Final Fantasy Hacktics

Holy Lance locked up the game same as that one Gria's idol moves did. I only saw it that one time so far but I'll let you know if another enemy moogle Knight ever shows up again. I'm using an R4 card that works for 3DS to play if that matters

Ahh I tried the loot ability again and did get two loot items at once, I didn't realize it worked that way. That's pretty cool!

Ahh dang I guess the blocks off the whole magic side of Bangaa's for now. That's too bad!

Okay as I'm around level 21 now, I have to say, monsters are starting to feel SUPER unbalanced! Many of them seem to have AOE skills that blind or charm or silence from far away, and cost the monster no MP whatsoever (or sometimes only like 12). Seeing as every monster has at least 75+ MP and usually more like 100+, they can basically cast these crazy attacks whenever they want. I can usually deal with it if there's like 4-6 monsters, but all these battles where I have to kill like 10 random monsters are starting to be super difficult. I'm doing one right now, the Pit Beast used sandstorm to blind several units over time, and then cast subsidence which dealt like 70-80 damage to 2 units at once. Marlboros are downright bastards turning people to frogs, Lamias keep using Night to put everyone to sleep, and chocobo are giving their whole team Regen while meteoring me for 95 damage. I used a Eureka Crystal to fully heal and I'm already being partly destroyed again

Did the game always have this much variance in damage by the way? I'm getting pretty frustrated because more often than not, a move will do 10 or even 20 damage less than it says it will. I'm all for a little randomness, but when it's like 25% less, it starts really being a bother. It's happening like every battle now, and driving me up a wall.

Mug Gil is strange in that it did feel like it was going up (I remember getting 600 one time), and then it went back down to like 130 again. I'll keep testing it though.

Haha no worries, Space Mage makes it sound interesting, and does make sense with the skills it has (I only have Root for now though). I'm hoping some more weapons with abilities will start popping up for these severely changed classes, as I'd like to try them out more!

Oh and one more thing for tonight: I noticed dragoon's Jump ability seems to make them invincible for a bit afterwards... but makes them completely susceptible to status effects. Was that your intention, or a glitch?

@chocolatemoose

With the latest patch, I was successfully able to beat those two Bowen quests I had! She just used Cyclone instead and it was fine. I did actually notice one more glitched skill an enemy moogle knight used: Holy Lance. I haven't been able to afford that weapon yet to see if it locks up if I use it, but just thought you should know about it.

MP is starting to feel a little bit better. I'm up to about 24-30 MP for many of my melee guys, so that's 4-5 uses of the 8 MP skills, which is mostly fine. It is making me think a little more strategically than I rememember. I think I used to just put air render on damn near every physical fighter so I could hit good damage from far away. That being said, I think you've done a fantastic job with magic, because I feel like they are actually strong now and can DO something. Like, my red mage and Nu Mou BLM/GEO are tearing things up that don't have high resistance. I think I shied away from magic a bit in the vanilla game because of the what, 6 MP per turn refresh mechanic? You could only cast a mid level spell every 3 turns... really dumb.

QuoteFirst Aid is still there as filler for being the first ability you get (also why it costs 4 MP). In vanilla I think it only targeted self too. I actually removed the remove debuff effect, so all it does is heal a tiny amount of HP. It should probably get replaced, but since it's the first ability on the first job, I think whatever replaces it should still probably be not super useful.

Yeah as a starting ability it's something I guess haha. I'm not sure how to make it better besides maybe being useable on other characters.

I may come back to Archer later, but for right now I feel that magic is doing a better job for me, even if you have to be a little bit closer.

Since it's more of a farming ability, do you think it would be balanced for Steal Loot to be 4 MP?

Ah yeah I noticed Rush was immobilizing targets after I made that post. It's a neat idea but yeah 8 MP would probably be better. As an early game attack, it can only be cast twice for me right now (at level 18-19 ish).
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Okay, so some more feedback:
- Bishop class seems to be totally bugged. It says mastered before even unlocking it. I just recruited a Bishop by chance and it won't let him learn any Bishop skills.

-The game is getting brutal! These random clanner fights feel like actual like i'm actually getting mugged, they're so difficult! This one clan had a Nu Mou that had Firaga already (this was when I was level 13-15) and did like 130-150 damage! Holy crap! I'm getting through regular quests, but man it feels like every weapon i have lately has some element the enemy is immune to or... or absorbs. The Yowie sand lion boss fight was a bastard, he did 100% to DRAIN like 120ish damage from far away! Somehow beat it first try but only through some quick thinking and items...

-I noticed a quest that was kind of at odds with this mod. There was a clan trial where you have to fight tonberries, and you aren't allowed to use MP at all. I was able to beat it somehow with basic attacks, but it did feel like it wasn't supposed to be that tough? It wasn't even the hardest one either, so i'm not sure how i'll fare on the later ones...

-Was starting to do okay with gil after getting the discount from the AH, but am hitting more and more of a wall in terms of those "mid game" weapons. They're starting to be 5k... 6k... 12k... and i'm just hoping i'll be making enough to cover that soon!

-Not sure if you noticed, but there's an inconsistency between job names for learnable skills on equipment and the actual job names you made. For example, it'll still say "Green Mage can learn Root" on a weapon, even if it's supposed to say Space Mage. This is usually fine, but I'm starting to get confused because there's a vest that gives a skill for Beastmaster... which doesn't work for the Hunter (now Beastmaster) job, but I assume it's supposed to be for the Nu Mou Geomancer class (which used to be Beastmaster)? I assume this is hard to change because you'd have to make new graphics, right? They're not just text boxes that are easily editable?

Okay update: I beat the Bomb mission, fully took control of the first two Auction House Areas, and so prices of everything is lower (20% for shops I'm guessing? 50% for pub quests fees?) The 15k items are now like 12k which is... still a bit high but maybe will be more attainable soon. The ~2k items are getting easier to afford as quests give more Gil, so that's great.

I got absolutely ambushed by a random battle (thugs were jealous I took the Area), and they were level 16-18 compared to my 12-13, so had to flee for the first time ever as I was getting my ass handed to me! Didn't seem like there was a downside though luckily.

As I fight more battles, I have a little more sense of which skills I use and which I don't use (from The small list of what I have available anyway). A lot of my Humes still sub or main Soldier. My thoughts:

1) I like that the rend moves damage now, but they feel... not always worth it. They take a whopping 8 MP when most melee units have like 20-30 MP, do about half damage as their normal attack, and the status Debuffs don't even always work. I'm not sure if making them always lower stats 100% of the time would be OP, but right now it feels like a gamble to do an effect that probably doesn't even help THAT much? Many times I opt for just doing full damage instead.

2) First Aid is pretty useless feeling. I swear it used to be useable on other units? Right now it heals like 12 HP and I guess it's supposed to be used to heal stat effects, but haven't gotten much opportunity to use it for that yet.

Archer: Feels kind of weak? For their range advantage I guess I can't expect top-tier damage, but even their elemental damage attacks don't do THAT much damage on something that's weak to the element. Also 8 MP runs out quick for melee units (at least where I'm at in the game). Maybe 4-6 MP would be better for this?

Thief: I like that mug Gil does full damage and gets you money. Solid balance right there. Steal Status is fun to use, but mostly feels like a "once per battle" type of skill with its 16 MP cost. I'm gonna say it's probably okay where it is if that's what you intended. Steal Loot is... I don't get it, it's a way to get their item without having to kill them? I'd say add some sort of damage to this if possible, I don't tend to use it much as is but maybe I just don't understand its full potential.

Mages: I really like the range they have for casting, and the damage is good. I don't tend to use white magic that much, because I'd rather do like 40-70 damage lol. I saw in a FFT mod that they opted to have all the Cure-line spells give Regen, do you think that'd be OP in this game?

I don't have many (Good) skills in other classes to give an opinion on them yet. Oh but I have "Rush" on multiple units now and... it's kinda underwhelming for 12 MP. Like it's nice to not get countered sometimes, but I think it's too expensive for not even doing extra damage or anything.

@chocolatemoose I just downloaded your new version and tested both Bowen levels. Previously, on one of them she'd cast Crazy and the other she'd cast Toxic. Now when I tested both, she only casted Toxic on both, and it locked up both times unfortunately. It's always right after the name of the skill disappears at the top and she puts her hands up as if shes about to do an animation I believe.

I have not been in any other battles with Grias at all, I think they mostly come later if I remember right. So i'm not sure if it's just limited to that specific character or what.

For equipment, I'd usually try to buy it as soon as I unlock it. I'm okay with it not being quite that accessible, as it does make it seems more valuable when you finally get something, but at the moment it's kind of like i'm struggling to keep my head above water, so to speak haha. I prefer to always be having my characters learning new skills, so right now i'm just kind of randomly shuffling them to different jobs to keep learning skills from weapons I already have.

But like I said, I'm only at the mission where you fight the Bombs in the forest to stop the fire (which I believe will unlock auctions), so I'm not sure if it will keep being like this or what. If it does, I'd say maybe a slight reduction in costs? Most of the gear is like 1 to 3 thousand gil, but that one hammer with Geomancer's solar flare and Red Mage's Fire on it was 8100 gil which makes me feel like I either got it unlocked super early, or it's an unintended price. Actually I forgot I also unlocked the Chameleon Robe, and that a whopping 15150 gil! I know it has the Regenerate skill for white mage/bishop on it, but its barely a step up from Silken Robe, defense-wise (which is 2750). Don't think i'll be able to get that anytime soon!

As far as monsters go, the only mission I struggled with so far was that current story mission (the Bomb forest one). The bombs kept casting fire attacks on each other and the red flan, healing for like 96 (basically a hi-potion), so with as spread out as I was I couldn't kill them before my guys started dying off, and had to quit to title screen. I changed some equipment around (apparently Kaiser knuckles are fire element... oops!) and did another mission or two, so i'll go try again and see how it is.

Hello, I started playing your version as I've been wanting to play this game again after many years and thought your changes were cool.

So far I like the early class changes you made. Geomancer seems pretty strong, Animist is a bit better now that it's not Animist anymore, Archer I'm not sure about yet but will probably be more handy once I get more elements than just fire and ice.

Some things I've noticed:
Geomancer already had Solar Flare unlocked as soon as I got the job. I see that it's supposed to be on a very expensive weapon (8100 Gil!) so that's cool for me, but probably unintended?

Gil is very hard to come by. It seems like I can only buy one single new weapon every fight or two. Since weapon abilities are more important, I can't even afford new armor, and have to hope quest bonuses give me some. Sometimes I run out of Gil and have to finish a quest to be able to afford more quests. It's an... interesting challenge I suppose, and does make Gil feel more useful, but it feels a little too much. Maybe this will balance out once I get Auction Houses though, I'm not sure.

Some Monsters feel almost OP. Those pixies can cast a meteor that does like 96 damage for not much MP, and they also have a bunch of MP. Lamias like to spam that Night spell, which at least takes a lot of MP so they run out eventually. I think their Kiss spell should take MP too.

If I think of anything else I'll let you know.

Edit: Okay ran into a big bug... on the first fight with House Bowen vs Kliesta, whenever the Gria chick goes to use some move called "Crazy", the game locks up. I tested it three times and it always locks up when she's about to do the animation.

Edit2: House of Bowen is on ANOTHER damn quest... and the stupid gria chick cast "Toxic" spell this time and it locked up. Either that character or the Idol class is glitched