Final Fantasy Hacktics

I was going to ask if this was going to be updated for WotL, too.

[This is not the place to be discussing who likes what version of FFT -Elric]

I grew up with PSX tactics, multiple play throughs, and I've just recently got a hankering to play through again and decided to try out WotL.  So far I like it, playing it with PPSSPP emulator.

CURRENT VERDICT: Fun until Sweegy, then I got stonewalled by bullshit enough times I said fuck it and had to go listen to Yoshi's Island music to calm myself down.

^Sweegy was easy, not sure what kind of problems did you have with it.
Dorter 1 on the other hand took a few trys. Main problem was the lack of items and skills at this point in the game. PD are not cheap, 500 a pop take a toll on you at this stage of the game.

Looking forward to the rest of the mod.

A few questions tho:
1. Are random battles 100%? Seems to be, as long as I stop on a tile that can have randoms.
2. Do some 'mid-boss' type enemies have innates? (Miluda ect.)

yeah i'm pretty sure it has the 100% random battles if you go to a space, 0% if you just pass it hack

It's called Smart Encounters... And yes, it will only trigger if you click on a random battle point, otherwise no randoms.

I'm liking the Smart Encounters, pretty nice idea. As far as the mod goes:

Chapter 1 finished. Only fight the required more than one try was Dorter 1. Everything else was easy, and ye old strategy of 'nuke rush!' works well with the multiple kill the leader missions that are present in CH.1

On to Chapter 2.
I've scouted out Dorter 2, seems like it's going to be an uphill battle (get it? I'll show myself out...).
Regardless I don't think it will be that hard, if only Agrias and Gaffy decide to no be dumb... that would be nice.

Edit: Dorter 2 done. Won after the initial scout, so took 2 trys. The archers were super annoying, and worse yet, none of my units had enough jump to get on the roof to them. Had to finish them off by spamming 9 dmg elementals... took a while. Lost 4 helmets, including Gold and Cross.. >.<

Ah, it feels like returning and replaying it after a couple of years, I guess. Nice to see that it's still flowing like a river of fluffy dreams full of fluffy pandas gamboling about fluffy ... stuff. 

I almost forgot how stupid AI can be, thankfuly Mustadio reminded mi of that...

Might not go for the brave boost if he decides to derp all the time. One try so far and he got nuked to hell.
Other than that, save Boco took 3 resets, Zerkile Falls took none, even tho Delita was mostly useless in this fight. Managed to get most of his stuff broken by the knights lol. Oh well at least he dodged that 27% weapon break.
Enough FFT for today, will continue tomorrow after work, if I'm not too tired.

Hey all, thanks for the feedback so far! I have to keep this post brief since I've been working super late at work lately and I need to get some sleep, but I'll be posting a proper reply to your posts soon. Just wanted to let you all know that I wasn't ignoring you! Please keep posting your findings, both good and bad. All input is valuable!

(Also, Panda, it's great to see your fluffy self again!)

Mustadio saved.... took 3 resets, all I will say is Boco ftw. If only AI didn't derp so much, this fight would be a lot easier.

Bariaus Hill. I was dreading this fight, turned out it was very easy. First try, and I'm not sure if you didn't overtune the summons. Cyclops did about ~30 damage and Ramuh did 40something. Laughable.

Quote from: darkholypl on November 02, 2016, 01:58:34 pm
First try, and I'm not sure if you didn't overtune the summons. Cyclops did about ~30 damage and Ramuh did 40something. Laughable.

In his last changelog, he explained that Cyclops was nerfed a lot, possibly now being the weakest damaging summoning.

Kudos, Eternal. My apologies not sending any news for so long.

I'd like, then, to point out something after re-reading the changelog and see if my reasoning suffice to explain it and see if you agree:

Both Excalibur and Ragnarok (? the one that gives starting regen, dunno which one now). I was thinking that, in the hope they stopped being too strong (always haste, always regen), you could consider a critical reaction or a different approach for them.

For example: given Excalibur is told to be a holy blade or a cleansing blade, its strike could have a dispelling ability, dispelling anything (buffs or debuffs); or almost anything, for balance (although given that it has a high PA, using to cleanse your own troops from ailments would mean damaging them hard; so it could balance itself in this situation). Or it could trigger Haste effect when wielder got in critical condition. So this ability would feel more active than 'starting haste', which gives a boost initially, then it goes unused thereon in.

Same for the other blade with the initial regen effect. It could also trigger in a critical condition, which feels much more useful in a battle. Most of times you start away from harm anyway, so the blade would show its prowess at the most dire moments. Or so I reckon.

Same for any other item (except the Transparent one) with initial effects, in which a reaction-like effect could feel more useful for longer battles, aside the crude and pure PA/MA.

I'll see if I play this new version the next weeks to comment more about it.

^I understand that about Cyclops. That was not the point I was making.
The summons in general feel a bit weak. I'm doing Goug now, and they still feel weak. To me, summons in FF games were always limited use, big damage kind of a deal, so I'm not sure how to feel about this change.
Update: An enemy Summoner with 9MA and a Thunder rod did about 62 dmg with Ramuh on my Archer and Ramza (neutral compat). I think that's a bit low, but that's just me.

Other than that:
Swamp was easy, nothing to report.
Goug took more resets then I thought it will. RNG hated me.. Charm for dayzzz son.. Finally got lucky and resised a few, Boco mvp once more.

Indeed. They should escalate with the game somehow, or it won't feel that well earned effort of mastering them at all. Perhaps if it's considered adding a related ailment to their effects. E.g.: Shiva damages and may cause slow. Ifrit damages and may cause darkness.

Years ago, when I was pondering over a project myself, I was designing the Summoning Magic to be a sort of final skill of some special Jobs, of some of the unique characters, more or less related to their personality, giving them a strong and unique effect, most likely making them have a reactive Summoning skill when critically injured.

Phew. Now that this crazy work week is over, I can properly respond.

First off, Dark Holy, thank you for taking the time to play through KO. Your input and feedback is greatly appreciated and tremendously helpful, and I hope you're enjoying your KO adventure! Even though KO stays true to Vanilla, I hope that you're finding the balance changes to be refreshing and fun.

Allow me to explain some of the design details in regards to Wizard and Summoner, since that's been a point of contention for me for a while now. The challenge with Wizard and Summoner in Vanilla is basically that Summoner is a better version of Wizard. Most classes in FFT aren't straight upgrades from each other. Most classes have some sort of niche which makes it appealing in comparison to other jobs. I would argue that Summoner is still a pretty incredible job, but for reasons different from the sheer power in Vanilla. In KO, Summoner is about AoE- smart AoE, at that. Whereas Wizards have more sting to their spells, they're a little more unwieldy, requiring a little more precision, but with a higher damage output with less MP/CT. Summoners however, can hit a lot of things at once with perfect accuracy while ignoring unintended targets. Further, Summoners have a very versatile skillset, even though it may not appear as such at first. AoE Regen, AoE percentile damage, AoE Death, AoE Reflect (great for Queklain), damage + Blind through Salamander, damage + Silence through Sylph... there's a lot you can do. Although Summon damage will never really top the potential Black Magic damage has, I used Summon Magic through a lot of my own test run, using elemental boosting and Magic Attack Up as well as MA gear for really high damage summons. Later on, I dropped MA Up for Short Charge and Summons were still devastating. Summons were actually buffed from previous versions of KO, where Summons were frankly crap. Further, Summons can hit a wider variety of elemental affinities than Black Magic, which can really only hit Fire/Ice/Thunder. I also think part of the challenge is that early on, Black Magic is far more cost effective, since MP healing and MP cost mitigation is rare. Later on, once you have Chakra, Ethers, Bards, etc., Summons become far easier to spam. Cyclops was changed as such to make it a viable choice for early-game Summoners. Lower MP cost, easier to use, etc., but remained non-elemental so that the elemental summons would have individual use. Summons were incredibly hard for me to balance, but give them a little love and I'm confident that you'll enjoy using them. Besides, their animations are kickass.

And yes, Boco (and all Chocobos, for that matter) is incredibly useful. He's a good introduction to how having monsters in your party can actually be beneficial and not a detriment.

Panda, you should give it a try! Your feedback would be great!

^I am enjoying it. It was the kind of mod that I was looking for, since I felt like doing another FFT run, but frankly wasn't feeling like doing FFT 1.3 again.
Better balance, but mostly sticking to vanilla is what I had in mind, and KO is perfect for that.

And yes, I do see that is what your plan for summons was , but I guess I'm still in the 1.3 mindset, where most things 1-2 shot you Don't worry  I intend to give it a go, once my time mage gets short charge (almost there).

One question tho: I'm avoiding random battles (still 1.3 mindset) but I wonder.. should I? Will being higher level screw me over much? Also are there unique randoms added to this patch?

Edit: Bariaus Hill and Execution Site done.

I have to say I really like the changes to monsters, KO would make an interesting hack to play as a 'beastmaster'. May do that in the future.

Execution site took 1 reset, overall wasn't that hard, stole Gaffys sword, this time no Boco, Mustadobro took his spot as MVP. Arm and Leg aim are as good as always. Btw, are the % chances for things like stealing and breaking incresed? Seems to be, especially for the breaks... 94% head break ftw, unless it's done on you, like it this case

The more I play KO the more I like it.

It's funny you mention Time Mages, since they were buffed pretty significantly from earlier versions as well. Both them and Summoners are a blast now! As far as randoms go, there aren't really special units in them (for example, you'll never fight Hell Knights, Sorcerers, etc.) in them, but in Chapter IV, each of the rare random battles in each area are a Trial, where you fight 11 units each of a single job. It's both a challenge and a great way to farm them for crystals for abilities of that given job. Deep Dungeon, however, has special units in many of the fights, making them quite challenging at times.

As far as doing randoms themselves, by all means! Many random fights have different parties than before, since monsters aren't quite as tiered as they once were, meaning Poaching is more viable as well. That said, don't expect them to be pushovers- many random fights are on par if not harder than story fights, because of the monster buffs. Being higher level won't screw you over during the story (since even though enemy levels scale, their equipment will be roughly the same as what you can access), but monsters may become tougher as you level, since their stats grow faster and higher than humans. That said, by that point, you'll have a more varied assortment of abilities to handle them.

EDIT: And yes, Breaks had their accuracy buffed. They're much better at permanently debuffing enemies now.

Ok so a small update:

Lionel gates took 2 days... let me explain why Yesterday, when I did my first 2 attempts, the RNG god were not happy with me.. the enemy lancers landed every 66% frontal hit, EVERY.SINGLE.ONE! across two trys. Needless to say I got a bit upset and decided to call it a day.
Today it went smooth. I guess RNG gods calmed the F down. If I didn't derp with Ramza, and let him die out of reach of any ress (oops...) it would have been done in one go today. Took 1 reset, and the initial 2 so 3 in total.

Queklain was super easy. In fact he felt 100% vanilla, not sure if that is indeed the case, but that's how it felt. He managed to get into a corner, so I blocked him off with Ramza and Agrias, broke his MA, so he went into a Loss loop, which Boco took care off easily with Esuna.

Save Olan. Damn that Olan.. he took my crystal to get his mp back.. and he killed a ninja that I was saving to steal sprint shoes... Got Orichalcon Dirk, 1 Sprint Shoes and 1 Gun in the end. Not bad, but I was aiming for 3 shoes... oh well. Overall pretty easy.

Lionel Gate is a tricky battle to begin with, since it features a pretty varied team that can both land annoying debuffs and hit pretty hard with the Lancers. I'm not surprised that it was tough, especially with the RNG screwing you over. Boco is definitely MVP of the Queklain fight, assuming he doesn't get debuffed/killed himself. Quekky himself is buffed from Vanilla, believe it or not. He has more HP, his Bio spells have increased range, and Bio 2 deals damage now. The fact that you used Breaks to lower his MA makes me very happy. You're going to do really well in KO, since I designed buffs and debuffs to be useful. Quekky will likely get a buff sometime in the future, but he's mostly meant to introduce the player to status heavy enemies and ??? enemies, so it likely won't be significant.

Olan is an easy fight, for sure! ...until you have to fight him in DD.

Small update:

Zalmo 1 was fun. Managed to get him into a corner and rob him blind. Some nice items.



There was also a priest with some nice items, but unfortunetly she had maintanance. Managed to get a magic gauntlet from the chest she dropped tho, so not bad in the end.

Also started to get monsters, some of them are way to good to not use in some fights, I'm looking to get the bird with instant haste, and the 100% acurate fether bomb. This guy will be usefull for sure

I'm glad you were able to snatch his gear away! I can assure you, Zalmo II is far harder.