Final Fantasy Hacktics

I presented the idea at the hack ideas thread in new projects, but I'l repeat for anyone that missed it.

A mini hack that changes the player's roster to include only the jobs from FF1 and Ramza. The player will be pitting the Light Warriors against the FFT battles to see who is stronger. None of the previous special units will be available at any time other than as guests during story battles that require them.

Now what I want feedback on is weather the light warriors should have custom spells, or just use the ones already available in FFT?

If I make custom spells it will take longer. If I use what's available, it'll make the light warriors a bit weaker.

Make your choice! ^_^

Quote from: "Vanya"pitting the Light Warriors against the FFT battles to see who is stronger.

FFT battles are joke difficulty

Light Warriors win


I'm torn on this one... because.. if you let them use their normal canon attacks they'll kill FFT battles (unless you nerf them)

and if you make them adapt to FFT rules they will still kill FFT battles, because FFT rules are borked

so I don't think it matters as long as you balance it, right?

many of the spells can be adapted to FF1.  Fire/Ice/Bolt2+ can be set to have 255 aoe and enemy only, for example.  fade is nothing but an AoE holy, BANE is just aoe death (also, xfer).

You'd have to do some ability juggling, but all in all most of the spells can be tweaked.  I don't really see anything that'd require customization, unless you mess with AFIR/ALIT/etc.

most of the spells that mess with evade% and elemental/status resistance would require a handful of custom formulas.

I think their own skills.

Id go for the original FFI spells.

I was bored, so I went ahead and threw together a possible spell list for the Light Warriors
:EDIT: oh, I forgot to mention, in order for the transparent inducing spells to not be broken, the transparent status needs to function not like the vannila version [AI ignore unit + Concentrate] and more like [Magic Defense DOWN and physical evade +50% (as if the attacker had the blind status)]
:EDITA: added in a spell I forgot, Null All, under Tier 8 for White Magic.

Black Magic (organized by original tier)

Tier 1
Fire: deals tier 1 wizard spell fire damage, range 4, AoE 2v1

Sleep: Identical to the oracle spell

Focus: inflicts Charging status on a single foe

Bolt: Smaller AoE then fire, but unlimited vertical tolerance, AoE 1v255

Tier 2
Ice: Significantly stronger then fire or bolt (Tier 1.5), but single target only

Fog: inflicts Blind status, range 4, AoE 1v2

Steel: Increase Target PA by +1

Slow: identical to the Time Mage spell

Tier 3
Fire 2: as Fire, but tier 2 damage

Bind: inflicts Don't Act on a single foe

Bolt 2: as Bolt, but tier 2 damage

Focus 2: inflicts Charging status on multiple foes, AoE 1v1

Tier 4
Sleep 2: Single target sleep with very high accuracy (hits 100% with best compat and moderate faith)

Haste: identical to the Time Mage spell

Muddle: identical to the Confuse spell

Ice 2: as Ice, but tier 2.5 damage

Tier 5
Fire 3: as Fire, but tier 3 damage

Poison: as the 1.3 wizard spell

Warp1: Teleport movement ability

Slow 2: identical to the Time Mage spell

Tier 6
Bolt 3: as Bolt, but tier 3 damage

Reaper: identical to the wizard spell Death

Quake: inflicts instant death, lower accuracy then Reaper, but AoE 1v1, earth element

Stun: Set Target CT 00

Tier 7
Saber: Self PA +2

Blind: identical to the oracle spell

Ice 3: as Ice, but tier 3.5 damage

Break: identical to the oracle spell petrify

Tier 8
Stop: Identical to the Time Mage spell

Banish: instant crystallization at low accuracy (like, 0+MA%), of course, all bosses would be immune to this spell, as would any immortal flagged enemies

Doom: single target Death Sentence at high accuracy

Flare: as the 1.3 spell Flare 2


White Magic (organized by original tiers)

Tier 1

Cure: identical to the priest spell

Dia: deals tier 0.75 holy element damage, range 4, AoE 1v1

Shield: identical to the protect spell

Blink: inflict transparent status on self

Tier 2
Lamp: trash effect, not ported

Silence: identical to the oracle spell

Null Bolt/Fire/Ice: consolidated into a single spell that inflicts Shell

Invisibility: inflict transparent status to a single ally

Tier 3
Cure 2: identical to the priest spell

Dia 2: deals tier 1.5 holy element damage, range 4, AoE 1v1

Heal: Tier 0.75 healing, but has a large AoE and does not hit enemies, Range 4, AoE 2v2

Tier 4
Esuna: identical to the priest spell

Fear: adds critical status to multiple foes, range 4, AoE 1v1

Vox: trash effect, not ported

Tier 5
Cure 3: identical to the priest spell

Life: identical to the Raise spell

Dia 3: deals tier 2.25 holy element damage, range 4, AoE 1v1

Heal 2: Tier 1.5 healing, but AoE 2v2 and does not target enemies

Tier 6
Stona: Esuna already cures petrify, so no need to port this spell

Warp2: Teleport movement ability

Shield 2: identical to 1.3 Protect 2

Invisible 2: rename Vanish, adds transparent to self and allies in AoE 2v2, range 0

Tier 7
Null Magic: becomes ReRaise

Heal 3: Tier 2.25 healing, but AoE 2v2 and does not target enemies

Cure 4: fully heals a single target

Dia 4: Tier 3 Holy damage, range 4, AoE 1v1

Tier 8
Null All: identical to 1.3 Shell 2

Holy: identical to the priest spell

Dispel: identical to the oracle spell

Life 2: identical to Raise 2

You've got some interesting ideas there, Skip. I'll take them into consideration. Thanks for the input.

I'm interested on what the plans are for the physical types, because having a blank skillset and just attacking is a lot of wasted potential imo.

I forgot a spell in that list, the NullAll spell should be identical to 1.3 Shell 2, i've edited the post to reflect that

@philsov: I'm not sure yet. I want them to be as close to the originals as possible, but not having any skills at all IS pretty boring. Warrior & Thief get spells after advancing, but Monk and Master get nothing... ever. I don't want to go overboard with, though. I'd probably not give the empty jobs more than 1 new skill each. If possible I'd like to make their skill sets work like a command instead of a menu like Jump.

@Skip: I like some of your ideas, but the White Magicks seem to deviate a lot from the original. Still, thanks for the ideas. ^_^

well, the fear spell reduces enemy evasion, which in the context of the FFI mechanics, makes enemeies take more damage from physical attacks because you can deal more hits, the closest effect in FFT would be the charging status. In FFI, you had limited spell slots of each level, so it made sense to seperate the status healing into seperate spells so you wouldn't have to waste higher level slots healing minor status effects, in FFT you just have MP, so you only need one general-purpose status spell. If you would still prefer to keep the separate status healing, something like this might work.

Physna: Cures Poison, Blind, Don't Move, and Don't Act

Psyna: Cures Silence, Confusion, Berserk and Charm

Uncurse: Cures Undead, Frog, Petrify and Blood Suck

Esuna: Cures everything except for Stop, Slow, and Death Sentence

that should work fine, especially taking into account that as a tier 5 placed spell, Refresh 4 would be a White Wizard job spell, as opposed to a White Mage job spell (i'm determining this based on the 16 ability per skillset limit in FFT, which works out nicely with the FFI spelllists, since there are 32 spells in each list, which divides perfectly into two skillsets)

Actually, the Focus spell is the one that reduces evade, not Fear. The FF1 version would reduce an unseen stat called morale that only enemies had. If Fear drops an enemy's morale to 0 they would run away. This is basically equivalent to lowering Brave in FFT. I think Beowulf's Chicken skill has the right base mechanics for this effect. I'd just change the chicken status so it doesn't change the affected unit's graphics into a chicken and forces the unit into the critical pose instead.

As for the stat removing spells... The thing is that FF1 didn't have Esuna. I don't really want to add spells that weren't in FF1 unless it is to give the non-spell casters a new ability in order to avoid an empty skill set. Remember that the point is to have the Light Warriors battle the enemies from FFT.

I was indeed planning on splitting the the spells into 2 sets. The lower 'mage' jobs have tier 1 -4 spells and the higher 'wizard' jobs will get tier 5-8. Also I'm giving spells an MP cost equal to their tier value and greatly reducing the rate of MP growth of the Light Warriors.

*facepalm* yeah, focus, that's what I meant. Anyway, looking at the situation more carefully, the light warrior's anti-status situation isn't as bad as I first thought. All together, they can cure 8 different status effects; Poison, Blind, Silence, Petrify, Sleep, Confuse, Charm, and Slow (via the Haste spell), that leaves just Don't Act, Don't Move, Faith, Innocent, Undead, Frog, Stop, and Blood Suck, and no FFT characters can cure stop either. Speaking of Faith and Innocent status, are the Light Warriors going to have fixed Brave/Faith values?

I guess they should, no?

probablly, which brings up another point, what kinds of reactions/supports do the Light Warriors have access too? i mean, the Black Wizard and White Wizard (and possibly the Red Wizard) could justifiably have access to teleport, but thats pretty much it as far as I see, the FFI ninja doesn't Two Sword, the FFI Knight doesn't Two Hand, and the monk/master don't do much of anything at all.

I hadn't thought of that, really. Those skills will be limited, too.

All units will have Item & Equip Change. I want to hack the item skill set to be learned by default even if the unit doesn't have chemist unlocked. That way I don't have to bother with a freelancer type job to house the skill set.

The monk I think can get Martial Arts & Defense Up since they had special code that gave them better attack and defense if not equipped. I'll have to hack Defense Up to only be on if the monk is nekkid.

The mages that would normally have access to the warp & exit spells can get the teleport skill, but I'll implement Razele's old teleport hack to give them an MP cost when using it.

Thieves had the highest luck growth which gave them the best chance to successfully escape battles. So I guess they can have Abbandon and maybe move/jump +1.

Warrior can have Attack up since they had the best strength growth.

Ninja will be able to use every weapon & armor in the game.

Paladin (Knight) and Ninja will get alternative skills instead of the same spells as the mages. They'll function the same, but will look different in order to mix things up a little.