Final Fantasy Hacktics

Thesis hunt ends up becoming a war of attrition since every enemy ends up with healing. This isn't a problem in and of itself, but the mission comes at a point in the game where the player has an explicit set amount of resources and no way to get more. And to make it worse, they start the fight with more units than the player. It can't be avoided; it can't be fought on the player's terms. The enemy drives the pace of the battle, and there is jack squat one can do about it. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's frustrating to look back on the fight and not have an "Oh! I should have done this to not lose" moment. Does that make any sense?

For the thief's abilities: please don't let them steal weapons. Consumable items? Fine. Accessories? Fine; irritating, but fine. Armor? Devastating, but grudgingly acceptable. But to remove a weapon? Lose a skill mid-battle, lose out on AP gains, and have to pay for a new one? If anyone here is like me, that's an instant-lose condition and requires a restart.

Scream can just Add: ATK up (like from Dragon Force) on top of Berserk. That should make the hurt felt more consistently than the crit boost. Or you could do both and make the ability take longer to learn. Losing control of your unit, even if voluntarily, is a major sacrifice, and from my experience requires a full-party strategy to pull off without handicapping yourself. In other words, unless I go into a fight knowing I'm going to use Scream right then, it never gets used (and even so, its super niche).

Also, Swarmstrike isn't weapon range!? 

Bug: In the mission Magic Wood, trying to check the summoner's skills causes the game to freeze.

Maybe bug: The average party level seems to be calculated as [actual average]+1.5. Enemies are consistently 1-2 levels above the party. If this was intentional, this is fine most of the time, but the smaller skirmishes get more difficult. Raven's Oath, for example, is a 2-on-2, and the enemies being level 12 when almost all of my party is level 9 is rubbish (especially since it's still a tough battle at even levels).

Comment: In the missions where the enemy has 6 or more units, is there any reason we're still limited to 5?

The Evoker's Chocobo skill has a range of 1, an AoE of 2, targets all units in range (friends, enemies, and the user), does physical damage (weapon attack damage?), and the animation looks kind of like sleep/bio but purple. I think this needs some fixing.

And I got myself so pumped up for Chocobo and everything, too. 

Also Ramuh has replaced Dragonheart for "taught by everything". I know this bug can't be fixed - just thought I'd point it out.

The Red Mage in Nubswood Base is able to cast Evil Gaze at 0 MP. I'm absolutely certain she didn't heal MP any time during the battle because I have a Soldier with Mirror Mail and Magic Break trolling the enemy casters. I'm pretty sure Evil Gaze isn't supposed to cost 0 MP considering it's an Elementalist ability, but I don't have access to the skill myself yet.

Also, Evil Gaze bypasses reflect. I don't know if that's intentional or not. I'm not sure about the other Elementalist skills since no one's used them against me before and the only skill I have access to is Heavy Dust.

I definitely got a Twin Bow and Gold Armor from clan battles. I didn't think much of the bow since I could also buy it from the shop. I think I also picked up an Onion Sword or something else I didn't think noteworthy. Every clan battle has gotten me a weapon/armor so far, along with gold and, I think, 1 Phoenix Down. The phoenix downs may have come from missions though.

Bronze Armor, Iron Armor, Silken Robe, and Magus Robe have "26" evade. Gold Armor has "21" evade. Based on this I would think anything that gives -10 evade looks like 26, and anything that gives -20 looks like 21. I don't have access to -30 evade items to check on those. Weapons, shields, etc. that increase evade seem to be displaying the correct values.

Lots of little comments and questions here.

Is there a reason items that decrease Evade display 26 evade (for -10evd; -20evd shows up as 21)? I assume it's because the display can't handle negatives.

Should tier-2 equipment be available early through random drops? I found Gold Armor after a random clan fight. I have yet to try The Cheetahs, so I'm still well within tier-1 territory, I think.

There are no Time Mage or Green Mage abilities in tier-1 equipment. Is this intentional, or just a fault of how the better rods have the better magic abilities? My Nu Mou's in an awkward position, having learned everything there is to know about Black and White Magic at this point and having nothing else to learn (cause I have someone else on Beastmaster duty). That's not necessarily a bad thing; Black/White magic is a powerful combo with a lot of utility. It just feels wrong to bring someone into battle with no AP gains.

On a similar vein, there is only one tier-1 Bard ability: Lullaby. Don't remove it, please. I'm not one for optimization, but Moogles have it hard at the start. Since there's only 1 Bard ability, half of Moogles' job tree is unavailable. The other half includes Time Mage, which I mentioned has no tier-1 skills. Montblanc is kind of obligated to go thief because of this.

The Scream ability for Fighters and Myrmidons inflicts Berserk on oneself. Is there a benefit to this? Is Berserk supposed to increase melee damage or something? If so, I don't think its doing it. Granted, the numbers I'm looking at are still low.

What aesthetic are you going for with the Reaver? What was the concept you based the class on? Ignoring the Morpher backbone you have to build on, I'm having a hard time understanding what the class is. It feels like it's supposed to be a warrior of some kind, but its abilities feel more Sage-like.

Lastly, is there anything you can do with Catch? It was kind of a pointless ability in the original game since maybe one or two enemies ever threw things at you. I haven't tried it yet myself, but it still seems to have that generally useless vibe. Unless I'm missing something.

Recently stumbled across this. I love the hack so far, but I've a couple balance-related comments.

Firstly: As a guy who loves to re-class the starting clan members immediately, money is ungodly tight at the start of the game. I'd rather not change that, but I have two ideas to ease up on the wallet just a little.
1) How about a Tier 0 set of equipment? They would consist exclusively of the most basic equips for the starting classes. Shortsword, Jack Knife, Stinger, White Staff, Rod, Longbow, Demon Bell (or Glass Bell?), Hard Knuckles; Cuirass, Leather Garb, and Hempen Robe. Nothing else. The Tier 0 weapons cost 800gp instead of 1350gp; the armors cost 1000gp instead of 1500gp. Tier 1 unlocks after the first mission, or is available from the start if you want. It really shouldn't make a difference.
2) Alternatively, just bump starting gold from 1000 to 1500. This would have the same effect before the 1st mission and less impact on the game afterwards.
Both of these should allow unit customization before the first mission. The player, if they choose to do so, can sell all their consumable items and a couple equips to just barely buy 2 items (after paying for the first mission).

Secondly: How many phoenix downs and potions are enemies with the item command supposed to carry? In a skirmish with Clan Marble (I think? They were low level guys headed by a fencer), the soldier used 3 phoenix downs and 5-6 potions. I literally could not out-damage his hasted item spam. Are we, the players, supposed to be able to use items that liberally? If not, they need to be toned down a little. If yes, money's a bit tight for that, you see.

Lastly: A couple of general questions/concerns.
Are missions level scaled?
Are enemy clans level scaled?
Are we supposed to be able to handle the random fights when they first start appearing?
Is grinding for AP going to be a thing ever? New members need to get up to speed somehow.

Criticisms aside, this is a great hack even in its "unfinished" state. I look forward to seeing the final result and will occasionally be around to give more comments like this (and bugs too, if I run into them).