Final Fantasy Hacktics

Quote from: Wernecksteiger on October 06, 2023, 02:20:03 amare the multiplayer items accessible without playing multiplayer?

Due to limitations of items slot, it's not possible to import them without replacing existing items.

Quote from: seejay2 on October 25, 2023, 03:20:38 amIs it possible to do a side patch to get dawnblade earlier? Having Ramza have an ability like that really is the biggest thing hooking me to this game, but I wish I could get it earlier, like at least Chapter 3?

I considered it but Ramza getting unique ability early will ruin lore of the game. He however become stronger over time with improved stats and passive like geting Brawler buff on ch2-3 so you can use Martial Arts with Ramza better. Ramza's job is fixed on 2-3 as Mercenary so if he gets Dawnblade earlier, that'd be chapter 2 and that'd be too soon.

Quote from: Deadwing on November 23, 2023, 12:03:50 pmSo, gonna begin this post with some critique and considerations (which will probably result in you just calling me bad lol), but end on more positive notes!

I've only gotten to Chapter 4 in my play-through, and I didn't fully understand all of the changes that would affect my game-plan until after I'd already made progress, so that will colour my experience. That said, I feel like I want to restart my play-through because of level-scaling and the counter-intuitively high JP costs of abilities. Again, I could just be bad, but my conclusion from my experience is that, if I have specific advanced job combos i want to try, I have to meticulously decide on my entire party composition before I even start in order to acquire the abilities I need for my game-plan. I don't know FFT inside and out like some, so while I did do planning and theory-crafting to the best of my understanding, it wasn't perfect. Thus, I needed to correct for mistakes during my play-through, make some job changes as I learned more, and do a little bit of grinding to make those corrections. Unfortunately, it feels like the balance of certain encounters becomes much more difficult due to the level-scaling, resulting in my first play-through experience being a slog at times.

Again, part of this is likely because it took me a while to really understand all the changes, so part of my critique might be pointed towards how the design and balance information is formatted and presented, as I've even found some information missing from the OP. And again, I know mods like these are generally meant for people very familiar with the game. That said, I think a bit of room to make corrections in a play-through would be a nice QoL change, as having to use Orator's Weaken to help balance things is a pretty unsatisfying "fix" for the issue. [See edit at end of post; I understand this might be beyond you.]

From my experience it seems like the encounter scaling is based on your highest-level party member. Is that correct? I personally like the idea of level-scaling, and I'm assuming you don't have the ability to make particularly nuanced changes to how it works, so probably best to leave it as it is. Instead, reducing some JP costs would provide some room to adjust your game-plan as you go. On that note, is there some sort of technical reason why JP Boost has to be kept in the game? Wouldn't it be better, design-wise, to remove JP Boost and simply spend time determining proper balanced JP costs? It would allow the player to experiment more with Support skills, if you'd be willing to re-design and re-add some of the ones you removed. Allowing more options in the Support slot instead of being forced to use JP Boost I think is a great secondary argument to JP cost changes. Of course, that would take more effort on your end, and at the end of the day that's your call.

All that out of the way, I want to also be very clear that I love what you've done with the mod! I've had a lot of fun overall, and even after feeling like I want to restart my play-through...Well, I mean, I want to restart my play-through--I still want to play this mod! it's super cool and such a fresh take on the game. Kudos!

Okay, thanks for reading this wall of text! I might wait 'til 2.5, but one way or another I am definitely doing a second run of this mod. Great stuff!

EDIT: on my second play-through I had a similar experience in different ways and at different times, but I'm starting to think if you're modding for WotL that a lot of these hang-ups are unavoidable since you can only alter so much, and nothing as fundamental as enemy AI. I beat the game, and the difficulty peaks and valleys for certain battles were still there and still jarring. You can still run-over a lot of story battles by one-round nuking the single named unit who is the sole victory condition. Not as bad as Cid walking-up and one-tapping people, but still a bit anti-climactic.

On the note of Cid, it'd have been nice to not have to grind to unlock spells for him and Valmafra at that point if we want to use them, which works against one of the main points of the mod. Generally, with this in mind as well as my earlier points, I think I stand by the JP Boost/cost critiques. I don't mind a bit of grinding being needed at hard-to-balance points later in the game to help preserve some challenge instead of the walk-over a lot of Chapter 4 is in the vanilla game, but it feels very arbitrary and avoidable in a case like this.

On the flip side, again, some missions feel like they absolutely require the "solution" being just having to do that. Argath 2.0 is such a case, where the fight design as a whole is a giant difficulty spike unless you bee-line to Argath and one-round kill him before he can heal everything back. Otherwise it feels impossible. I tried many things with a "proper" well-rounded comp, but in the end had to actually grind a bit to achieve a one-dimensional team that could take him out in the first round. It's pretty disappointing that Tactics has some really cool battle scenarios that are largely undermined by rushed or short-sighted scenario balancing. This feels like a design failing on a more fundamental level, and from what I've learned of WotL modding versus PSX modding I don't know if you can do anything, so I understand your frustrations addressing critiques in this thread.

At the end of the day, though, it was still a refreshing experience that, "good" or "bad," threw me for a loop at certain points and made me think where I never had to. In the original game most of Chapter 4 was a breeze (outside of the Barich fight,) so it was nice to actually have a few more hang-ups this time around. Thank you for all the effort!

Thank you for your feedback. It looks like level scaling will ruin gameplay experience for people grinding jobs earlier rather than planning for progression with no grind run. I will consider workaround for this. Maybe I can apply level limit for each chapter so people can grind without overleveling for too much. Will that work?

As for level scaling's reference, it's based on Ramza's level so you only need to weaken Ramza's level to adjust difficulty. JP Boost is meant to be early progression bonus until you get stable build of that unit. I usually stop using JP boost after getting core abilities like Equip Shield or Equip Heavy Armor for example.

I'm working on 2.5 update right now to iron out some reported cases and look for viable solutions. You may consider replaying after I finish 2.5 and release it. I've finished magic re-balance now and testing to consider reported cases including yours at the moment.

Regards,
Keetakawee

Quote from: Xaneph on April 15, 2023, 01:57:22 amYou should 100% change the Dark Knight requirements, It's one of the primary reasons I'm always torn between this mod and the Lion War. You already nerfed the Dark Knight a SMIDGE too much so removing mastery and crystal req in favor of Lv8 Black Mage + Lv8 Knight is the right move in my humble opinion. I Love your mod so much though so my intention is not to criticize.

Those requirements will be removed in next mod. To be fair, it's more about re-balanced rather than massive nerf if you check stats.

[Dark Knight]
-Increase HP Multiplier (80 -> 100)
-Decrease PA Growth (40 -> 45)
-Decrease PA Multiplier (140 -> 120)
-Increase MA Growth (50 -> 48)
-Increase MA Multiplier (80 -> 100)
-Sanguine Sword/Infernal Strike can be learned without JP cost
-JP cost decreased for Abyssal Blade (1000 -> 600)
-JP cost decreased for Unholy Sacrifice (1200 -> 800)
-JP cost decreased for HP Boost (2000 -> 1200)
-Remove Vehemence/Move +3/Jump +3 movement abilities
-Add Vehemence as an innate ability

Dark Knight has more base HP, more MA growth and multiplier with decreased PA growth/multiplier.

You use 20% PA multiplier to buff 20% MA/HP multiplier with innate Vehemence. It's more about buffs actually for over all.

However, since you don't need ridiculous grinding, base PA won't scale much on this job. Most jobs won't get PA growth beyond 45 except Mime and Onion Knight (which won't level up through normal means)

So Dark Knight doesn't get nerfed hard but over all DPS is nerfed for better re-balance between offense and defense strategies.

I'm considering the idea about level limit across each chapter like 15/30/50/99 at the moment. I wonder if that's a good idea so people can grind job levels without being over leveled.

Quote from: darun on November 15, 2022, 03:40:25 pmafter finish new tactic ogre  back to fft and start new run with mod,  and 1st thing i find pain is active group size, i forget how all small here.  so want to ask - is possible mod sameway active party size from 5 to 6-8, even with enemy hp boost or bonus enemys?

I don't think increasing party size is possible. Map design doesn't allow it.

Quote from: Kazu on November 17, 2022, 09:18:28 pmEnjoying the mod so far. The added difficulty is fun and the overall rebalance feels fresh.

A few things

1. Flail/maces don't miss, is this the weapon's gimmick?
2. Any thoughts on making multiplayer items accessible outside of multiplayer? Would be cool.


Thanks for the wonderful mod.

1. It has fixed damage with unavoidable mechanics yeah.
2. I considered it but most multiplayer items are too OP and bringing them back with nerf will defeat its purpose.

Quote from: mosspimp on September 23, 2022, 03:13:57 pmHi i've been playing this mod and I'm currently having an issue unlocking Dark Knight on Orlandeau. I've gone through all the replies and from what i see the conclusion is that for Dark Knight, Orlandeau just needs to have lv8 black mage and knight (not mastered) and get 20 crystallization. I've gotten way more than 20 crystallizations but Dark Knight still has not been unlocked..

Please help

Did you make 20 crystalization for that unit? It's not all combined but for each unit. You still need to master both Knight and Black Mage too. I wonder if I should remove these requirements and just leave both jobs to lv8.

Quote from: Jappadog on July 30, 2022, 09:57:15 pmHi I just modded the game and I was wondering if it would be possible to fix the ui glitches and japanese text that shows up in battles.

For example:

UI glitch: https://imgur.com/IqVsJVS or https://imgur.com/cPjvErl

Japanese text bug: https://imgur.com/uJbF2P3

It looks like you used unclean ISO with Valeria patch. Please make sure you patch with clean USA/EUR iso and patch with right language version. Patching on unclean ISO will result glitches.

Quote from: Seirno on August 07, 2022, 09:30:20 amI can say I enjoyed a majority of this mod, but a lot of it was equally frustrating too.  I played up to the chapter
3 monastery sequence before I just got bored with it.  Part of it was the mod, the other part is that's just how FFT goes when you've played it for 20 years.  Magic and rangers are straight up overpowered compared to a majority of things available in the game.  I can't really agree that this isn't an "added difficulty mod" overall.  For the points below, keep in mind I did next to zero additional grinding, as that was stated in the OP that the game was intended to not grind through.

Some good stuff:
1.  I like the unique flavors of some of the classes with how their skills are handled and changed up.
2.  The innate passives are an interesting touch and changes the way some of them are played.
3.  Removing/changing a lot of the overpowered abilities definitely makes you think of other strategies to finish some fights.
4.  Most of the equipment changes were good changes, though I feel the shield nerfs were unnecessary (except maybe the ultimate shields.)

Some bad stuff:
1.  Story fight scaling is fine if everything was still vanilla cost, but with the reduced/changed JP costs of some abilities, combined with the formula changes, it gets absurd very fast.  Level scaling is fine, but their gear should not be 1-2 tiers above what you have available.  With zero extensive grinding, around level 23ish, the knights at Lesalia had crystal equipment.  Such inflated HP totals that they almost literally just walked through everything I threw at them and proceeded to chop people for 80-90HP a swing while the monks sat back and spammed Aurablast or Shockwave.
2.  There isn't any consistency for the difficulty of the story fights.  My first point of contention was Dorter.  Already a fairly difficult fight in vanilla, this cranked it up to 15/10.  Having an archer with almost half the entire map as range (able to deal over 50% HP per attack), two black mages that instant cast -ra spells for 90-100% of your HP (I had my full HP knight one-shot killed several times), and a tanky knight that outclasses all of your gear just isn't fun.  Without excess grinding you don't have nearly enough available to match the enemy.  Every other story fight was a breeze up until the execution site.
3.  The execution site is where I adopted the "mass summoning until everything is dead" tactic because nothing else was working.  Gafgarion being able to move effectively across the map and deal 60-80HP with Night Sword is nuts.  Rangers are so fast that whatever Gafgarion didn't finish off, they could shoot across the map and finish off whatever he didn't before you even have a chance to recover.  Not to mention if the time mages woke up on the wrong side of the bed, instead of actually being a partial nuisance with haste/slow, they nuked everything below them with time/black magic.
4.  Magic and bows are overpowered.  I felt consistently much, much underpowered through the game because I just didn't have the HP totals to even remotely stand a chance against multiple mages or archers.
5.  I can understand why some of the nerfs were made to Agrias' skills but from what I saw, they were effectively a waste of a spot now, and you were better off just giving her magic instead.  Magic has better range, no vertical limits, does more damage, and hits more spaces with less restrictions than her sword skills.  She's nothing more than a generic 2.0 now.

There are probably a few other things I'm failing to remember, but that's most of my feedback for the mod.  What actually got me to stop was the dragoons in the monastery.  If I play the classes I want, they outspeed me and go stab people in the face for 90+ damage before I get a turn to move, while having almost 400 HP due to being in full crystal/platinum equipment.  If I try and build beefy characters or inflict status effects, it's back to relying on RNG to land the statuses while they're wailing on me for almost half my HP per hit.  I was back to either running way until they were sufficiently grouped and obliterated them with summons/magic or relying on RNG that everyone didn't get murdered before I could inflict them with enough status that I had a decent chance to live long enough to kill one of them.  It just lost its fun at that point.  If story scaling was removed, I think it would make it much more enjoyable to play through.

Thank you for your feedback. I do agree that it's a bit hard to balance magic with physical. It usually ended up being either too strong or too weak for most parts. When I first started playing FFT, I also found black mage being too powerful to deal with also.

However, if you are experienced player who can make use of positioning and CT properly, fighting with black mage is not actually hard with right tactics. I either use bait to tank black magicks or rush kill them before they can act. There's also a few options to recover HP and more abilities I added to disable magicks too.

Re-balancing doesn't necessary mean game won't be harder as player can't abuse cheat mechanics and enemies can fight more fairly against us with changes I made. To my understanding, difficulty mod is something like FFT 1.3 where it's guaranteed to get very hard with punishing level of content and unfair scaling, like over 10 extra levels for example. Mine has fair scaling and consider original being easy mode.

Still, I can see that this mod has been going through changes since first Valeria years back and new players who don't grow with older version may find some parts being too hard to adapt. Let's address the issues you kindly provided one by one here.

1. Leveling scaling is something that can never be balanced out. I considered making fixed gears for level scaling but that wil demerit rewards on Thief job to steal more powerful items from harder enemies for some players. I added Weaken ability on Orator to reduce level if you over grind unit so you can use that ability on Ramza and his allies if you struggle with gear gap.

Another possible solution is to limit level cap per chapter. I can setup level cap for each chapter with new ASM hack so player won't have level too high. However, this will remove over grind run for some players who want to prepare level 99 and start playing with max levels.

Personally I think level scaling won't be a big deal with Weaken ability implemented to delevel Ramza to reduce level gap between gears and you can recover with better gears to steal over time. You can find monsters in random battle and reduce Ramza level to reduce gear gap and steal their items to grow your party so you can handle enemies with higher tier items better. You can also poach strong items too.

2. Dorter fight is the first difficulty spike to test mettle of players. I never struggle with Dorter personally knowing what I can do with my party members. I have Throw Items to give potions and phoenix down, Shell ability to reduce magic damage and knight's abilities to silence or cancel magic casting. You can pair Rend action/magick with archer to cancel their action or magic ability easily too.

If you stick with brute force method like vanilla, it will hard to tackle black magicks which is significantly faster. You need to learn to expand your strategies and possibilities to overcome challenges. Or I need to nerf black magicks so new players can have fun. I guess re-balance on black magicks is needed for new player and I'll consider that for next patch.

3. Gaffgarion with level scaling can be fearsome indeed. But his hands are fixed with Blood Sword and Mythril Shield so he won't hit you too hard even if you over grind your team. The problem is extra HP from over grind but you should have strong magicks to nuke him too with high level. You can use mages to cast high tier spells to burst him fast. Have White Mage casting Holy, Black Mage casting Unholy.

Ramza and Time Mage can also use ability to give turn to knock down Gaffgarion faster. This fight will test your mettle about separating your units to deal different group of units effectively. Agrias also receive a lot of buff for HP/PA with innate Arcane Defense so she should be able to handle Archer by herself with always hit holy sword abilities. Enemies above can be dealt with magicks and support abilities to keep momentum to your side. It shouldn't be too hard even with level scaling.

4. As for archer being too powerful, I don't think so personally. You have the same weapon range and no damage increment on chapter 1 weapons. Only 1WP added for chapter 2-3 and 2WP added for chapter 4. There's no damage increment abilities. Only status infliction and one last skill Barrage to do 4 hit MA damage with high JP cost so enemy won't likely learn it.

It could be an issue from gear gap due to level scaling where archer uses stronger bow on your lower HP gears. I wonder if you spend time farming stuff for so long and didn't ever use Thief or recruit enemies to take their stronger gears with you. If you keep upgrading gears with Steal/Recruit from more powerful enemies while grinding, that should resolve your gear gap issues.

I can understand that black magicks can be OP in early chapters for new players but archer job itself is fine. It's more about level scaling issue where you over grind your party members but neglect to use steal and recruit to take better gears from enemies to adapt. Once you do that, your issue with level scaling will be resolved. I also tested this stealing Crystal Helm and stuff with weaker gears and use Archer + Rend to break OP stuff I can't steal safely. They will become paper after having gears stolen/shattered.

5. To be fair, Agrias actually received a lot of buff for herself. High innate PA/MA Growth with increased PA Multiplier added so she'll join with more PA/MA. Her HP Growth is also improved with HP Multiplier and can even tank magicks better with innate Arcane Defense. Her tankiness is increased to Orlandeau tier and her PA/MA is closer to his level.

Although her Holy Knight's abilities will have damage decreased. But it's only 1WP reduction for most abilities. Only Judgement Blade and Hallowed Bolt having 2WP reduced due to being too broken but I also increased vertical to scale like black magicks so it's more like re-balance to trade damage output for more reach. Agrias is actually buffed a lot. And keep in mind Magicks will have CT when her Holy Knight abilities can work instantly with no MP cost.

Sure if you want to build her with Magicks, she can be a fine mage also. Her MA Growth is quite high so you can level her up as Holy Knight a bit and switch to mage job or become magic knight is up to you. I also had a great time with Holy Knight/Iaido before and it worked pretty well.



With all things considered, the reason you stopped was actually from Dragoon with Crystal Helm/Platinum armor having high HP more than you can burn and outkill them reliably. It seems like your gameplay was ruined because you didn't adapt to level scaling properly. So I'll recommend 3 possible options for you to fix your play style.

1. Use Weaken on Ramza when level scaling hits you too hard
2. Use Steal abilities from Thief and Recruit from Orator to farm powerful gears from enemies
3. Use break abilities with Gun/Bow to break enemy's gears from distance

If you want to play this mod the way you want to, you can use weaken on Ramza and enjoy the game as you want it to be. Or you can try to learn how to adapt with level scaling better in future run. My version of level scaling is actually toned down a lot compared to other mods. Most high tier gears have HP/MP cap and nerf stats gained so difference won't be as big as others.

Still, people who came unprepared for level scaling will struggle hard like you. I hope you will enjoy Valeria better with my recommendations to progress better with level scaling. Maybe you can also consider using gears with speed bonus and use support abilities more which will help a lot.

I'm working on 2.5 update now and will consider your input to implement. For now here's my summary about possible changes I can implement on 2.5 based on your feedback.

1. Re-balance black magicks scaling (nerf tier 1-2 a bit so it won't be too OP perhaps)
2. Add level cap for each chapter (15/30/50/99) so player can't over grind beyond gears too much.
3. Increase success rate of Rend/Steal abilities to improve reliability of RNG a bit

Honestly I don't want to add level cap since it will make lv99 run impossible. I take that Summon and other magicks are fine right? Only Black Magicks that you find being too OP and nuke you too hard. I'll try to adapt new changes to be more friendly to new players so feel free to drop your feedback and I'll see what I can do.

Quote from: Blank?? on April 02, 2022, 03:58:16 pma correction of my statement above, i meant was the radius of praise and weaken has 2horizontal and 2vertical, the range is normal.
this can be abuse its like giving 5 chars +1 PA every turn

also the preotecja and shellja skill and some other skills has ct 100? or ct 00

Ah I see. The Praise one is a bug. It's supposed to give to one unit only but I got mixed up with other AoE debuffs. Will fix that in next update. As for weaken, it's intentional to have AoE level down with 50+MA chance and evadable also. Enemy with higher magic evasion will have less chance to success.

Protectja/Shellja/Hasteja/Slowja has CT 1 with 100 Speed. Speed is calculated from 100/CT. Ja tier will cast spell faster with higher success rate and range.

Quote from: Blank?? on March 29, 2022, 09:19:03 amranger skill has barrage not lightning strike on the patch i downloaded, and orator praise and weaken has 5 tiles cros layout, is this a bug?

barraged is modified ma/2 * ma magical attack 4 times now in 2.4. about 5 tiles across layout, please check your equipped weapon as it looks like book's weapon range.

Quote from: ej1999ej on March 14, 2022, 09:28:44 pmHello, I just started the mod and am having a fun time so far, just started chapter 2., and I have a question. Does crystalizing an undead with burial count as it being killed toward dark knight requirements since it becomes a crystal?

Also do reaction abilities still have bravery decide if they trigger or not? I kept the game default units since brave and faith don't scale anymore and they don't seem to be responding to attacks as much as my normal 70 brave units usually do.

To be honest I haven't tried that yet myself but unit that triggers crystalization should count technically. The purpose of Burial is to convert enemy's unit to learn abilities instantly rather than waiting 3 turns for chance to be crystal or chest.

Most reaction abilities are based on bravery points as before. Some may not use bravery point like original. Only brave/faith manipulation is removed and revamped into something else that can be useful or contribute other jobs better.

Quote from: hugo124 on January 16, 2022, 09:03:03 pmHi Windows X,

I just began my journey with Valeria Mod and it is quite interesting, really thanks for your efforts. But after reading your note I am really curious about one thing: Why the C-Ev% of ninja is worse than thief? Considering ninja is a job more combat-oriented, shouldn't it be higher than thief?

With pleasure. I hope you enjoy Valeria mod. I'm too busy to play it myself now. About Ninja's evasion nerf, Ninja has highest innate speed growth with very high DPS ceiling such as dual wield, reducing evasion to compensate Ninja will balance things out better. Thief was lackluster before but with highest evasion and base speed multiplier along with always hit can make thief more viable jobs.

Not to mention Ninja also have Reflexes which double evasion so reducing base evasion is still reasonable for current rate. Thief doesn't have much for offensive so buffing survival for more utility is good niche imho.

Regards,
Keetakawee

Quote from: baka-san on December 20, 2021, 08:45:27 amDoes anyone have the 2.4 fftpatch file (not the patched iso)? I want to make some tweaks, however, I've been unable to open the patched iso in fftpacher (I get an error when I try to).

Maybe you can import with FFTPatcher and apply mod on ISO yourself for tweaks.

Quote from: Murse_Jon on December 25, 2021, 12:20:39 amquick question just to confirm: this can't be played on a playstation emulator correct? Only for PSP is what I am seeing, and I don't have a PSP emulator. Just checking, this mod sounds really great btw!

You can use PPSSPP for PSP emulation. Can work on PC/Android devices.

Quote from: conscientexistence on November 30, 2021, 03:35:46 amThis seems right up my alley and I am using it for my first playthrough of the game.
Does this mod mess with any missables in the game and how they are acquired? I am not sure I noticed that, hopefully I didn't miss it. Otherwise I guess I can just keep an eye on the missables list on like GameFAQS and stick to it.

Other questions:
- Any tips on playing this? Especially for beginners? Do we want to run the tutorial again perhaps or is that unedited and inaccurate in terms of how the mods works? (I remember it being an entire mission from previous attempts at getting into the game, but I may misremember)
- Anything to be aware of if playing this on PPSSPP?
- Any existing CWCheats that this mod breaks? Any that still work?
- Not really a question lol, but anyone else not a fan of the battle prompts thing? I just turned them off, dunno if its actually helpful for playing the game.

EDIT:
If there's a more appropriate forum  where I can ask this shiz, do lmk. I got confused AF and ultimately just decided to ask it all here.

Glad to hear you like it. This mod won't mess with missables so you can play normally as before. Actually, it's even easier to get rare treasure hunt items.

As for beginner tips, I recommend watching my recorded videos so you can see how to play on some stages you may stuck early.

It's not difficulty mod but enemies will get to access more abilities with free JP so you will fight more equipped units than original.

Jobs will have unique job skill so using certain job for its unique ability will help you a lot like Time Mage for Swiftness or Ninja for Doublehand.

CWCheats should still work from what I test. It's mostly re-balance with some abilities and jobs reworked. You can play and enjoy Valeria without worrying too much.

FFT: WOTL Valeria 2.4 - Re-balance updates with ASM hacks quality of life updates

Valeria 2.3 has been out for a while and I'm glad to hear people are enjoying this project better over time. After receiving thoughtful feeback, I made some adjustments for better gameplay experience.


Samurai's offensive abilities re-balance
When Samurai's reworked abilities were first introduced, it's quite hard to find the middle ground where things should scale properly despite having a lot of testing involved before release.

After 2.3 update, I realized it's still overtuned a little and toned down for more reasonable level. Well, it's only little nerf around 10% damage reduction for re-balance purposes.


Summoner's summon abilities re-balance
After playing 2.3 with summon a bit, I find summoning becoming quite too pale in comparison to black magicks that received buffs recently.

So it took a long while to decide how I should apply re-balance between black magicks and summon so my playthrough got postponed for a long while.

Finally, I decided to buff damage factor of Summon abilities to be around original WOTL release. Shiva/Ramuh/Ifrit/Titan will be more powerful closer to PSX damage.


White/Black Mage's 4-tier abilities re-balance
Since focus on black magicks is changed to fast and strong offensive abilities, it was quite too powerful compared to summoner's summons.

After testing for a while, I realized it's the effect area being buffed too much so 4-tier white/black magicks are changed to 0-0/1-1/1-3/2-3 scaling again.

I also changed CT scaling of white magicks to 1/2/4/7 and black magicks to 2/3/5/8 increasing extra CT on -ja spells.


Reworked Barrage for Archer/Balthier
Some people complained about Balthier being lackluster in Valeria due to his signature Barrage is changed. Well, that was broken abilities to begin with.

After giving some thoughts and testing for a while, I decided to bring back Barrage as performing magical attacks 4 times at MA/2 * MA.

Although I still find it some what quite powerful with MA build but it shouldn't break the balance like original Barrage that gives flat 2X damage with 4 chance to crit over normal attack.

I also reverted damage reduction on most guns back to original except Stoneshooter due to chance to inflict stone effect is still there.


Reworked Luso abilities with real Huntcraft
As you saw Huntcraft in Onion Knight before, it was actually designed for Luso but I feel it'd be wasteful for only one special character to get blue mage-like abilities.

However, I also realized it'd be even more wasteful to make Luso just a Ramza clone with Delita stats so I decided to move skill set from Onion Knight back to Luso.

I also replaced Goblin Punch/Self-Destruct with Ultima/Choco Meteor so Luso can still learn Ultima in chapter 3 and teach Ramza in chapter 4 later.

Onion knight will not have any ability as original game so I gave this job extra buff to 125% when this job is mastered.


Added ASM hacks from Valhalla editor
I considered these new ASM hack features before releasing 2.3 but I need to test and make sure it will be compatible with my mod first. Now I tested these ASM hack features and implemented the following featues.

-Added smart encounter triggering battle only on selected location
-Changed critical damage to always deal 50% extra damage
-Changed initial camera to zoom far with high angle
-Changed Rend abilities to not deal damage if weapon is already broken
-Decreased required gil amount in inventory to trigger Agrias' birthday quest (500,000 -> 50,000)

I also considered level cap feature that will cap level limit in each chapter to 15/30/50/99 but that wouldn't allow over grind run to work so I put this feature on hold for now.


I also fixed Dawnblade bug failing to inflict Slow status and nerfed its range/vertical as Duskblade/Shadowblade also. That should fix Dawnblade from being game breaking with some range constraints.

This update can shouldn't affect existing 2.3 save that much except you need to re-learn Luso abilities from monsters. If you have any advice for changes in future updates, please let me know.



2.4
-Added smart encounter triggering battle only on selected location
-Changed 4-tier range scaling of Cure/Fire/Thunder/Blizzard abilities to (0-0/1-1/2-2/3-3 -> 0-0/1-1/1-3/2-3)
-Changed critical damage to always deal 50% extra damage
-Changed CT of 4-tier Cure spells to (1/2/4/6 -> 1/2/4/7)
-Changed CT of 4-tier Fire/Blizzard/Thunder spells to (2/3/5/7 -> 2/3/5/8)
-Changed initial camera to zoom far with high angle
-Changed Lightning Strike to reworked Barrage performing 4 magical attack with damage factor MA/2 * MA and have JP cost decreased (1200 -> 800)
-Changed Rend abilities to not deal damage if weapon is already broken
-Decreased MP damage percentage of Osafune ability due to bonus MA factor (30 -> 25)
-Decreased damage factor of Ashura ability (12 -> 10)
-Decreased damage factor of Kotetsu ability (15 -> 12)
-Decreased damage factor of Ama-no-Murakumo ability (20 -> 18)
-Decreased damage factor of Muramasa ability (25 -> 24)
-Decreased damage factor of Kiku-ichimonji ability (24 -> 20)
-Decreased damage factor of Chirijiraden ability (40 -> 36)
-Decreased required gil amount in inventory to trigger Agrias' birthday quest (500,000 -> 50,000)
-Fixed Dawnblade not applying Slow status properly and have range decreased (3 -> 2), vertical decreased (3 -> 2)
-Increased damage factor of Bahamut ability (38 -> 42)
-Increased damage factor of Cyclops ability (42 -> 44)
-Increased damage factor of Ifrit ability (20 -> 23)
-Increased damage factor of Leviathan ability (28 -> 32)
-Increased damage factor of Odin ability (32 -> 36) and change chance to inflict status (Dead -> Doom)
-Increased damage factor of Ramuh ability (20 -> 23)
-Increased damage factor of Salamander ability (30 -> 34)
-Increased damage factor of Shiva ability (20 -> 23)
-Increased damage factor of Titan ability (24 -> 27)
-Increased hit rate of Sylph ability (170 -> 180)
-Increased Onion Knight's HP/MP/Speed/PA/MA Multiplier when mastered (120 -> 125)
-Increased weapon power of Stoneshooter (12 -> 14)
-Replaced Luso's skillset with Huntcraft and replaced Goblin Punch/Self-Destruct with Ultima/Choco Meteor
-Reverted ??? status on Argath during Ziekden Fortress fight
-Reverted Onion Knight's skill set
-Reverted weapon power reduction on Ras Algethi, Glacial Gun, Blaze Gun, and Blaster

FFT: WotL - Valeria 2.4 Info - https://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=11872.0
FFT: WotL - Valeria 2.4 (PSP USA) - https://www.mediafire.com/file/p719tefn60jsazn
FFT: WotL - Valeria 2.4 (PSP EUR) - https://www.mediafire.com/file/v6onbgecgdpmjzv

Feel free to share your experience about Valeria 2.4 update for better updates in future and I apologize not being able to completely finish Valeria 2 projet as intended until now.

Quote from: crowbareater on October 22, 2021, 07:31:14 amis it ok to add this prepatched for others to use on a other website? (with credit of the creator and the link to the original post)

Could you elaborate about that? If it's patched ISO so no patch applying required, that's illegal.

Quote from: PiotyrHB on August 31, 2021, 09:34:54 amI wish to suggest some more theme based suggestions rather than balance based ones.
1 I think throw stone should be brought back because its an iconic move for Ramza (its in dissidia for example along with rush), I am sure you can think of a way to rework it to be interesting.
Second may I suggest making some changes to Balthier and Luso to give them some uniqueness? I always felt it kind of lame that they are just copies of other characters.
Finally have you looked at ramzas Dissidia moveset for inspiration for some Ramza move changes? Two or three of them I bet could convert well.

Maybe different project for other theme. I kinda have some ideas for Vanilla variant too. Ramza from Dissidia is about fighting game so it's not reall soul suceessing for tactics series. Also, people use throw stone for exp/jp farming so I kinda want to fix that too.

Anyway, I haven't played Dissidia game yet so I may not see bigger picture of it like you do. If you have specific abilities to recommend, please let me know.

Quote from: Thaerin on July 30, 2021, 05:10:13 amI would like to give a slightly incomplete review of your mod. I am in chapter 4 and I have collected all the characters... I will list my opinions as  pros / cons / suggestions lists.

PROS
1. Class reworking created a more balanced gameplay.
2. Many battles are considerably more challenging, especially because Ramza is unable to dart around screaming at himself...
3. Removal of Calc class is VERY much appreciated. I feel like Anarchist class should have been available from the start as a comparison to the ultimate physical classes.

CONS
1. Argath is a boss that self heals... really? Given that black mages have become OP variants of summoners, the final battle of chapter 1 was the hardest fight thus far. Once I finally got him cornered, I was slowing hacking away at his ever replenishing health. Honestly, I had a harder time with Argath than I did Lucavi form Wiegraf.
2. Some classes are OVER compensated in power. Black mage skills are now cheaper and more powerful versions of summoner skills, making summoner off secondary skills a thing of the past. Considering you cannot transfer certain skills now like faster casting speeds, summoning just does not make sense.
3. Samurai is another class that is now too powerful. ... Agrias has basically become what Orlandeau use to be. Samurai with her naturally balanced PA and MA plus lip rogue gives her the range and damage expected of sword Saint skills in the original release. Samurai skills seem impossible to ignore considering the range of sword skills has dropped.
4. Dawnblade is a game breaker. While everyone else hits for maybe 200-300 damage... Ramza and Luso are consistently striking for 500-999 every attack. It does not help that Dawnblade also has a range of 3 and no limit on y axis.
5. Orlandeau, though I like his new skill set, he no longer feels like the "Thunder God" ... his skill set seems more like... Templar... or Paladin... maybe if he had a lightning sword technique?
6. (Edit) after fighting more boss fights, I have come to the realization that Balthier has become over-nerfed. Stealing is nerfed because all stolen loot is all shop tier or just 1 tier higher. Guns are nerfed in range down to 6 from 8, and Balthier specifically was nerfed by taking away his best skill. He simply is no longer a valid unit.

Suggestions
1. Improve summoner class to make it worth using and to make players afraid to fight them. Maybe lower cast time and give the class MA up. passive?
2. Special classes are limited based on available abilities. I am not referring to movement skills, I like the removal of move+2 and 3. Talking about the passive benefits. I was not able to make Agrias a summoner because she cannot have fast cast equipped as a holy knight. Characters are more set in stone for how they can be raised due to the limited skills that can be transferred from classes. I think some of those skills should be transferable so players can have a more customized playthrough.
3. ... this is more just an idea I had that I think would make mages more fun to play... there are 12 black mage spells between fire, blizzard, and thunder... and they are all exactly the same. I was thinking a complete overhaul of the spells. Ice touch, fork lightning, fire rain. Remove current Blackmagic spells and replace with new ones that could potentially be used throughout the playthrough because each spell can work in different situations. Extra boon, if only 9 or so spells are made, that frees up the remaining skills to help balance other classes! (Edit) adding to this, black magic seems weaker the further into the game you go and becomes outclassed by samurai skills and time magic for mixed attackers, Anarchist magic by pure magic attackers, and nearly all sword skill classes have more power than black magic as well.
4. Please make Cloud a valid hero to use! His limit break skills all are very short range and play pretty much the same way as each other. Making it so you would only choose the skill based on how much time you want to sit there charging for... does every limit break have to require a charge?

I know I focused more on negative and hopeful changes, but honestly, I love the work you put into the game. It feels so fresh again. Thank you for your dedication and hard work!

Thank you for your feedback. I believe you figured out class unlock on Summoner and Time Mage now which requires level 3 job (I forget to change on second part).

I really appreciate your feedback and here's my comment about your listing.

Pros
1. Glad to hear you like that. It took me a while to adjust each job over time for ability adjustment, rework, or even revamp whole job itself.
2. It's considered harder since most cheese are gone so some fights will need more strategic deployment and execution to play smoothly.
3. I tried re-balancing Calc also but decided to give up since concept itself can't be balanced out. Arcanist is considered single job ultimate mage class when there's 2 physical one.

Cons
1. Original Argath has auto-potiion by default. But being able to use basic items freely allows Potion / Antidote/ Phoenix Down to be used more frequently. Normally I don't find this hard since he can be nuked efficiently as you can see from here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG2mBmlTL_k

2. Summon has wider range, won't hit allies and has chance to inflict status. So Black Magicks is revamped for pure DPS efficiency although buff isn't that big to be honest. It's 1/1/2/4 increment.

As for Summoner, Shiva/Ramuh/Ifrit doesn't have damage reduction at all but has CT decreased with status infliction. For higher tier spells, they have damage reduced but CT is reduced a lot too.

The better parts of Summoner are being able to heal, inflict status, and status recovery also. So Halve MP with secondary skill for other Magicks can work for long fight.

3. Samurai has become more powerful as a few people hoped to be. I tried to adjust damage scaling a few times and I have to admit it's hard to make this balanced consistently for 2-4 chapters.

Maybe I can tone down damage multiplier a bit to make it more balanced in next update. Since he can't provide party buff anymore, I want to make him stronger to compensate that.

4. Dawnblade is indeed a game breaker skill for hero cheese. Well, compared to Scream and run around until Ramza becomes super saiyan 5, I guess this is still more acceptable.

I'm pretty sure I added vertical tolerance 3 which is 1 height higher than most sword skills. I checked FFTPatcher and it was applied properly also. Maybe I should reduce range to 2.

5. I actually considered giving Agrias new skills I gave Orlandeau before. But having Paladin skills with Duskblade/Shadowblade would be cool for having both light/dark.

From my understanding, Thundergod is like lightning fast and his Duskblade/Shadowblade are broken enough for that title in my opinion. He can hit and heal and kill everyone by himself.

6. It's more like Gun being nerf since range 8 is too long for most maps with 10x10 box. Original Barrage is broken ability and re-balance to WP*SP can scale over time for more damage with Adrenaline Rush.

I nerfed end game guns also due to dual wield gun being allowed so maybe that's why it feels lacking a bit since Dual Wield can't be used freely anymore. I'll consider buffing late game guns a bit.

Suggestions
1. I already reduced CT on most summons. Enemies will spam Titan more when original hardly use it due to CT being too long. MA Growth is also increased a lot (42 only second to Arcanist) and MA Multiplier is 135 when Time Mage get only 120 now.

Maybe I'll raise damage factor by 2 to be worth using more for DPS. Black Magicks getting range buff makes Summon less appealing indeed but not hitting allies allows you to use Summon better.

2. While unique job skill has restrictions, it also resolves many broken combo issues allowing some removed abilities to come back in 2.0 release. If you want Swiftness, use Time Mage job and you can cast faster. That's the point of unique job skill.

If you can use those broken abilities freely on any job, please remember about original game where having Black Mage with Swiftness support ability casting Iaido and kills everything. Or dual wield on all malee DPS.

So, having extra unique job skill added into job itself is a bonus and you can consider changing job to match with your play style better. Maybe you can give Agrias Time Mage job wih Equip Sword to use her Holy Knight abilities if you want to.

I also play Agrias as White Mage with Equip Sword before and it works pretty well too. Using Geomancer or Samurai would be great also. Her default job is also good at tanking with Arcane Defense.

3. I also considered that as well but I still think original concept of MP/CT/DPS efficiency is still good for now. It looks boring but if you can kill this unit with Fira, there's no need to use Firaja spell, right?

Black Magicks in Valeria has lower CT so lower tier spells are still useful to fill damage within allowed CT. If I decide to remove CT completely, I'd consider changing 4 tier spells to something else for sure.

4. Most of Cloud's abilities are dealing strong damage and debuff so making it instantly will be broken like holy sword skills. Having Agrias for one would be enough already and I honestly don't want to have another broken skill set.

I also reduced CT of most Cloud abilities to make it more viable and tuned late game skills to be more usable too. Maybe you can change Cloud to Time Mage and use Equip Sword to use his Limit Break faster.

Anyway, I really appreciate your feedback and I certainly agree with most of your opinions so 2.4 will be out next with most of your feedback applied.

Quote from: Sparky on May 13, 2021, 01:09:17 amI started this mod a couple months ago and really enjoyed it, especially in the beginning. Later in the game I got kinda bored with it but that's normal for FFT for me because once I've unlocked all the jobs and classes I want to use, I lose interest a little bit. I liked the rebalancing, there was an actual challenge to the game that made me rework old strategies. Some of the new job abilities were fun to play with, Rangers and Orators were actually worth using, and the innate abilities made me use some classes I wouldn't have normally used. I still sent my characters down the paths to ninja, samurai, and arcanist but I didn't have much use for the ninja or samurai in this mod so I actually used other classes. The only drawback to the rebalancing was that with all the abilities that you removed, there weren't many support or movement abilities left to use. I mostly stuck to Move +1 for movement, and jp boost, defense boost, and arcane defense for support. All of those can be picked up early and most of the good late game options were removed. This wasn't entirely your fault since there are a lot of useless abilities in the game to begin with, especially in the movement ability options. The only way to make it better would've been to create brand new abilities to replace the overpowered abilities that were removed. Overall I have had fun playing it and enjoyed the new challenges and strategies that your mod presented.

I'm still playing the game and I've had some issues with the Onion Knight class. Nothing game breaking but a little frustrating and odd.

Some of my characters can't use some onion knight abilities while others could use them all. I'm only referring to the 5 abilities that the class starts with, not the monster abilities. Only a few can use Celestial Stasis and some couldn't use charm or one or more breath abilities even after they're unlocked. Is there a level requirement or some reason that some of those can't be used by certain characters?


Thanks for the mod, it's been fun. Let me know if you have any solutions for the OK issues and thanks again.

I'm glad to hear you like my changes on Valeria mod which are based on Tactics Ogre and later Tactics series by the same author.

Removing broken abilities and combination was a necessary move to keep the game enjoyable. However, unique job skill I added in Valeria 2 helped bringing some back also.

About Move/Jump+1 only, I'd like to remind you most maps are designed in 10x10 size so +2/3 will remove make move 4 jobs pointless.

However, I also enhanced a lot of boots with Move+1 also like having extra PA/MA/SPD with Move +1 which is very useful upgrade to compensate that.

Onion Knight still has some weird glitches as you found. I also don't know why some units just can't use 5 main skills but it used to be fine from testing.

About support abilities you mentioned, some can be unexpectedly useful like Equip Crossbow on Thief will have never miss ranged attack that scales with PA.

Using Equip Shield on mage units for extra evasion can save their lives a lot too. I also use Equip Polearm on Samurai with Jump myself sometimes also.

If you unlock Dark Knight job later on, there's also HP Boost which is a good ability for your tank unit. Equip Gun on Chemist also works well or you can equip heavy armor on Ninja also.

Feel free to try strange class/job combination and you may find some unexpectedly useful builds there after moving obvious ones to unique job skill.

Quote from: Filil on May 17, 2021, 09:28:49 pmHi! I'm a brand new FFT mods player. And i'd like, if possible, that you could explain how to do Rendezvous missions. I'm using PPSSPP program on my Android to play the game. Could u tell me how to do it, please?

Thanks! And congratulations for the mod, i just began and i'm liking it so much!

Using NET Play emulation with another PPSSPP device should be working fine I guess.

Quote from: Dr.Clovis on April 14, 2021, 06:56:20 pmHi, I had started this mod and I'm asking myself, on psp version the on-line items are accessible?

If you participate in Rendezvous missions, you can get them.

Quote from: mikih on March 18, 2021, 03:59:32 pmHello,

Just wanted to say that I'm really enjoying this mod so far! It's one of the most refreshing things in replaying FFT, with all the changes to skills and jobs so far. I personally really like this mod as it takes me a bit of time to spend time modifying characters to my liking, grinding JPs and class is really rewarding in some sort. (i use frog and berserk to gain JP up very quickly with JP boost). I usually finish this game no longer than 3 days playing for a whole day, but this game takes a while to finish which I really appreciate. Though currently i'm on chapter 4 after 2 weeks of playing

However, just one thing remains.

At first, i downloaded this mod and played in on my original PSP handheld, everything was working fine and perfect. But since this mod takes a quite a bit of time to poach/grind JP and gain useful items, i figured it would be best to play in on the PPSSPP emulator with speed up animations. But the only thing that bugs me is the sound of swords when attacking (sword skills by agrias, or just physical attack), the sound that it makes is like weird 8-bit in a way, which doesn't deliver the satisfying blow upon hitting enemies like on my PSP handheld.

I tried finding more information about this, but can't find any resolution to this? Anybody know how to fix this? I'm guessing this is a bug within the emulator itself.

I'm happy to hear that you enjoy Valeria mod. You can try changing audio backend to WASAPI or DSound and adjust latency to fix it.

To be honest I used to have OCD about missing JP Boost too but I decided to focus on gameplay experience after replaying for a while and I didn't lose as much. You use good support ability and your gameplay gets a lot better and more enjoyable.

Feel free to apply changes on your custom run as you see fit. Everyone has to start somewhere and Valeria is a good place to start too.

I also used to consider giving Thief more abilities like Balthier but buffing Speed/PA makes thief a lot better with Concentration. You can't miss landing hit.

Aim abilities can't be fixed with non-Aim command due to having special skill set flag so you can only tweak ability to work like Aim if you want to mix in.

Quote from: Herbalmix on March 05, 2021, 06:29:57 pmTried using another computer, it seems that my other one didnt copied the file succesfully

The whole revamp of this version is so good, every unit needs to be specialized
And has bearing in every situation

I like how you made each job has its own unique passive which broke the vanilla version of mixing and matching

Just passed Wiegraf/Belias at level 22
Took 5 retries though
Defenese and offenese is really needed to be balanced

Thank you so much for this update!

I'm happy to hear that you like the changes in Valeria update. The removal of obvious offensive boost and unique job makes you want to try job and abilities combination without breaking the game balance.

Quote from: LeetMiniWheat on March 06, 2021, 03:31:23 pmThanks for the fun and refreshing mod. Enjoying it so far, despite a few annoyances.

Personally I hadn't done a playthrough in many years, but became addicted after play-testing in PPSSPP prior to intended use by an elder who was a huge fan of the original FFT and WoTL (Currently set up on a TV with docked PSP-Go and bluetooth paired PS3 controller, which he's enjoying from bed).

-Innate abilities each job has is interesting as it encourage players to use more of a variety
-Refreshing balance of many broken/OP things, though I haven't played enough yet to accurately judge.

Annoyances:
- Too much Rend(Helm/Armor/Shield/Weapon), which seems more common in this mod. IMO this was flawed and simply not fun. Adds frustration and encourages save scumming (or safeguard on everyone). I assume the developers original intention was some sort of physical method of debilitating, but overlooked any sort of equipment durability system. Without a durability system, they should have been temporarily rendered broken or replaced with alternative ways of nullifying equipment and/or sundering armor(s). This is especially frustrating on unique and non-replaceable items.
- Thieves... similarly as frustrating as Rend(Helm/Armor/Shield/Weapon). Stolen items should have been programmed to be additional "rewards" after defeating said enemies, though I can imagine the complexity it might add.
- JP Boost: Waste of space in 3rd ability slot if JP costs are lowered. I always disliked the irrisistable urge to always have Gained JP Up there. Similarly this is a waste of a slot if everyone needs Safeguard. (Some mods remove this ability in favor of lowered costing skills)

These are the most immediate annoyances I've noticed thus far, but I have no easy suggestions to remedy them without a rehaul of many abilities.
I'm not familiar with the modding tools, but I'd probably temporarily put safeguard as an innate ability on more jobs (if space permits) or somehow make unique items unbreakable/non-stealable and remove JP Boost (or make it innate ability on jobs like Mime/O.K. for JP spillover. EDIT: maybe "squire" jobs too)

I agree that rend/steal equipment can be annoying at times but you can also use it to take advantage of situation better yourself too. Normally I'll nuke thief and knight first or use Monk with evasion cloak to bait them.

As for JP Boost, it's more like a habit of player who wants to min/max. I considered adding this into innate ability of all jobs but there're a few issues I'd like to address below.

1. Some special characters or jobs like Reis who has all 4 abilities by default can't have that on her main job. Some jobs I modified like Mime/Onion Knight won't have free slot too.

2. It makes job progression too fast. In Valeria I modified job requirements to unlock endgame jobs at more natural pace. You can get Samurai/Ninja jobs unlocked around the time you can get their items and JP Boost will make it unlocked way sooner and allow player to cheese with endgame abilities too early.

I also decreased JP cost of many abilities so even without JP Boost, you can still gain those abilities on time. I only use JP Boost until I can get core abilities I need. After that I'll focus on making units performing better.