Final Fantasy Hacktics

I'm going to try to type less. trying to carefully explain myself doesn't seem to be working.

Quote from: Advent on March 12, 2014, 03:39:47 pm
So your argument is that "you guys should take it out of the game because I don't like it in there." No one is forcing you to try to achieve anything. Are you incapable of making a clear and concentrated choice? Because what you're saying is literally that. Your argument is not objective in the least, it is entirely a nitpick that you have with how things are being done.

My argument is that you guys should take it out because you don't want it there. Raven has said, in several places, that he doesn't expect you to have access to advanced jobs in chapter 1. I haven't read every single one of his posts. but most of them state this.

Quote from: Advent on March 12, 2014, 03:39:47 pm
You want things to be done one way, when they're being done in another. There is literally no difference in the effect on the player aside from what you're nitpicking about. If anything, I'd argue it another way and say that I prefer it this way because if I choose to, I can get a little taste of what I can expect to have in future chapters.

I want things to be designed well and have balance. is that really an unreasonable request? the only thing imbalanced is the rate at which you gain JP.

the fact we  have access to jobs you don't want us to have access to is completely different argument.

Quote from: Advent on March 12, 2014, 03:39:47 pm
No, what you've gathered from what I said is quite different from what I've actually said.

This is true. what you said implies something different to me than what you thought it meant in your head.

Quote from: Advent on March 12, 2014, 03:39:47 pm
Clearly you do not, because I actually did read what you wrote. A misunderstanding does not automatically give one a pass to be a pompous ass.

so instead of actually answering my questions you decide to argue about things that weren't even the meat of my argument? ok..

Quote from: Advent on March 12, 2014, 03:39:47 pm
No, it's been stated that you should not expect to have them without an excessive amount of grinding in Chapter 1.

It's also been stated if you get too high in levels, monster battles become increasingly difficult because you lack the gear to close the power gap.

you soft cap how much you can grind. but then say i'm free to grind? there is a flaw in that logic.

It's one thing to say you have to excessively grind. it's another to say you have to excessively grind AND effectively screw yourself in every other random encounter you have

Quote from: Advent on March 12, 2014, 03:39:47 pm
Because I would assume it's implied that you're simply playing the game instead of going out of your way to unlock everything. If you were, you wouldn't know anything about Animists and what have you.

isn't unlocking everything also playing the game? playing the game isn't ONLY story progression.

Quote from: Advent on March 12, 2014, 03:39:47 pm
What.

On this, we can agree.

what what?

you agreed with my point directly after that, but disagree with the point that it's founded on?

Quote from: Advent on March 12, 2014, 03:39:47 pm
Have you tried using the Attack command.

I don't really like putting my wizard and priest on the front line. considering they have lower HP, lower defense, and have little means of protecting themselves because they are fundamentally back-line classes. the attack command on them isn't really the first thing I think of.

Quote from: Advent on March 12, 2014, 03:39:47 pm
That's not what I said. What I said was that I could easily produce a video that disproves your notion that everyone is forced to be a self-sufficient hybrid, where you can't have a cohesive team.

They are the same thing. prior to level 10 you only really have access to your base class and chemist. by their very nature, having these two skill sets makes everyone a self-sufficient hybrid.

you can't begin to focus on specialized roles  until after you have leveled chemist and gain access to more specialized abilities from other jobs.

Cloud is the only character that doesn't have some means of keeping themselves alive. Flipper for Dante, Ramza and his many abilities, Link with his heal/saria song, snake with smoke break.

Dante has the option of going full offense, provided you stay away from his self-sustain abilities. but given that everyone starts with item subskill, everyone starts as a self-sustaining hybrid.

Quote from: formerdeathcorps on March 12, 2014, 02:51:43 pm
1) As I've already said, there's no technical challenge in locking ninja (just have it require level 8 in itself), but Raven's decision is not poor game design.  He simply threw in some disincentives against what is normally considered beneficial (such as leveling up, unlocking "advanced" jobs, or buying better gear, etc.)  You may not like it that way, but it is just as valid as a more minimal approach; in fact, I think it is more interesting when everything incurs diminishing returns because it feels more realistic.

ehhh. while i don't really agree with this in principle. it's a videogame, and therefor by its very nature it's not realistic.

it's just a very very poor argument to put something in as accessible and then say you shouldn't access it. disincentives or not.

Quote from: Advent on March 12, 2014, 01:28:30 pm
How is this any different than vanilla?

opportunity cost.

Quote from: Advent on March 12, 2014, 01:28:30 pm
"My strategy requires haste.  Why does Square force me to level 2 levels of chemist and 3 levels of black mage to get time mage when I clearly need haste to beat Dorter I?  Rather than being able to have a full support Pr / TM, I've been forced, by the developer, to make each member of my party deal damage for the first half of the chapter.  Clearly, FFT doesn't offer me enough freedom to build my team how I wish."
Plus, your objection isn't even valid.  Once you beat the beastmaster at Barius Hill, you have access to a random battle zone (with very easy enemies).  It's not hard to level up there.  Plus, because the enemies are very easy there, you can easily gain JP without EXP gain (by Move-JP Up).

oh wow. this takes so many things completely out of context.

so, according to you. Chemist has a base move of 3. move jp gives you 1 jp per tile moved. so it will take 100 turns to gain 300 jp. to gain one ability. brilliant idea. Why would I spend so much time doing this instead of just hacking the game futher?

Quote from: Advent on March 12, 2014, 01:28:30 pm
That's essentially your logic at work.  Please don't throw stones from glass houses.

*rolls eyes* i'm not going to go over this again. read one of my other posts. jp gains per level are limited.

Quote from: Advent on March 12, 2014, 01:28:30 pm
I was referring to vanilla.  ONLY Ramza has skills that unlock by chapter (maybe the phrase "locked skills" was imprecise).  The reason is obvious: only Ramza (and arguably, Alma after being possessed if you count ultima an unlockable skill) has that level of character development in FFT.
Your second proposal would not work very well because everyone's playstyle is different.  I think it would make more sense to determine skillsets based off of the character (so Link would have levels in Archer and Knight, Alma would have levels in white mage, etc.)
As for your first, it's an intriguing idea, but Dante already has a full skillset of 16 attacks.  I don't think we can fit it in.  In general, the idea of having abilities unlocked by events is interesting, but it shouldn't be overdone or the game will feel too much like FFTA2.  Honestly, I find it ironic that you support the freedom "to build my team how i wish" and simultaneously want to restrict abilities through ideas like this.

That's one of the fundamentals of game design. it's the 'illusion of choice.'

Raven clearly wants you to play the game a certain way. this is clear from his FAQ and the fact that chemist is required to unlock any other jobs.

Chemist is not useful for every character, depending on your strategy and playstyle. therefore it is a restriction of freedom.

allowing access to something and then saying 'why do you want it? it's only chapter 1' when it is clearly accessible and available is different than making something unlockable through progress and unavailable at an early stage of the game.

IE: disincentives are fundamentally different than locks. It would be like me heating my doorknob to burn you if you try to open my unlocked door, instead of just locking the damn door.

Quote from: Advent on March 12, 2014, 01:28:30 pm
I am known to be repetitive, but what I had in mind were things like...
1) A character gets his arm lopped off in the transition from Chapter I to II.  Clearly, he can no longer use 2H weapons now.
2) A mage was captured in Chapter I and was tortured while in prison and is released in the beginning of Chatper II.  Clearly, he is no longer able to cast advanced spells because he can no longer maintain that level of focus.
3) A man is injected with superserum and now has superpowers.  Clearly, his main class now has more options and he probably has fly as an innate.

In other words, given the above changes, it is possible to justify unlocking or locking certain skills or abilities.  What you call this process is irrelevant, but such "character growth" needs to pass a certain limit before we can express those changes in chapter or event-unlocked skills or abilities.  This is why I don't think it should be a default feature in FFT or Jot5 (meaning it will affect most jobs and classes); most characters don't undergo such drastic changes.

All of that is fine. and understandable. that will explain part of the decisions made.

Quote from: Advent on March 12, 2014, 01:28:30 pm
My point exactly.  Because FFT is a turn-based RPG where mix-and-match is encouraged and units are supposed to get progressively better, we should not import mechanics from real time games (like event-dependent skill unlocks or resetting skills / gear in between chapters) where the above conditions do not hold.  In other words, although FFT is a mix-and-match, mechanics are NOT a mix-and-match between different games and different genres.

Alright. but why are you discouraging mix and match? you can't even begin to mix until you are over level 10 and  have collected 'essential skills' in chemist and your base class.

furthemore, the rate at which you can learn new abilities to 'mix-and-match' is always abysmally low.

Quote from: Advent on March 12, 2014, 01:28:30 pm
This is clearly where we differ.  You believe that the desired mechanics should drive the story.  Hence, to you, the game starts everyone at level 1 because this is a standard game mechanic.  I believe the story is the supreme feature of a game.  Due to the limitations of the RPG genre, time, game balance, and our understanding of the code, we must allow certain "small" deviations between mechanics and story (such as Dante being able to learn a stealth generic class like thief despite it being against his nature) or Cloud being able to use ribbons in his generic class (while as a knight, he cannot), but any "large" or "global" disruption needs to have a storyline justification.  Hence, to me, the game starts everyone at level 1 because Ramza hasn't fought in two years and everyone else was warped into the world by a process that took their weapons and sense of normality, but that reason isn't something you can repeat three times (because sentient beings adjust to their surroundings).  IN fact, I'd find it contrived even if three different reasons were given for the next three chapter breaks if the result of each of them is the same kind of equipment / skill reset (because the probability of getting the same unlucky result from three different processes is low).  I'm sure a good enough storywriter can certainly string together a plot so these things happen more "naturally", but a good writer would not insist on it happening either.  In other words, if this was a movie rather than a video game, the plot should be just as fluid and not have spots where it only makes "sense" in a video game.

This is fine. but i'm not really wanting to argue about the story. it's merely a side-effect of me arguing with too many people about one topic and it being interpreted differently by different people because they have different responsibilities.

The whole point of that was you already tie equipment to story progression. it's clear you want abilities to be tied to progression as well. so why didn't you just hardcode it in?

Quote from: Advent on March 12, 2014, 01:28:30 pm
I think you're overgeneralizing from your own personal experience.  For the record, my units were 5 levels lower than yours when I beat Chapter I, and I'm sure Raven can probably do it at Level 18.  It all depends on how much care you put into analyzing the enemy.

Raven is clearly nowhere near an average player in understanding. who is the target audience? absolute masters of the game? or are you looking for a more general audience? how accessible do you want your game to  be? etc. etc.

Quote from: Advent on March 12, 2014, 01:28:30 pm
That's up to you, but I don't use Move-JP as a grinding tool (though it's tempting while Snake is invisible).  For me, it's mostly a supplement so I require only 70-80% the EXP to get the same amount of JP.  I find that mobility isn't so good early game when I don't have 1HKOs and the enemy easily outnumbers or outspeeds me.  The key to not dying in the early fights is CT conservation and knowing the CT of your units when enemies get turns.  Remember, first strike KOs don't have to come from superior speed or mobility, it can also come from AI stupidity: let them walk into your attack range (and keep your units out of theirs when it is their turn).
Maybe your playstyle is different than mine, but I've always favored a team of self-sufficient hybrids over specialized units.  I can say that Raven's mechanics fit my playstyle quite well.  I will also, say, however, that my Arena teams do not match this playstyle (my best teams are either pure offense or pure defense).  It pays to adapt to the game.

I don't disagree with this. but it unfortunately forces you into this, or at the very least heavily incentivizes it. which is a big problem to me from a design perspective. but I also design/develop professionally.

you are the ones that have absolute control over the development of the game. i'm not saying you need to do what I say. I'm saying it would be prudent to relook at some of your design choices because they were not done well. it makes the game less accessible. is it your intent to force some people to cheat? why is this what you want? Yes, I can  hack the game. Yes, I can force the patch to be what I want it to be. but I also want to experience it as the designer intended. which means i'm not going to hack or cheat, etc.

Quote from: Advent on March 12, 2014, 01:28:30 pm
1) Small tweaks to the rules can have large effects.  Voldemort's 1.3 was appropriately termed FFT: Item or FFT: Hardmode because he made two vital changes (PD can be used by level 1 enemies and all enemy units scale to player level).  These two changes mean 1.3's strategy is different enough from vanilla that many veteran players could not adjust.  I do not doubt Jot5 does not have similarly groundbreaking mechanics.

both of which are enjoyable aspects to both patches.

Quote from: Advent on March 12, 2014, 01:28:30 pm
2) If you admit Jot5, 1.3, and vanilla FFT are fundamentally the same system with the same rules, and you want Jot5 to be more "complete" (i.e. more perfectly fitting the system it is contained in), then aren't you contradicting yourself by proposing mechanics from Persona?

This is a difference in logic path. the designer has stated he did not intend for us to have access to certain things at certain points. therefore the game becomes more complete by removing the things you did not want us to have access to yet.

Quote from: Advent on March 12, 2014, 01:28:30 pm
3) I can't speak for Raven, but as a modder, I would like to think "completion" means resembling a final product.  IN Jot5's case, the final product is a full FFT mod that spans four chapters.  If the final product is to contain ninja in Chapter IV, then the patch is more complete if the Chapter I release has ninja than if it does not.  In other words, the form of the game's release (piecemeal) should not affect the content (the available classes).
Remember, the modder's intent need not be formalized as law (or hard-coding).  A disincentive works just as well.

This is probably a difference between someone who designs/develops for a living and someone who does it for fun. I'm not saying it's bad or wrong. it's just a difference in fundamentals.

you say it is more complete if it resembles the final product. but what makes the product 'final'?

the game provides you with an experience. each chapter, obviously, cannot provide you the full experience because the complete story is not told in any one chapter.

however, the game is not just story. it is also combat. while I do not get a complete experience out of the story, I can get a more complete experience out of the combat portions.

However, this wasn't done either. When you think about it, the only thing you will really gain with new chapters from a combat perspective is new equipment/items.

As a player, I can chose to grind out and take as much time as i want between story encounters. For this patch, there is a mechanic that suggests I dont' do this too excessively. which is fine. but this provides a limitation at the same time. essentially certain random encounters are soft caps to progress because you will lack the equipment to close the gap in relative strength.

but for the most part, combat will not change from chapter 1 to chapter 4. this includes the rate at which you gain new abilities. Which is one of the things i'm trying to get you to fix.

you already link combat progression to equipment. which is linked to story progression. but you don't do this for abilities and jobs. you could have done this.  but you didn't. Raven has stated that he thinks this should be the case. this is my other argument. if you really did not want us to have it, why is it there?

Quote from: Advent on March 12, 2014, 01:28:30 pm
Speaking as a modder myself, I have things currently in my Breath of Fire 3 beta release that the player simply does not have access to unless they either hack it in or they progress farther than the mod itself is complete. It makes complete sense, but from a developmental perspective rather than a user perspective.

It's simply more efficient (generally speaking) to have a to-do list of what to code in and in what order instead of doing it all in chronological order in regards to the game itself. See the bottom of this post (http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=10179.msg194282#msg194282) for what I'm talking about.

This is also one reason why you generally don't see things released piecemeal like Jot5 is without a legitimate reason.

I would disagree. it makes sense from both perspectives. If I the player, don't know something exists, I can't try to achieve it. In jot5, trying to achieve things too soon make your level 'too high' and makes certain encounters more difficult. I'm not opposed to this outright. but the balancing could be done in a way that these fights are difficult, not near impossible.

but the thing is, jot5 is being released piecemeal. certain things are suffering as a consequence. but that's my whole point. they don't have to suffer.

chapter 1 is already in a temporary state. but it's being treated like its content will never change. ever. this is what i don't understand.

Quote from: Advent on March 12, 2014, 01:28:30 pm
It's not nonsense. See previous paragraph.

What you said is actually more in favor of restriction than against it.

Quote from: Advent on March 12, 2014, 01:28:30 pm
I've always wondered why I hear this from people when talking about a mod, simply because the point is self-defeating. Why are you going to play a mod if you want it to play just like Vanilla? Isn't the point of a mod to keep the core (which is not what this is arguing) but freshen the experience (either by difficulty, new maps, new abilities, etc)? I'm asking this as a legitimate question; I just don't understand it. If you wanna play Vanilla, then go play Vanilla.

This statement shows a lack of core understanding of what i've been trying to talk about.

I typed a lot. i understand you probably didn't read all of it. but I read everything you write. if you're going to argue with me, have the decency to at least attempt to understand my point of view.

1) advanced jobs are available in Vanilla in chapter 1. Advanced jobs are available in jot5 in chapter 1.

1a) it has been stated that we should not expect to have advanced jobs because it is only chapter 1. to help prevent this, scaling is in place to make certain fights more difficult, because they require better equipment, rather than better skills.

1b) Argument 1: If i'm not supposed to have access to it because it is only chapter 1, why is it included?

This argument in no way says the game should play just like vanilla. but it looks like vanilla, and I do have access to it. because it's right there. so why are you saying I shouldn't have access to it when you gave me access to it?

2) JP gains are too low and disrupt game balance early on.

2a) it has been stated that jp gains are more balanced for later chapters. IE: it is to throttle your progression so you don't get access to certain jobs too fast. jp gains are more closely tied to level progression due to the limited jp per action.

2b) Argument 2: Jp gains early on do not feel well tuned. when switching from a necessary progression path (IE: Chemist) you lose too much of your power for that level.

At any given level, you are expected to have a certain amount of JP split among X number of classes based on what the player chooses.

levels 10-15 feel especially weak because once you switch from chemist, you are 'losing' 300-400 jp to opportunity cost. effectively cutting your power level by 40% or more. when you first switch to knight/wizard/preist you are losing about half of your effective skills. increased JP gains can help relieve this painful part of the game. without having to senseless grind/reset to try to gain certain crystals/abilities from npcs for free.

Furthermore, this problem will persist moving forward. everytime you switch to a new job, you are losing power until you regain enough JP to get new abilities.

Furthermore, when switching to a new job the item subskill is one of the poorer choices early on, because this drains your gil if you use it as a JP gaining mechanism, and without investing further for throw-item you put your weakest character at the time in dangerous positions. draining your gil resources early means you will progress your equipment growth (which is equally important in jot5) at a slower rate.

many abilities cost 300-400 jp. this is 30-40 actions. and unless you are attacking something lower level than you, it's also 3-4 levels.

Quote from: Advent on March 12, 2014, 01:28:30 pm
The only person I know who is on Raven's level of unhuman-like FFT mechanic (math very much included) knowledge is probably philsov, so I'm going to agree with FDC here.

The battles are well done. Character progression is not. I'm not saying everyone in my party should be OP. but some things were overlooked/ignored/made bad on purpose.

Quote from: Advent on March 12, 2014, 01:28:30 pm
My experience with Chapter 1 of Jot5 begs to differ. "Forced" is a very strong word, and believe me when I tell you that I can produce a video that disproves this if asked.

I don't really need a video. but if you can prove to me you can gain access to knight/wizard/priest at level 10 without 'wasting' 300-400 jp on chemist. That would be swell.

I'm not opposed to having to level certain jobs. but at level 10, it's very painful to lose so much of your resources on something you dont' plan on using.

Quote from: kyozo22 on March 12, 2014, 12:50:58 pm
Christ, where to begin?

"Am  I reading too much into it?" Yes. Very much so. All I've done is tedious stuff like text edits (for a totally different project), and I can tell you that being "lazy" doesn't at all work as part of a development team for a project of this magnitude/ scope, as Choto has said.

My understanding is, you all work as a team. Therefore things like the scenes, text scripts, etc. are all separate from the battle design and character progression.

Again, my main beef so far in chapter 1 is that character progression is not balanced.

random encounters and character progression are completely independent of the story/scripting.

Quote from: kyozo22 on March 12, 2014, 12:50:58 pm
"This doesn't make any sense. It's clear you don't want us to have it. so i'll say it again: why is it there? This question has not been answered."

Umm, it's there because this is an SRPG that contains a job roster... And it makes far more sense to get jobs/abilities/ battle system  done as early as possible whilst you're doing the first few jobs you expect the player to have access to. That's common sense, right? I'm not being completely dense with these statements, am I?

That doesn't mean the entire roster must be available. it's clearly stated that you don't expect us to have certain things at the end of chapter 1. Given you said many things in chapter 1 are remporary, why not go for a more rounded experience and provide a limited roster as well? you didn't think of it? you don't want to?

which brings back, full circle again, why is it in the patch? you can have it there. the data can be present. but the player not having access =/= don't work on it.

I work in development i know how all of this works. just because you're working on it, doesn't mean you give the customer access to it right away. if a feature is impcomplete, you don't release that feature.

Quote from: kyozo22 on March 12, 2014, 12:50:58 pm
You're also not 'forced' to learn any abilities if you don't want to. You need to go around the jobs in the tree in order to progress further and unlock the more advanced jobs, and that's just how it is TEMPORARILY, as Raven has already stated. You could always invest in throaway generics as they are only a fraction of the price they were in vanilla, as well as spillover JP to keep your main party levels lower. OR, as you're on an emulator, you could cheat your jobs to be unlocked and with max JP.

Wait. so it's ok to temporarily  inbalance the game down, but not up?

As I stated earlier, investing poorly has some pretty dire consequences. I could invest in throwaway stuff. but why am I forced to? I MUST invest in chemist. a minimum of 300-400 jp. i don't have to buy the abilities. but I MUST invest the jp to get it to a higher job level. that, or I leave that person as their base class for the entirety of the game.

and AGAIN, this is sizeable chunk of your available JP up to level 10. You must gain access to more abilities, especially magic, to get past later story encounters. so you must at some point move past chemist. Given almost no-one will leave any character as their base class for the entire game, this means every character MUST level chemist. there is no way around this other than further hacking.

So Which is it? chapter 1 is complete and no changes will be made? everything in chapter 1 is temporary? because i'm getting two different answers here.

you're capable of making changes. Changes for the better to improve the overall experience. I'm not saying make it easy mode. i'm not saying make Samurai/dragoon/ninja available in chapter 1. I'm saying current JP gains are insufficient for the early part of the game. Furthermore, it can cause problems in later stages of the game as well. JP gains are augmented with crystals/quests or w/e.

but this doesn't change the fundamental problem of early game: up to level 10, a sizable chunk of your jp must be invested into chemist. not for the abilities per se, but to get it to a certain job level.

Raven has stated this is working as intended. My argument is that the current rate of JP gain is balanced for later chapters, but not early chapters. the tactical options you  have are limited until about level 15 when you can actually start getting enough jp on other jobs to use abilities after learning 'essential skills.' Everyone else is FORCED to be base/chemist. so up to level 10, your progress is already decided for you. level your base class to level 3-4. level chemist to 3-4.

Quote from: kyozo22 on March 12, 2014, 12:50:58 pm
These options are all available to anybody playing the patch, man. And Chemists are useful, dunno why you're particularly against using 'em. Even if you don't have all 5 in their base jobs, they can still get spillover (however meager) from fights and MOVE-JP UP, DAMMIT!

I'm not against chemist. I'm against EVERYONE being a chemist. i don't need all 5 people in my party as a chemist. two or three maximum, and most of those are not going to keep using item as a skill or subskill.

and I already said my piece about move-jp up. i'd rather not have to use this and forgo things like jump +2 or move+2 etc in the later parts of the game just because JP gains are imbalanced. not to mention move-find item is equally important, allowing you to gain additional equipment.

move-jp up should be there to augment jp gains. not be required to make the game feel balanced.

1) I shouldn't have to hack the patch further just to make the experience feel more balanced in progression. The only thing that statement tells me is that 'yeah...we didn't really know how to balance it. so instead of doing it right, we know y'all can just hack it to make it easy. so just hack it to make it easy.' really? that's what you're going with? that logic right there is what i'm calling lazy. because it is.


2) the consensus seems to  be different among developers. chapter 1 is in a temporary state,  but it's also not changing because jp gains are balanced for chapters 3 and 4.

2a) why can't we  have balanced jp gains in all chapters?
2b) why do i have to waste so much of my JP at level 10 on a class/skills I may not be using at all?

Quote from: Elric on March 12, 2014, 11:50:47 am
I haven't read the rest yet but I can tell you if you lost to learn a skill then
the iso was completely glitched in some way. Ramzas skillsets do NOT work this way
at all, and you never lose a chance to learn any skills. Load up an iso in fftp and
look at his 3 guts classes if you don't believe me. Only additions are made

This was on my original game disk on one of my original play through. No ISO was used.

On that play through i didn't really use Ramza's base class. I didnt plan on using any of the abilities he had there, so i didn't bother to unlock them. I was essentially rushing to monk, and gave him item as his subskill.

I honestly did not explore it further. I didn't really care. in anycase, this isn't the key point i was trying to make. in retrospect i shouldn't have mentioned it or continued to elaborate. the point is, it is possible to add skills to characters as the chapters progress.

Quote from: formerdeathcorps on March 10, 2014, 11:37:24 pm
1) Ramza's skillset is additive.  You never lose skills.  It's also interesting to note that ONLY Ramza has "locked skills" (not Agrias, or Mustadio, or Beowulf).  The reason is simple: only Ramza exhibits the character growth in the story that would justify such additions.  Jot5 is not really a story about character growth; we have no good means of justifying that mechanic.

Excluding ramza and cloud, each of the other heroes is new to Ivalice. This is a brand new experience for them. you expect me to believe they get absolutely nothing out of it? they don't develop themselves or learn anything new at all?

What about Ramza losing all the abilities he gained? did he forget everything he learned in the first game? what about cloud? Agrias? etc. you take certain liberties when you create a new game that happened after the first. one of those is inexplicably resetting some people to level 1 and having no abilities.

It makes sense for dante, link, cloud, and snake to reset to level 1, because they are in a new world, with 'new bodies.' they have to relearn a few things. but to say they don't learn anything and experience no character growth seems more odd than saying you have no justification for them to experience character growth.

In reality, meeting and getting to know one more person can improve your character, give you a new point of view, etc. this may be a little too philosophical. 

Quote from: formerdeathcorps on March 10, 2014, 11:37:24 pm
Another common method of justification is time lapse wherein Chapter I and II take place 2+ years about in the game's storyline.  If something happens to certain characters in between, unlocking new skills (or losing old ones) is justified, but it has to exist in the story for its own sake and not be tacked-on.  Again, Jot5 does not do this in between chapters.

Again, character growth. character growth doesn't have to happen over years of time.

Take this: Dante shows disdain for Snakes' way of fighting. for being sneaky etc. Dante is a very in-your-face kind of character.

At the end of chatper 1, Dante maybe gets injuried or something and snake has to help him escape without drawing attention. Dante then realizes there is merit in the way snake does this. he then teaches himself to take a 'sneaky/tricky' way to combat, but in his own style. unlocking his trickster line of skills.

OR:

once chapter two begins, you could just have each character start with the base skills and job levels you expected them to have at the end of chapter 1.

Quote from: formerdeathcorps on March 10, 2014, 11:37:24 pm
As for having each chapter not accumulate the gains of the previous, that works best when
A) The units change between chapters.  One variant is the aforementioned physical / mental changes to existing characters (or a replacement of existing characters with new ones); another is the use of generic troops (so that you cannot be sure the generics you deploy in Chapter II are the same people as in Chapter I).

Physical/mental changes? you mean character growth? >.>

Quote from: formerdeathcorps on March 10, 2014, 11:37:24 pm
B) The gains accrued are temporary.  In other words, if all the bonuses are intended to be in-battle only (and reflect temporary states of heightened physical or mental prowess), then obviously, they should wear off when combat ends.

So everything Cloud and Ramza, Agrias, etc. learned in Vanilla was temporary?

Quote from: formerdeathcorps on March 10, 2014, 11:37:24 pm
C) The game is real time.  IN real time games, it is often possible for a good player to beat the game with average or basic gear simply due to skill.  In such games, gear and abilities often matter less than your ability to dodge attacks and find opportune moments to strike.  Thus, resetting the gear in between chapters in such games is actually a means of increasing difficulty while still being fair.

This is a turn  based strategy game. Not dark souls. Stop trying to make it dark souls. It's not dark souls.

Quote from: formerdeathcorps on March 10, 2014, 11:37:24 pm
D) The situation confronting the characters in Chapter II is so different that all the abilities and gear acquired in Chapter I are useless.  This works better if each chapter can "stand alone" as separate games.

This is my point. the team could have easily picked this route. you didn't. That's perfectly fine. but saying you can't is different then saying you won't.

Quote from: formerdeathcorps on March 10, 2014, 11:37:24 pm
It's obvious Jot5 meets none of the above conditions.  Furthermore, the starting scene DID erase everyone's skills to 0.  I'm sure Ramza (having survived all of FFT's plot) and the other heroes (many of whom were in active combat in their worlds) should have had starting skills (which isn't THAT hard to ASM), but given that 2 years have passed for Ramza and the way the other characters entered the scene, you can justify them all starting again as novices (even though the in-game reason is that we just started a new game).  However, to find 3 more excuses for the same thing happening is to stretch the incredulity of the player.  Furthermore, games work better if the difficulty curve generally increases from beginning to end.  Resetting skills and gear in between chapters makes it harder to follow this pattern.

I don't think it's as obvious as you think.

It is a new game. no-one is going to question resetting to 0 in a new game. it's expected.

Finding 3 excuses can be easy, depending on how the story is written. A lot of different things are happening In Ivalice. we're seeing bleed in from FFT, FF7, and from across dimensions having Dante, Snake, and link appear in Ivalice. The balance of the world is clearly being upset. it isn't that unreasonable to see drastic changes happening to the world between chapters. maybe it starts to merge with other worlds. at this point the same reasoning can be used when you started the game. the characters are now in a 'different' world. it's no longer Ivalice. but Ivalice+Hyrule or w/e.

Quote from: formerdeathcorps on March 10, 2014, 11:37:24 pm
2) The game is being released piecemeal due to technical limitations that can only be solved with a massive amount of ASM.  Once we accepted that, it was decided to release per chapter (rather than all at once) so people wouldn't have to wait three years.  Hence, it is assumed every release is meant to be part of an integrated whole (not some glorified demo for the full version). Of course, each chapter will be properly defined with a boss and a climax of its own, but there's no reason to assume Chapter I should be anything less than Chapter IV.

that's not the point i'm arguing. I'm arguing about progress balance. You're talking about a lot of things i'm not.

You are expected to be in a certain level range at the end of a chapter. According to Raven, being anything above level 30 or so means you've been grinding too much. you will 'pay' for this transgression with harder monster battles. this is a decision you made. (even if you didn't realize the consequences because you dont' read any of the forums)

This makes it easy to determine how much JP you expect someone to have. the example I used earlier, sweegy woods seems to be a level 10 battle. meaning each character should have roughly 1000 jp. It's likely that you will have more abilities than this, but given the wild card that its fairly random what random encounters you will get (monsters, or npcs with learnable skills), weather you or the enemy picks up a crystal, weather its more important for that character to regain health/mp or abilities, weather you've already learned the abilities the npc has, etc.

That being said, it is prudent to assume worst case scenario. This is a fundamental of design.

Coupled with the fact that we are 'forced' into learning on chemist, your first 10 levels will be balanced between base class and chemist, unless you decide to not learn any base abilities. Either way, for future chapters you will still want to get both base class and chemist to level 3 or 4. which will be roughly the first 10 levels.

Quote from: formerdeathcorps on March 10, 2014, 11:37:24 pm
3) Your job locking proposal can be accomplished without ASM, but that aside, why is the game "incomplete" because it contains features you "weren't supposed to have"?  Wouldn't the game be "more incomplete" if those features were taken away and you were left only with 6 or 8 unlockable jobs in Chapter I?

No. the game would not be more incomplete, but more complete. Raven has a vision in his  head. he expects you to have progressed your character a certain way. (this is obvious because of Chemist)

It's not uncommon at all for games to limit your progress based on chapter. In persona, you can only fuse certain persona at certain stages of the game, because more powerful ones aren't available. they only exist at a later stage of the game. this is the same principle.

Quote from: formerdeathcorps on March 10, 2014, 11:37:24 pm
If anything, all Raven did was a milder version of what Voldemort did in 1.3; he reversed the grinding paradigm so that an "easy run" is based on the intuitive strategies of a first-time player with experience at SRPGs and a "difficult run" involves over-leveling or "early tech tree scaling" of FFT "experts".  In other words, it penalizes those who overspecialized their playing style towards vanilla FFT.  Once you mentally adjust to what "challenge" means in this new system, the fun will flow naturally.

but it is fundamentally the same system. it follows the same rules. the only thing that has changes is the scaling and the rate at which you can gain JP.

what this translates to, is that you can only gain a certain amount of JP per level. your level determines what jobs you can potentially have unlocked.

because there are hard coded requirements, and you must earn JP on a given class to progress to the next, you can calculate that you must be X level to unlock Y job. under the assumption you gain 10xp and 10 jp per action. yes i know xp varies, but on average it will likely be 10xp. you also gain more xp for hitting higher level things. so it will all balance out to roughly this. the only way to 'abuse' this is to bring level 1 characters to murder over and over. this has its own risks, as you're basically down a man for whatever random encounter you are in.

Quote from: formerdeathcorps on March 10, 2014, 11:37:24 pm
4) Unless Raven changed it since last I played Chapter I, you do have Move-Get JP.  It's not as bad as you say, but even then, the question must be posed.  Why do you have to master ninja or samurai or whatever else immediately?  Why not just buy the necessary skills necessary to win battles on your first play-through and worry about completion after you have a grasp of the game?

so I should spend my time moving and not performing actions for hours to learn abilities without raising my level? >.>;; really?

With the exception of snake's base class, everyone else will be limited to 3-4 squares per turn. meaning you can gain 3-4 more jp per action. that's assuming you ALWAYS move the maximum amount per character turn. which more often than not, is not a good idea. but you will also lose any tactical advantage to jump+1 or jump+2 which you can get early access to. In a game like this, mobility is important.

move JP isn't a bad ability. but after a while, taking it over something else is a bad tactical decision.

secondly, shouldn't it be up to me and my strategy to decide what abilities I need to complete the story? I'm not saying I need ninja/samurai. But I'd really not have everyone in my party base+chemist for the first 10 levels. I'd like to branch out a little more than that.

In the long run this won't be a big deal. but this is the problem with balancing progress. yes, in chapter 4 the 400 jp i spent on chemist won't be that big a deal, because it's 5% of my total JP. but the first 10 levels that can be roughly half of your JP. that's fairly significant. once you move past chemist to knight/wizard/preist. you will be giving up roughly half your JP for the next battle, you can't bring both your base skill and item once you first switch. you have to make a choice.

Quote from: formerdeathcorps on March 10, 2014, 11:37:24 pm
5) As for game balance, Raven is probably the best FFH has at the subject.  I'm sure he knows already what the maximum damage on any given unit combination is and he already set them within acceptable bounds.

the battles themselves are well balanced. challenging. I like them. A lot. More than i'm letting on. I'm complaining a lot because i've invested myself into it. I really enjoy it.

that also means i want to help, in whatever small way I can, to make the game better.

The only thing the game is really lacking right now is balanced character progression. which is extremely easy to adjust, because it's only around JP gains.

I know the game is not completed. I know this is only chapter 1. What i'm saying is, early on, JP gains are not balanced. it is too low. i'm not saying make it so i can get Samurai by level 20. but I would like more tactical options by level 10. Certain battles become excessively difficult when the NPCs can spam an infinite number of phoenix downs and invigorate everyone on their team and have chocobos spamming choco-cure for free and ranger spamming poison. When all I have access to is item and a few base skills.

the biggest problem is when switching away from chemist at level 10, you are left too weak to do anything because you've lost half your JP resources. you can only progress one character at a time past chemist or risk leaving yourself too weak to deal with the next encounter. your options are to take this risk, or reduce the risk my gaining more levels and JP to 'close the gap' on subskill utility and the ability of the rest of the team to keep that person alive. but waiting carries different risks also, because higher level means more difficult encounters.

As the game progresses, this problem will not go away. Each time I switch a character to a new class, they will only have half a skillset available to them. because JP does not scale with level, but every encounter does, you will forever be left at a disadvantage until you reach a certain point.

You are essentially forced to either not switch that charcter  until you've collected a certain number of crystals and learned abilities that way. (which will involve a lot of resetting to try to get certain NPCs sto spawn so you can try to get their crystals. and then hope they have something you can actually learn and you don't gain too many levels in the process) or wait to switch to other classes until the rest of your team is strong enough to carry a weaker character until they can grind out JP and make themselves useful to the team again.

The problem with the former is obvious. it's excessive and borderline abuse of the system. The second is time consuming and poses a different problem entirely. if the 'useful' abilities are 300-400 JP than your character is useless for 3-4 levels. which can be several encounters.

Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on March 10, 2014, 09:56:33 pm
Your Ramza is replaced with a different Ramza between Chapter 1 and 2, and again between Chapter 3 and 4.  No abilities are removed from his skillset during this process, just more are added to the end.  This is far from what you seem to think exists in the Vanilla version of the game.

If you do not learn certain abilities, you lose the ability to learn them. other abilities are added. this may have been a bug on one of my play throughs, but I remember distinctly losing the chance to learn an ability when the chapter changed because i didn't learn it before it ended, and ramza's change added new abilities.

Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on March 10, 2014, 09:56:33 pm
Both your posts seem to misunderstand something.  You're expecting easy access to something high end in Chapter 1.  That's not what we intend to do just because "Vanilla did it".

I understand perfectly. what you're not understanding is I agree with your logic. but not your implementation. There is a big difference here. i'm talking about core design, not core logic.

You say you don't think we should  have access to certain things at the end of chapter 1. you then say if you really want to you can grind to get it, but there will  be major consequences.

This doesn't make any sense. It's clear you don't want us to have it. so i'll say it again: why is it there? This question has not been answered.

The answer could be simply: we don't have the capability to add the class in chapter 3, but exclude it in chapter 1. This nonsense about 'oh, you can get it if you really want to grind it out.' and then saying 'it's chapter 1, why do you expect to have it?' needs to stop.

Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on March 10, 2014, 09:56:33 pm
They're there if you want them or if you feel you need them but they have requirements that reflect the points in the game you are "intended" to get them by design - the late Chapter 2 - mid Chapter 3 area.  If you want them sooner you can get them sooner, but the further ahead of the "curve" you want to be, the more levels you need to gain - making monster encounters more dangerous.

Let me take a different approach. what level do you expect us to be around the battle of sweegy woods? I was about level 10 on my first playthrough.

This means I had roughly 1000 jp to work with.

Like you've stated before. certain abilities each character must have (hence forcing you into chemist role to get access to  new jobs) however in order to get chemist to the correct job level, you must earn ~300-400 jp to reach the correct level, depending on if you want to get access to mages or knights on that chracter.

Given that once you are past chemist, you are more likely to take your base skill set from the base class over item. you really only need 1 or 2 characters with access to these abilities, provided one of them isn't ramza who has encourage, wish, and cheer up to support himself/allies with.

So really, by this point I have 600-700 JP to work with. If I get the essential skills on someone like ramza, the remaining jp is used on his base class to get encourage, heal, cheerup, and sturdy. the remaining jp is spent on chemist. crystals do not help in this regard because 1) you must gain this JP on chemist to unlock other jobs for later. 2) you cannot gain base class abilities through crystals.

so all of my characters where about the same. with ~600 jp or so spent on base class. and ~400 spent on chemist (not necessarily on abilities, but to get it to a certain job level)

For me, this is one thing that made sweegy woods difficult. I lacked the utility gained from knight, priest, wizard.

My second playthrough I realized that it's not beneficial to leave some characters on their base class to learn those abilities. having link, dante, and cloud only get 200-300 JP on their base class, to free up more JP to spend on knight/priest/wizard.

This second time, I also spent more time derping around in battles to wait for crystals to gain more abilities. but again, this is only beneficial AFTER chemist. you cannot gain abilities for your base class, and you must still earn JP on chemist to raise its job level.

Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on March 10, 2014, 09:56:33 pm
You're free to play the game however you deem fit, but expecting to get the best things early on easily just because Vanilla let you is silly.  And yes, each Chapter will include the previous Chapter because it is one full game, not four separate experiences.  We're merely releasing it in parts so people can actually play it as reasonable portions of the game are complete instead of waiting around on a 2-3+ year development cycle for the full thing to be done.

Actually. No i'm not. I'm free to play it how I deem fit only if i'm skilled and capable of dealing with the consequences. which is a big caveat. My third play through I got to level 15 or so before Bariaus Valley.

needless to say, the monster encounters became extremely difficult. especially when I had switched to a new class. with no abilities, and having to rely purely on subskills these battles become excruciatingly difficult. especially anything with chocobos. furthermore, you often have to go through several battles of having one or two characters being near useless in a battle already stacked against you.

I bring up Vanilla because that is the game this is  based off of. Anything In Vanilla, you can do. lacking the skill to do that is different than saying it's outright not possible.

For base class at least, you could have replaced the main 5 from chapter 1 to 2 to 'force' us into chemist faster so we dont' waste precious levels on learning abilities on base class.

Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on March 10, 2014, 09:56:33 pm
lol.

Best response to  being called lazy ever. in most cultures laughing is a sign of embarrassment. Am i reading too much into it?

Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on March 10, 2014, 09:56:33 pm
There are going to be changes to a lot of things for Chapter 2 (including some things regarding the JP system) but for the purposes of Chapter 1 and the scaling within Chaper 1 itself the 10 JP per action system gives you timely access to the skills the Chapter is balanced around you having access to.

It's nice to know that changes are coming. this is the only game i've ever played that actually  punishes you for grinding. and I find that both odd, frustrating, and fun. unfortunately it got more frustrating than fun after a while.

A lot of indie developers tend to ignore the math of balance. by nature, most people are not theory crafters, and not many people possess the knowledge to properly apply mathmatical models to balance or game design.

As it stands, by the end of chapter 1 you will be about level 26. between 20 and 30 for sure. over 30 seems to high based on monster difficulty. below 20 seems to low based on other encounters.

so by the end of chapter 1, you are expected to have about 2600 jp. about 1000 of this will be tied up in base class. leaving you 1600 jp to play with on knight/wizard/priest. at this point, things start to feel pretty good. you have a pretty healthy set of abilities to pull from. but untill level 15 or so, you don't really have a healthy amount of options. your first 1000 jp, or 10 levels, are spent learning 'essential skills' that some of your characters don't really need. it depends on the strategy you decide to employ.

but for the first 10 or so levels, you don't give me the option of deciding my strategy. I must level chemist. meaning i must use these abilities for a while.

I don't  have the option of taking Dante or Ramza directly into the knight class. I must take them through chemist. even though I could have snake, cloud, and link with enough support abilities this isn't needed. Everyone must learn essential skills. I think that's how you put it.

Rather than being able to make a cohesive team I've been forced, by you the developer, to make each member of my party an self-sufficient unit for the first half of the chapter. you can't possibly in good conscience say i'm free to build my team how i wish, when you force me to spend 2 or 3 levels on chemist.

Quote from: Elric on March 10, 2014, 08:01:13 pm
I prolly coulda found a couple more times that you wall of texted the same point OVER AND OVER, but instead I'll tell you flat out, The game doesn't work
that way. I don't expect you to know this, because you obviously do not hack FFT. Classes are unlocked based on JP gain, not story progress. Barring some
extensive ASMing, I really would not ever expect to see this in Jot5.

But now you know. And knowing is half the battle!
[GI JOE!]

1) FFT Vanilla features abilities locked by chapter. Namely Ramza. His job may technically change between chapters, I can't remember. I do know he has more skills available to him, and he losses access to some from chapter 1 to 2. so if you did not learn them in chapter 1, you lose them forever.

while it may not be possible to hack this, I would put this as a limitation of the team. not the game. as it's proven to exist in the vanilla version. This may be nitpicking. but I know you guys aren't gods. you have limits to your understanding, just like I have limits to mine. but All i can see is it happens in the vanilla version. which means you should be able to do it too.

2) you are releasing the game in installments or at least piecemeal. is it really impossible to not include advanced jobs or certain abilities? (Again, i understand you can't do this now) 

If you are repackaging chapter one and two into a bundle upon completion of chapter 2, I could understand this. but as the game currently stands, you could have easily made a design decision to not do this for the very reasons i've mentioned: game balance and gating content.

Furthermore, heaven forbid, the team breaks up/moves on for some reason you have a stand alone game. not something that is incomplete, and will never be complete because of certain design decisions.

Games come out in installments all the time. Mass Effect is a great example. each chapter could easily have been stand alone. Less worry about savefile bugs when loading into chapter 2+. Everyone has to start over. It gives you more freedom to make the game you want without the cost of player experience.

3)Knowing is half the battle. Obviously I don't hack. but you've pointed out there is a way. Heavy ASMing. not sure what that means or is, but given the extensive changes you've made and the time put into it, i dont' find it unreasonable for you to try to make the best game you can with the tools available with whatever time constraints you place on yourselves.

But I also know things could have been done better. I stand by my statement: you included things you didn't want us to have access to (yet). they should not have been included. You say it's not possible. but it could have been by either

a) Heavy ASMing

b) better thought out installments per chapter.

c) stand alone chapters

4) Even if the game is repackaged upon completion of each chapter, the problem still remains. it will take an excessively long time to grind out jobs without a change to the JP system.

as was stated before, it takes roughly ~2600 jp to max out a class. that means 26 levels are gained. which means from 1-99 you can max 4 classes. There are a lot more classes than 4.

With a better JP system, chapter 1 doesn't have to 'end' the game. we could then be free to go through random encounters as much as we wish to fully experience the work you have done.

with the way scaling is, we would ensured to be challenged no matter what we encounter. Furthermore this could also provide valuable data for later chapters that are not yet finished.

Certain combos could be insanely overpowered and addressed before release because extensive builds have already been tested by the players.

5) the only good reasons i've seen for the system to be the way it is, is increased difficulty, you guys just didn't want it to be that way and/or were too lazy/unwilling to come up with a better solution.

Quote from: Xifanie on March 10, 2014, 06:05:12 pm
I can't say I enjoy the game in terms of gameplay, but then again, I can't touch that.

10JP per action is a real nightmare indeed. Even if you consider shared JP, that's a potential of up to 18JP for everyone in one action, whoo-. (excluding guests)
Raven's logic behind this was that you'd have access to higher tier job at the end of ch4 if the only characters you use are the 5 and only focus on unlocking jobs... or something.

Much better ways to handle this. 1) release new abilities and new jobs with new chapters instead of having things we 'shouldn't have access to' through excessive grinding.

I find it FAR more understandable to limit abilities based on chapter hard coded, than have the abysmal JP gains.

Quote from: Xifanie on March 10, 2014, 06:05:12 pm
As it stands, monsters can NOT have MP costs. They are hardcoded that way. So we'd need an ASM to undo it. I can't say I'm against the idea, but my opinion hardly matters.

You have to understand that Raven is in charge of the gameplay, and because he hates how FFT: Arena turned out, he won't let anyone butt in. If he doesn't agree with you, well, tough shit.

I honestly couldn't go through the game without cheating... I don't have that kind of patience. I praise those who do. I'm a tester and I've never beaten ch1 legit.

I'm not sure what Arena has to do with anything. two completely different games as far as i'm concerned.

if he doesn't like what I, or anyone else says that's really his business. but I feel it is a disservice to his hardwork if i don't post about my experience. negative experience should be taken worth more salt than positive.

Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on March 10, 2014, 07:02:44 pm
It's... Chapter 1.  You were expecting to get Ninjas in Chapter 1? 

I had them in Vanilla FFT. They are there for me to unlock. I don't see the problem with it.

If we aren't supposed to have them, why are they there? it makes a lot more sense to simply remove them, and add them in when you want/expect us to have them.

if it's there, and it's possible to obtain through grinding, someone will try to get it. if you dont' want us to have it, don't put it in.

Any other argument, honestly, does not make sense. why do i expect to have ninja in chapter 1? because it's there and available to me

Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on March 10, 2014, 07:02:44 pm
Random Encounter enemies also scale equipment by your progression in the story so this part isn't true in Jot5.

This means that monster battles are more difficult at a higher level, and human battles less, but at low levels humans can become exponentially more challenging due to your lack of Gil but monsters easy as your gear surpasses their leveling.  That's completely intentional.  It ensures that there is something to challenge the player regardless of how they choose to play the game - you can "customize" so to speak which will be more difficult for you to handle based on how you prefer to play the game.  It keeps your choice whether or not to gain Levels relevant without making it High Levels = Easy Mode.

1) if you grind excessively and your level reaches a certain point, your equipment will not be able to suppress relative monster strength. what is high level? what is low level? we're stuck with only chapter one. If I reach level 11 before Bariaus valley am I too high? level 15? the only way to really gauge this, is if we randomly encounter monsters and find we lack the equipment to close the gap in strength. With JP gains gimped as they are, you can't rely on skills because of how gimped jp gains are.

2) I like dark souls because it is challenging. I can challenge myself further by limiting myself to certain builds (Halberdier challenge is one of my favorites). However in that game, And every other game, grinding does not hurt you. You can hurt yourself by grinding in this mod because of how scaling works. Gating content is not uncommon. Even in a game as open as dark souls there is gated content. in successive releases, if you dont' want us to have something: please gate it. many of us like to get all available things before moving on. if i'm only suppose to have 2-3 abilities per job, then only give me access to them. limiting by JP gains was a bad idea. there are much better ways to handle it.

3) I can't say this enough: if you don't want a player to have access to something because it's 'too early' in the game. Don't put it in. don't want me to be over level 30? put a cap. don't want me to have certain abilities/jobs? don't put them in. it makes absolutely no sense to put something in the game, and then say you shoudn't have access to it because it's only chapter 1. if i'm not supposed to have it, why the hell is it there



Obviously you can't change these things now. but moving forward i hope you consider this. The mod is good. but it's not great because of some of the decisions made in design. That is really the biggest flaw of the game. you put in things you didn't want us to have. and it bother me. a lot. that you would do this.

Quote from: flowoftime on March 10, 2014, 12:10:41 pm
JOT5 is interesting for me, but the patch does have some annoying features FOR ME. I REPEAT FOR ME:
1. I could tolerate Gained JP Up is removed from most of the patch here in FF Hacktics or insanely derpy, but Limiting JP to 10 per Action is... lame... It will take years to Unlock Ninja Class and learned all the best skills. I dunno if there is any out there who want to waste their lives playing the patch under such condition just to make his characters match up to Sephiroth or Ganandorf. I wonder why did the mods usually say "You don't have a life or You have no life"?
2. Monster, both in Story and Random Battle is definitely broken, but the AI coding is somewhat stupid or should I say "sometimes". To equally match up your character with this broken Monster you need to:
A>Grind your "JP" not your "EXP" like hell, unlock the Tier 1 Job and learn best skills with 10 JP per Act condition.

OR

B>Abuse save and load states like I did(Assasinate and Finish Touch = 100% Non-Boss 1 ACT KILL).

OR

C>Make use of AI's stupidity and commence the "Hit and Run Strategy"(You hit from afar, provoke the enemy to come at you by their stupid AI Coding then gang-bang/rape them) which people in insanely derpy say "The Real Strategy".

Otherwise, this patch has many positive things:
1. Free game. *Two Thumbs* Up!
2. Good Story/Ideas. It's still not great, though...
3. Good Mechanic = Most Jobs, Skills and Stats are changed.
4. Great Sprite.
5. Good Enemy's Scaling.
6. Etc.


Lastly, I believe I never ask you to do my homework, didn't I?

I figure out that it would be useless for me or anyone here besides the Development Team to suggest any constructive idea, because in your mind/point of view the patch is already PERFECT and you always counter-reasoning any idea(I do read every thread here). So I see no point to ask you to do my homework. I don't say that your reasoning is bad. Your reasoning is good, but since you always reject any idea given by the users here, that logic comes to my mind.

You = Development Team.

I do agree with your "It's also not that easy managing a team of people who aren't paid." Tough luck, man...


@formerdeathcorps:
I don't bother myself to watch your or anyone's video of how to win here... I'm a veteran FFT player and I got the hang of most Vanilla FFT mechanic. I have my own way to win the Story Battle with "Dirty Tricks" or "The Real Strategy" bragged by insanely derpy players.

Simply put:
1. In Vanilla FFT Story Battle = Level does matters, Skill comes second.
2. In JOT5 Story Battle = It's Skill that matters. Thanks to the Balance Scaling.
3. In Both = the higher your level are, the more difficulties you'll encounter in Random Battle. Equipments go as Chapter progress, unless you bother to steal High Lv Human Enemy's equipments. Monster growth large HP, PA and MA as their level increase, while we rely on equipments.


OH CRAP! FOR A SHADOW WANNA BE, I BLABBER TOO MUCH!

DON'T MIND MY WORDS, WILL YA?

This sums up my experience with the mod so far. it's good. but it could  have been great if balancing was taken seriously. I found myself playing certain battles because of my own tenacity, not because I was having fun. (that encounter with the 2 rangers, knight, and wizard all on chocobos...t(-.-t). Screw Sephiorth. THAT shit was hard. chocobo-cure spam on top of invigorate spam, and having poison spammed on me...not to mention all the enemies were 5+ levels above anyone in my party)

my biggest gripe with the mod, is that it somehow made one of the most pleasant things about the original game one of the most excruciatingly painful things in this mod.

And that is gaining new abilities and making new character builds.

Suggestions:

Monster skills should have MP costs. Everytime I see a chocobo I have to  bumrush it so it doesn't spam choco-cure on everything making my life a living hell. at least with enemy wizards/priests I can make an attempt to win a battle of attrition.

I agree that JP gains in the original were a little too high. but what is current is way too low. balance can be achieved. I have faith in you. you did such a wonderful job scaling enemy encounters. why the hell didn't you do it for JP gains?

Rather than limit player choice via xp scaling and jp rate, I'd rather see limited maximum JP per job. This would also allow you to add an ability to 'reset' JP and abilities once you hit max job level/JP saturation.