have any bearing on how to get out of there.

If you haven't heard of this bug, it affects a multitude of abilities that display their information twice and also have knock-back potential.  Tentacle is one of them; it is a featured skill of the Marlborough series of creatures as well as on Frogs and Berserk directives.  It was FINE the way it was before, so this kind of bug needs major fixing because if Giant Frog or Berserker were standard procedure for players, they'd pick this bug up rather quickly and squeal to all their friends that the answer should never, ever be "Giant Frog".  My advice?  Nix "Tentacle" outright.  Too buggy to be safe.

Another idea that could be implemented is a heads-up that Undead mages have auto-charge and do not show their actual command abilities.  The Yuguo Woods had a Black Mage and Time Mage, the latter of which instant-cast Dark Holy and one-shot a healer despite not having the Planar Magic command displayed.  The online help lies.  It lies like a bastard.  You can spare players a few headaches and trial-and-error finagling if you just listed what an enemy's Command Abilities really were, instead of leaving them blank.  And if anything can be implemented in the next release, it is a polishing-up of the online help details for abilities.  (After the previous failure, I routed those bastards when my mage countered with Counter Flood and cast Carve Model/Contortion on each sucker, one after the other, petrifying both on the first try and leaving their buddies at my mercy.  LOL Counter Flood).

I'm starting to think that the Event Scripting might actually be easy--just a big load of work and trickiness with formatting.  I'm gonna go see if this stuff is feasible, before I request that someone else more interested in programming a functional game has to go edit text.



Post-Script: The Bull Demon/Wisenkin stats on the master guide are still down, at least for me.  Hope I'm not the only one that noticed this, and the link is no help, either.

There would be battles where Mustadio would indefinitely dominate, all of which involve Undead of some kind.  It would make him sort of a niche character, but that's okay; it's better than the hate everyone keeps spamming him with.  I say go for it.  Just don't go preempting the notion by making every undead creature immune to Petrify.  That's just cruel.

You don't know what to add to the Summoner?  There's a suggestion box 'round here, right?

If you wish to homogenize the MP costs for Holy Sword Techniques, why not (with Holy Explosion as an exception) homogenize their range and area of effect as well?

By my understanding, Abandon doubles evasion and Ramza has an Aegis Shield.  However, I also understand Delita's Holy Sword techniques ride on Physical Evasion, of which Ramza has little.  Against a straight progression of battle, Ramza is nothing but a walking coffin.  One unlucky Critical strike from Delita and it's all over.

It was this trailer that sold me into patching and playing a whole assortment of versions of this game through this site.  Who gives a **** if there's a dislike?

My only advice is for you to steal his weapon.  Equip Precision upon a Concentrate-Innate Thief for the best chance.  Boco is now a White Chocobo, a special Class Character (akin to the Apanda/Reaver or the Archaeodaemons) with Defense Up and all Chocobo-specific Skills.  Battle Skill has long-range debuffs.  Make sure you use them.  The only other combatant in the field (much in tone with the previous cinema) is a lone female Monk.  Keep the pressure on Wiegraf and debuff his buddies so their favorite tricks can't hurt you.  That's pretty much it.

I only asked about making a FFT-based game without grinding since there seemed to be a bias against it in the Plus version.  If you stick around too long in one spot, the redesigned monsters begin to get excruciating.  Training and mastering monsters used to be optional but unappealing when set against just advancing the tale and acquiring specialty characters, but here, it's almost a damned necessity.  The trick with creating a feature in any game is that some of them are meant to be optional; rigging them to become a requirement of survival puts an amount of pressure upon the players who prefer some other means of playing the game.  It used to be I would ignore monsters and poaching bonuses or tracking specific habitats since it wasn't necessary, not because it wasn't worth your time.  These days, I feel as though I have to.

Not that any of this has completely nullified my enjoyment of the new version.  Things tended to get much better once the Fur Shop became available.  That is because I make it a point to desecrate those damned monsters and eat their steak.  It gave me plenty of headaches when I discovered all of the old tricks suddenly didn't work.  It felt like I was getting preempted.  That blew over and I started to figure out ways to kill these new adversaries.  The game started to open up to me in a way that tickled my psyche.  So, any bitterness in seriously considering the use of Monsters is more or less a byproduct of a new mission: to horribly murder every ******* monster in the game.

I'm still writing a FAQ for this.  If you'd like anything added to it, let me know.

I think there's already a Ramza battle in there.

Queklain, Velius, Zalera, Adramelk, and Hashmal in a single fight.  If you didn't think of that already.

Shoruke, the latest edition of Tactics Plus makes the first three "generics" into unique classes.  Dome devised an Onion Knight that is actually playable and nowhere near kitchy or far-fetched as the WotL version, while the Red Mage comes through with a cool assortment of powers that work great with any Class as a secondary set and also as a good complement to other specialist magi and warriors, as a Red Mage should be.

As Onion Knights, Alicia and Lavian are reasonably useful units, like generics with twists.  Keep one, train in a good complementary set of Class Abilities, then change back.  The OK's have innate Maintenance/Safeguard, the ability to equip anything in the game, and Innate Re-Equip, to switch any piece of equipment as needed.  So, if the girl is facing monsters that deal heavy damage but seem to lack status-changing effects, against your predictions on the Formation screen, then she can Re-Equip to something a little more appropriate, like from a Ribbon to a Black Hood, or even better.  It makes Re-Equip feasible.  The Onion Knight is ironically good despite the Mastery Abilities being rather cheesy in the end-game, because with the right secondary Class (I assume you've been training in at least one good set), the Character becomes an effective hedge soldier--not game-breaking or godly like Orlandu, but solid, with good potential for tanking, defense, healing, or applying various tactics without being pegged down to a few by virtue of equipment.  You can't scorn the RSMs, either, considering a few are life-savers and Double-Grip is more feasible during the early game rather than later.

Rad is peculiar.  It's not killing to restrict him from the standard Basic Skill set.  He isn't missing it.  Red Magic is very portable and applicable in many situations.  Though the standard elemental bolts might be underpowered coming from him, the big deal is the power to heal, bolster, protect, and also poison other units.  Poison goes farther than in Vanilla Tactics because it has no time limit--none that I have seen--so creatures with high agility such as Panthers (after taking several hits) suddenly find themselves dying faster and faster without it ever going away.  Left unchecked, poison murders people in this game.  As it should.  Having Poison as part of Rad's lineup is good, but he also has the power to port some of the standard or essential buffs of various classes to any Class he damn well wishes to use, which seriously affects his success with any Class in general.  If warrior-centered classes had Haste, Wall, and Raise, they'd be set.  Well guess what?  As a Red Mage, Rad has a fair shot at standard attacking and decent magics to save his skin.  He just needs a good complementary Class Ability to go along with it, to round out his powers.  Pray Faith is very handy when teamed up with other mages, especially against monsters.  If you hate his standard weapons for any reason, Rad is one of the few characters who takes the most advantage of Punch Art and Martial Arts.  Chakra makes for a self-sufficient buff-mage with decent attack potential.  So yeah, the Red Mage ain't broken, but it ain't overwhelming either.

Compared to standard Generics, Rad, Alicia, and Lavian have received a massive renaissance and should not need major retooling.

Judging by comments, Mustadio cannot shake the monkey off his back!  He was bad in Vanilla and even worse in the re-issue, and here, it's worst of all apparently.  Even with a limited set of magics, Beowulf retains the power to petrify anybody, while Mustadio is restricted to Undead.  Good grief.  Everybody is gonna hate on Mustadio like, forever.  These are the same sorts of complaints I've heard from when I played Vanilla, so it's nothing new.  If any character will forever need a renaissance, it's this guy.

I would switch him up, perhaps by adding "Innate: Charge" to his Command Set as an Engineer.  This could be flipping amazing: imagine a character who, despite not having the Charge Abilities from the Archer learned just yet, has the ability to switch to them as an Engineer and fight with them, in addition to Snipe and an optional Class Ability.  This means his standard Snipe Skill set remains unchanged, while he can select Charge/Aim to deal greater damage once he receives appropriate training.  Charge is pretty slick so far, thanks to its improved casting speeds and Short Charge's ability to affect it further; it's almost like a Rogue Sneak Attack!  Further, it allows Secret Hunt/Poach to happen, meaning a successful Don't Move/Immobilizing shot paves the way for a Charge+20 that turns that creature into parts.  Mustadio can get quite a little extra power out of his weaponry; the right weapon turns into a crippling blow!  And since it's an Innate like Defend is for everybody, he still has a secondary Command Option to fill, allowing for even more attack options.  Mind you, if Balk gets the same exact Class, it can make both his encounters even more harrowing, assuming the CPU grants him Archer Class Action Abilities to toy with.  I understand the CPU "knows" for sure how to secure a Charged Shot if it is available.

Or, if you really wanted Mustadio to be a decent character, he has a whole lineage of sneaky sots in his ancestry, so apply some dumb logic: give Mustadio some means of bluffing his opponents out, or stealing anything not nailed down and on fire.  I would give this guy an ability to Steal one random item from an enemy's possession if within melee range.  It would check if there's something to be stolen, and out of the non-empty spaces of the foe's check if one item gets stolen (one item at random, so it's not a surefire thing like it is with standard thievery).  This means you'd use one ability instead of having to train several specific ones, but it might not get what you want to Steal, so it's a little unreliable, perhaps a bit expensive too.  Given some persistence, though, you'll get everything.  If that doesn't sound terribly good for balance's sake, yet we still wish to make Mustadio's Class playable without a great deal of thought or effort, stick either Innate: Concentrate or Innate: Precision so that Snipe is halfway decent, especially for Power Break, Magic Break, or Mind Break that operate under a different formula and fare worse against high evasion.

Finally: Worker 8 is meant to be a joke character.  His introduction is the only funny cinema in the game.  Period.  What does that tell you?  Steel Giant isn't supposed to be incredible as a Class, and good thing considering that Balk has three of them at his beck-and-f-ing-call.  They're meant to be dealing heavy blows and that's all they're good for.  The fact that they can heal themselves is horrifying, considering that's the only reason I rarely used the one in Vanilla and the fact that it happens here means the enemy Steel Giants are going to be an even bigger pain to take down.  Worker 7 was a pushover, so I shouldn't say too much until I get there.

Okay, maybe it's just me, or is it reprehensible or downright horrifying if Lamias replace Coeurls?

I noticed these creatures inhabiting Mandalia Plains and possessing a nightmarish Discord Skill that poisons and polymorphs if it hits.  They can also Silence and Charm units, making even the Esuna Spell worthless unless everyone has it and uses it swiftly.  The fact that Lamias exist on the very first random battlefield requires you to sneak through (saving first at Igros) before hitting a random encounter which is outright impossible given the early game resources available to units.  Frog is not supposed to be something you encounter until there are fair and reliable countermeasures, and that includes a reliable curing agent for Silence as well, so the Red Mage with Esuna has a shot at curing the froggies.

Practically every random encounter featuring Lamias during Chapter One (the blue kind) made my eyes glaze over and compelled me to pitch the controller at the monitor.  This is the same feeling that flows over a young man's mind when he tries to beat Haunted Castle, the arcade game.  At least I ain't spitting quarters at those #%*&^ Lamias.  Either I patched it wrong or this is actually a major balance issue.  Without appropriate and accessible countermeasures, none of the early creatures should have access to disabling status effects of the same magnitude as Frog.  The answer for upping the challenge rating should not be "Giant Frog," Celdia!

Edit: Other fights are simple.  It's just those damned Lamias.  It's disconcerting to go up against those freaks in the early game.  There is early access to Immunity, but Butlers don't hit hard enough.  In any case, everything else is looking okay so far, although DD was complaining about a fight where infinite-range revive spells and lore-masters were making his eyes bleed.  Looks like more fun than automatic silent frog fights.

Clarify between Vanilla, Plus, or perhaps both.

If Vanilla, Any Weather reigned supreme due to the designers' lack of attention given to climate and terrain.  Much of it was dummied when compared to equivalent games thanks to the sheer otherworldly sentiment of any kind of terrain or climate having any impact on a fight in a Final Fantasy game.  Any Ground was also a contender.  Thank God things are different in Plus, because those glaring oversights always bothered me.

Plus:

Throw took a backseat in Plus.  Even if Catch is gone, Bullet Guard is still there, and there's only one Move Boost Ability to extend range with.  Characters with Move 3 need not apply here.  The dummied Axes could have been loads of fun to chuck around whether or not they were available to the player, though they'd be extremely expensive.  Despite the increase in power, Shuriken and Balls have nothing on other methods of fighting, especially since most monsters lack elemental weaknesses and no enemy formation will equip the non-standard Fire, Thunder, and Ice Shields.

Uselessness is one thing, but something that is too useful overrides everything else.  During many hunting trips, I noticed one character was getting high levels due to constant use: the character with Yin Yang Magic.  The complete set, save Condemn, seemed like a no-brainer to have.  Now, creatures tend to have status immunities, but they are not abrasive or all-encompassing.  Also, the Knight's Precision ability more than compensates for the inability to directly adjust Faith scores.  Coupled with Pray Faith, my answer to practically every encounter ended up as two words: "Giant Frog."

Seriously.  Sending the original Black Magics of Frog and Poison to the Oracle/Onmyoshi/Mystic and then making Poison a permanent affair made for a character who has the answer to practically every monster encounter.  That's pretty much the story behind Beowulf's original Templar Class command and its success in hunting monsters: these spells are brilliant.  Adding Frog and Poison, on the other hand, makes Yin Yang Magic the catch-all solution to practically any bad-ass.  Even the Squids and Illithids can't match the party if they themselves have found the dark, terrible secret they have always sought after: "Giant Frog."  Black Magic can't match that anymore, even though it used to be perfect alongside Yin Yang Magic for these reasons and more.

Given some thought, I'd say Summon Magic has some real issues, enough to take this crown of most useless special.  It's worthless against the aforementioned Illithids, since their answer to everything is "Counter Flood" and their stats override the original limits of Geomancy.  As for Summoning, all they do is deal thematic elemental damage and, if not, deal slightly better non-elemental damage or do so instantly.  Big deal.  So can the Attack Command, and it's cheaper.  Regardless of cost, Elements are nowhere near as good as they used to be.  Monsters who were originally weak to some kind of element are no longer weak to it, or had their affinities adjusted, or some creatures (goblins and squids) are impossible to face with magic.  That's okay--they're all "puzzle encounters", where you gotta have the proper abilities to ensure a smooth fight.  Which isn't Summon Magic.

Not to mention, Summons were dummied just because the Summoner used to do a good job protecting the party as well.  Can't have the ability to heal and protect and still be considered fair and balanced, it seems.  Mog, Fairy, Golem, and the seemingly redundant Salamander and Cyclops were dismissed from the roster.  When the Summoner's supportive and healing abilities went by the wayside, my interest in the command was lost, chiefly because I never considered Summon Magic to be a mere replacement for the Black Magic command.  It was never that.  Golem seemed like too much of a cheat against human encounters, mostly because it was expensive but quick to cast and operated on the user's Maximum Health.  It didn't cover all attacks and is nowhere near a perfect defense, yet it was dummied.  Mog and Fairy used to heal, but they were ousted also.  To be quite frank about the affair, once Summoners got pegged for doing nothing but wreaking havoc with the classic damage-based Summons, they simply became a homogenized Black Mage with a few extra elements tagged on.  Longer casting ranges mean nothing if they don't deal enough damage to faze the enemy's tactics.

That's pretty sad, considering there could be other things that Summons can do from any distance that don't need to revolve around damage (barring the exceptions of Earth and Water, namely Titan and Leviathan, and even they could use some adjusting).  All things considered, Lich is pretty much your go-to guy since he wasn't changed a whole lot.  Even though you can cast from long distance, any distance really, the others aren't doing enough damage to warrant prolonged use of anything else but Lich and Precision.  With the exception of risen bones, phantoms, or anybody claiming to be a master bonecraftsman, you can go no better than a couple Lich summons to ruin the battlefield.  And any Class Specialty where only one ability is worth the time of the player is a Class Specialty that's better off reworked or abolished entirely.

Happened to me as well in FFT+; the "Tentacle" attack has a weird glitch that procs its effect twice, but the damage is counted once (not that it matters).  Anyway, if you are knocked back, you are knocked back again, only this time you run the risk of moving to a compatible panel for Knock-Back (namely: any equal or lesser-than Height variance).  Since this modified second Knock-Back does not check to see if there are natural boundaries that would negate the initial Knock-Back, which includes characters, then the unit can get stuck on a panel, and worse, the other character can get stuck as well.  It's a serious bug that isn't so funny if the character must stay mobile or capable of delivering the offensive push in the party if so specialized.  Only recourse is to double-check every ability to make sure an attack formula does not involve Knock-Backs if there is a glitch as pervasive as that.

I'm surprised there weren't more of them.

Trying to make Counter Tackle appealing?  Try reducing all Swords' Weapon Evasion so everyone doesn't pick Weapon Guard at first level.  Ha!  Kidding.

Working on the assumption that probational warriors tend to be overzealous, overconfident, reckless if untamed, or temperamental in some way, I have devised two possible ideas based on that assessment alone:

Idea One: Counter-Threat

The idea behind this is that Squires can be trained to shout at their opponent--a bellow fierce enough to cause aggressors to rethink their tactics and scurry off.

When dealt a direct weapon attack, subject has Br% shot at casting the new Threaten, which adds Don't Act/Disable to the Target if successful.  Ranged weapons apply if subject stands in a panel where Threaten may legally apply.  The low chance of dealing Threaten to a Target is one thing, and as an added bonus, it requires Monster Talk to function on Monster opponents.  There you go: a hit-and-miss ability useful against human targets but not monsters.  It's just as take-or-leave as the original Counter Tackle.

Variant: use the original Threaten (if it still exists in the game data), which lowers the odds of Reaction Abilities and weakens a small variety of weapon attacks.  While in Vanilla Tactics it could be game-breaking, it's not the case here, and it gives a fair shot at making melee aggressors turn Chicken if they persist.  Using Steal Courage to duplicate this idea (if the original Threaten is no more) might make it look goofy.

Either way, the odds of one happening over the other whenever it triggers gives it added unreliability, which makes it an even weaker Reaction Ability but on par with the original Counter Tackle.  Assuming Br50, the new Threaten (Don't Act) would occur 20% of the time, assuming the reacting caster survives the blow that triggers it.  A Br70 would do it 35% at the minimum, and this would improve with both Magic and Precision.  The original Threaten had a rate of (90+M), so if that is used, a Br50 unit casts it on an opponent 45% of the time, with zodiac variance affecting all outcomes.

On second thought, consider the first idea.

Idea Two: Infuriate (pick a good name)

I know for a fact this will be thrown out completely.  But I'm throwing it out there.  I love throwing competitions.

This delves into the good old D&D tradition with Barbarians (3.5), only here we nix the impossibility of reacting to danger to make it happen.  We're talking about going into a bloodthirsty rage, where short-tempered soldiers lose all finesse and go for the enemy's throat.

If dealt either a weapon attack or (heh-heh) HP Loss, the Unit has a Br% chance of losing his cool, adding Berserk to self.  The visual effects for the old (and long-gone?) "Scream" ability complement this perfectly.

With proper gear, support abilities, and back-up from someone with mastered Basic Skill, this might actually be fun to work with.  Heal/Salve covers Berserk now, so his buddies can rush up and calm him down before he kills himself; this zany tactic can happen in Chapter One.  The drawback is that Weapon Guard or Abandon--crucial defensive abilities for a Berserk fighter, cannot be hooked up and will not apply to this unit; other, safer methods of inducing Berserk remain in place.  The ability will have limited appeal and will only work if players prepare for said confrontations where it might happen.

Variant: staying true to Barbarian style, it adds another buff like Haste, Regen, or Transparent.  Maybe not Transparent, but certainly not Protect, Shell, or Reraise.  That's just stupid.  Maybe make it Always Berserk and possibly Add another, if the unit gets lucky.  If this happens, remember that another attack won't trigger the Reaction again (Berserk negates Br% Reaction Abilities); curing Berserk gives the character another chance to fly into a rage, another chance to gain another status effect alongside Berserk.  It's sort of a whimsical chance, rather than one set in stone, so it remains an unreliable, dicey ability you could take or leave.

Here's a few more:

Idea Three: Uncanny Dodge

Always Defending (Critical only); stops Defending upon next turn if health is restored between then and the effect.

Throw up your guard.  Constantly Defending even during a Turn, unlike Caution, while in Critical Condition.  However, Weapon Evasion can never apply, Abandon does roughly the same thing, and... yeah, it's not that great an Ability either.  That's what we're going for, right?

Idea Four: Shield Bash

Caster of avoided/guarded weapon attack in melee is subject to Shield Bash.  (Range: 1V1, Effect: one Target; Formula: [P*(P/X), Always Hits, Always Knock-Back; never works without a Shield equipped]

Where X equals a division number from two to nine (never zero) that corresponds to the equipped Shield.

The caveat goes between the Shield and your character's defense.  It's not too hot when used with certain high-evasion shields, while lighter versions can deal heavier blows.  Another issue is that you have to avoid, guard, block, or evade an oncoming melee attack for it to work, so with lighter shields, this proves difficult.  Finally, it is a Br% whenever you do avoid, so it's a dicey passive technique.  It has no effect upon opponents with Concentrate set up.

This requires an additional parameter issued to Shields.  The blow should never exceed a Dash or Bulls-Eye in terms of strength, not without getting the really good Shield (Escutcheon II, which means its division parameter is 2).  With new shields coming into the fold, often superior to previous versions, you could make earlier Shields possess good striking power (Buckler, Escutcheon) and transition to those with phenomenal striking power (Escutcheon II).



That's all I can think of.  If anything, don't nudge Throw Stone around to 3*P, since 100% Knock-Back is more than enough to have fun with.  As for other Abilities, I'd bring the cancellation chances for Dash to 100% instead of 25%; besides its limited grappling range, it is otherwise identical to Bulls-Eye and might even require a reduction in power just so you can tell one from the other.

Post-Script: Bulls-Eye with low-powered, high-range firearms is crazy funny.  Pair it with a Romanda Gun and see what I mean.