FFT: Spirit of '98

[IronJustice]

[EDIT: Oct 11, 2021, File updated with some bugfixes. Thank you to Barren and Julfordio for helping play test, and I hope you will try the updated version]

Yet another FFT mod in the year 2020, what is so special about this one?

This patch is aimed at providing a balanced and slightly more challenging experience than vanilla, while retaining the original game's vision. One incredible aspect of the original game is, due to its lower difficulty, it was ideal for experimentation and self-imposed challenges. Sadly, this capability is diminished with the drastic increase in difficulty present in many other mods. The difficulty here is increased some as a result of certain game-breaking strategies being curtailed, but it is still low enough to invite the self-imposed challenges and experimentation possible in vanilla.

Does the idea of having to read pages of patch notes, and read the description of every ability in the game intimidate you? Although you are welcome to read my patch notes, this game is intended that one can dive in without feeling alienated. All of the original classes are retained, and no new abilities were created or removed. I tried to stick with the existing material and improve it in ways that retain the original vision, as if the devs themselves had more time to refine their game.

So what did change? Well, a lot actually, and many long hours went into creating this patch. Here's a few highlights:

-Many ASM patches have been applied with quality of life improvements, balance tweaks, AI improvements, bug fixes, and many other things. Full details below.

-Stat growth rates on classes were generally raised in order to create a sense of permanence to the time spent with jobs. Most magic classes have MA growth now. Also, some lower jobs, mainly the Squire, now have above average growth rates to reward those who spend time with underpowered classes before graduating to the advanced ones. Multipliers are lowered in some cases.

-Perhaps the biggest change is to monsters. They should now be more distinct, fun, and effective both as enemies and allies. They received a buff to their base stats in general. There's no skills imported from human jobs or anything like that, all of their abilities are present, but redistributed. Every tier 1 monster now has at least two abilities, and all tier 2 & 3 monsters have three abilities. Some abilities were buffed, with improved range, accuracy, etc. An effort was made to make each stage unique. For example, Cuar now is a strong physical attacker with higher HP and physical attack, while Vampire has higher speed and magic attack. Monster Skills are now more rewarding to use with more useful abilities slotted there. Elemental resistance/weaknesses have been re-balanced in a way that is (hopefully) intuitive, in addition to a few status immunities, so monsters are now more resilient.

-Some gamebreaking jobs have been scaled back, like the Calculator. Math has been nerfed simply by restricting the spells available. Now, much like the Red Mage of old, the Calculator only has access to the bottom-half of the other classes' magic. Potions/Auto Potion received a nerf similar to the one found in 1.3. X-Potions only heal 100, and the new M-Potion (replaces Elixir) heals 150 but isn't available in store until Chapter 4, and doesn't work with Auto Potion.

-Some underpowered classes received a boost. Archers are much better as a result of several subtle changes. Archer's speed growth is improved, bows and crossbows are a little better, and Charge now resolves faster(and costs less JP). Squires now have 100% knockback in addition to their improved stat growth. Lancer's Jump skills are now incremental so each skill helps, and JP cost is reduced. Bards aren't a joke class stat-wise anymore and are on-par with the slightly buffed Dancer. Some equipment options have been added, like the Flails for Priests and Ninja knives for Thieves.

Well, this is my personal patch that made the game that I always wanted to play, and I hope that some of you will give it a try. Thanks to everyone in this community for the incredible tools and documentation that made this possible! I have lurked on these forums for many years and have had this patch going for a long time. I gave up at a few points, facing infuriating errors from the Text Editor. But its finally done and I'm happy with how it turned out, even if I end up being the only one that ever tries it.

spoiler: "Fixes, Changes, and Improvements"

Quality of life improvements:

-Start button now skips cutscenes, dialogues, and ability animations

-Holding X skips ahead as if you were mashing the button

-Smart Encounters: Random encounters will never happen if you are moving to a blue/town location, and will always happen if you move to a green/wild location.

-The title menu defaults the cursor to Continue instead of New Game.

-Excessive HP/MP recovery will not be displayed.

-Second Squad is optional, even if you have more than one unit.

Fixes:

-All formulas properly apply element. Sword skills now work as intended, as does Oil.

-Equip Change now works properly with Two Swords.

-Minor Reraise icon glitch fixed.

-Removed the forced slowdown from Math skill.

-AI now properly uses Protect & Shell preemptively, like they do with Haste.

-AI will no longer attempt to use Jump to wake sleeping allies.

-Zalmo can now properly use his Oracle skills. In vanilla, he had Beowulf's sword skill versions, which he couldn't use.

-The mistranslated 'bracelet' is now corrected to breath in the context of 'stop bracelet', etc.

Balance/preference changes:

-Blade Grasp now only works against bladed weapons (knives, swords, spears, and axes). This OP skill used to even stop the elemental guns, I think an oversight of the developers.

-MP Switch overflows into HP. Still a good move, but no longer game breaking when combined with Move-MP Up.

-Lancer skillset is now incremental. They all increase the Jump range by +1, so each one has value. Now mastering the class is worthwhile. JP cost of these skills is also lower.

-Knockback chance is now 100%. This affects Dash, Throw Stone, Cat Kick, and Tail Swing (which all Dragons now have access to). These previously underpowered abilities can now be used tactically without relying on luck.

-Undead revival chance is now 100%. This prevents the player's undead units from being permanently lost since they can't be revived normally.

-Undead now ignore Phoenix Downs. In addition to the above, this makes them more of a threat and justifies the use of Petrify abilities. Other healing skills still damage them.

-Draw Out no longer breaks Katanas. I thought hard about this, and decided to implement this to allow the player to freely use the two unique katana skills. Most of these skills have been slightly nerfed in power to offset the removal of their natural 'cost.'

-Math skill is reflectable.

-Broken/Stolen items can be bought back at the fur trader. Similar to the above, I no longer want the player to feel pressured to reset due to a lost unique item.

-Random units appear with both more diverse skillsets and equipment. 'No longer should you see a Knight in Chapter 2-4 wearing linen.'

-The enemy units in some story and random battles have slightly altered or improved, primarily to give more screen time to some rarer skills, monsters, and job classes. Some pushover late game boss fights, like Zalera, should be slightly more challenging. More generics with Monster Skill should appear in random battles among monsters.

-Stats of some equips slightly tweaked or improved. Heavy armor provides a bit more HP than before. Some underpowered weapons like bows and books are buffed a bit. Shields are slightly improved, offering more magic evasion on average.

-Store availability of items modified a bit, giving a slightly longer window of usefulness of some items that got passed by in my experience. Potions are less available in order to help the Priest compete with the OP Chemist.

spoiler: "Generic Classes"

Squire

-Growth Rates improved, making the Squire a great class to spend time with to train your characters.

-Knockback on Throw Stone and Dash is 100%, making them reliable utility moves.

-Now has innate Defend, allowing it to be used in conjunction with other support skills.

Chemist

-PA & MA growth rate slightly improved, PA & MA multiplier slightly reduced, making them better at early game training and weaker later on.

-Potion, Hi-Potion, and X-Potion now restore 30, 60, and 100 HP respectively. Hi Potions aren't available until Chapter 2, and Chapter 3 for X Potion. This provides a welcome restriction on the overpowered Auto Potion and Item skill in general.

-Elixirs are gone and replaced with M-Potions. They restore 150 HP, but are not used by Auto Potion. Can be bought in Chapter 4.

Knight

-HP growth up (now second highest after Mime), MA multiplier up slightly.

-Break skill accuracy slightly improved.

-Battle Skill now includes the four stat break abilities and Seal Evil. The break equipment abilities now belong to the Engineer, who lost Seal Evil. Undead are more challenging in this game so this skill will come in handy. Also as a slower unit with poor movement and attack range, the Knight was much less suited to breaking equipment than ranged attackers, and in general stealing is preferred over breaking anyway.

Archer

-Speed growth up, Magic growth slightly down.

-Charge skills resolve faster and cost less JP.

-Bows & crossbows are slightly buffed across the board.

Monk

No significant changes.

Priest

-PA multiplier and MA growth up.

-Flails now equipable

-Accuracy of Protect 2, Shell 2, and Wall improved.

-AI controlled units now use Protect and Shell preemptively.

Wizard

-MA Growth up, MA multiplier down.

-CT of Fire/Ice/Bolt 4 reduced, along with JP cost.

Time Mage

-Speed and MA growth up, MA multiplier down

-JP Cost of Meteor down.

Summoner

-MA growth up, MA multiplier down

-Most summons had their power reduced, but also cost less MP, JP, and/or CT. They are accessible earlier, but less able to carry the player through the game on their own.

-Moogle is one exception to the above, and is now more powerful.

-Silf is now a wind elemental attack about the same strength as Titan, with a chance to inflict Silence.

-Golem is just as effective (arguably game breaking) but costs a bit more MP now.

-Carbuncle is a bit more accurate.

-Lich now cuts the target's HP by 1/3 instead of 1/2.

-Odin now has a chance to inflict instant death.

-Cyclops now has a chance to inflict petrify.

-Bahamut is now the most powerful normal summon.

-Zodiac now has 100% chance to learn on-hit.

Thief

-Speed growth up (now the highest), MA multiplier up.

-Can now equip Ninja blades.

Mediator

-HP, MP, PA, and MA multipliers all up slightly

-Can now equip books

-Praise and Preach are now much more accurate. If Cheer can be 100%, why were these so unreliable?

-Death Sentence accuracy up.

Oracle

-HP, MP, PA, and MA growth rates all up slightly

-Zombie accuracy up.

Geomancer

-MA multiplier up.

-Power of elemental skills increased, range down from 5 to 4.

Lancer

-Speed multiplier up, MA growth down.

-Jump skills are now incremental, each adding +1 range, so they are all needed to achieve max range. JP cost is significantly reduced.

Samurai

-MA multiplier up.

-Draw Out no longer breaks katanas. This is primarily to allow the player to freely use the unique katanas without fear of losing them permanently. To offset the loss of their inherent 'cost' the base power has been reduced (except for Bizen Boat's MP damage, which increased). Vertical tolerance of all skills down by 1.

Ninja

-Speed and PA growth down.

Calculator

-Speed growth down

-Math skill's access to magic restricted, in general only having access to the bottom half of each skillset. For example, Fire 1 & 2 but not 3, Demi 1 but not 2, and no Holy or Flare. Magic is still reflectable when using Math now.

Bard

-HP and PA multipliers up, Speed and PA growth up. Stats are now tied with Dancer, but distributed differently (more MA instead of PA).

-Can equip knives now.

-Power of Life Song and Angel Song up. Last Dance unchanged, all other songs increased in accuracy.

Dancer

-Speed growth and PA multiplier up, MA growth down.

Mime

-Speed growth up.

spoiler: "Job Requirements"

All others unchanged.
Calculator: 4 Chemist, 3 Priest, 3 Wizard, 2 Time Mage, 2 Oracle
Bard: 4 Chemist, 3 Priest, 3 Wizard, 2 Time Mage, 2 Summoner, 2 Mediator, 2 Oracle
Dancer: 4 Squire, 3 Knight, 3 Archer, 2 Monk, 2 Thief, 2 Geomancer, 2 Lancer
Mime: 7 Squire, 7 Chemist, 4 Knight, 4 Archer, 4 Priest, 4 Wizard, 3 Monk, 3 Time mage, 3 Thief, 3 Oracle, 2 Summoner, 2 Mediator, 2 Geomancer, 2 Lancer

spoiler: "Monster Classes"

Stats are generally higher, especially for Tier 2 & 3 monsters. I'll only note significant stat changes.

Chocobo family

-Yellow Chocobo has Choco Cure and Esuna, MS: Choco Meteor

-Black Chocobo has the same skills. Still has the highest PA and Fly.

-Red Chocobo has Choco Ball and Cure, MS: Choco Meteor. Highest MA, HP, and Speed.

Goblin family

-Accuracy of Eye Gouge and Goblin Punch increased. Mutilate is now a range 2 linear attack, and drains 50% HP.

-Red has access to Eye Gouge and Turn Punch, MS: Goblin Punch.

-Black has Eye Gouge and Goblin Punch, MS: Mutilate.

-Green has Move +1 and has Turn Punch and Goblin Punch, MS: Mutilate.

Bomb family

-Small Bomb is greatly improved, now a long range physical attack similar to Choco Ball.

-Flame Attack now stops at obstacles.

-All can enter water now.

-Oil now works correctly.

-Grenade has Self Destruct and Flame Attack, MS: Small Bomb.

Cat family

-Poison Nail is now a range 2 low powered magic attack, with a chance to inflict poison.

-Both Poison Nail and Blood Suck do not trigger counter/grasp reactions.

-Cat Kick has 100% knockback.

-Red Panther has Poison Nail with MS: Cat Kick.

-Cuar has very high PA and improved HP. Cat Kick and Poison Nail, MS: Blaster.

-Vampire has high MA and Speed. Poison Nail, Blood Suck, MS: Blaster.

Squid family

-Black Ink's accuracy increased.

-Odd Soundwave no longer affects allies.

-Pisco Demon has free access to Black Ink, MS: Odd Soundwave.

-Squidlarkin has Move+1 and very high PA.

-Mindflare has Teleport.

Skeleton family

-Benefits from changes to undead mechanics; Phoenix has no effect and 100% revival rate.

-Each has two soul abilities: Skeleton has Thunder & Aqua, Bonesnatch has Aqua & Ice, and Living Bone has Ice & Thunder. All MS: Wind Soul.

-Bone Snatch has higher PA while Living Bone has the highest in the other stats.

Ghost family

-Benefits from changes to undead mechanics; Phoenix has no effect and 100% revival rate.

-Each has two touch abilities: Ghoul doesn't have Drain Touch, Gust doesn't have Sleep Touch, and Revenant doesn't have Grease Touch. All MS: Zombie Touch.

Ahriman family

-Look of Devil's accuracy improved.

-Flotiball has Look of Fright, MS: Circle

-Ahriman has the highest MA.

-Plague has the highest PA. Look of Devil and Circle, MS: Death Sentence.

Bird family

-Beaking's accuracy improved.

-Shine Lover is now a range 2 linear 'attack.'

-Juravis has Shine Lover, MS: Feather Bomb.

-Steel Hawk has Beaking and Feather Bomb. MS: Beak.

Uribo family

-Move and Jump +1 for all. C-Ev is very high.

-Pooh and Nose Breath are now range 2 linear attacks.

-Oink's power and accuracy dropped, now is similar to the Monk's Revive.

-Uribo has Pooh. MS: Oink.

-Porky has Pooh and Nose Breath. MS: Oink.

-Wildbow has Nose Breath and Oink. MS: Please Eat.

Trent family

-All skills have the an AOE of 2 and smart targeting, similar a Samurai's Draw Out skills, except they still can't affect themselves.

-Woodman has Protect Spirit and Calm Spirit. MS: Life Spirit.

-Trent has Life Spirit and Protect Spirit. MS: Magic Spirit.

-Taiju has Life Spirit and Calm Spirit. MS: Magic Spirit.

Bull family

-Mimic Titan no longer affect allies.

-Bull Demon has Wave Around. MS: Gather Power.

-Minitaurus has the highest PA, and has Wave Around and Blow Fire. MS: Gather Power.

-Sacred has Move +1 and the highest MA. It has Blow Fire and Mimic Titan. MS: Gather Power.

Morbol family

-All have Any Weather and Any Ground.

-Goo and Lick are both range 2 linear attacks.

-Morbol has Goo and MS: Lick.

-Ochu has Goo and Lick with MS: Bad Breath.

-Great Morbol has Lick and Bad Breath, MS: Morbol Virus.

Behemoth family

-Hurricane and Ulmaguest are now centered on caster with an AOE of 2.

-King Behemoth has free access to Hurricane and MS: Giga Flare.

-Dark Behemoth has free access to Ulmaguest and MS: Giga Flare.

-Dragon family

-Tail Swing's power is now equal to Cat Kick, knockback accuracy is now 100%, and no longer triggers countergrasp reactions.

-Green Dragon has Tail Swing and MS: Thunder Breath.

-Blue Dragon has the highest MA and Walk on Water. It has Tail Swing, Ice breath, and MS: Thunder Breath.

-Red Dragon has the highest PA and Walk on Lava. It has Tail Swing, Fire Breath, and MS: Thunder Breath.

Hydra family

-Triple Breath is now a standard non-elemental attack of the same power as the other breath attacks.

-Triple Flame is a little weaker (but still stronger than Triple Thunder). The reworked Holy Breath is the same as the old Triple Flame except Holy elemental.

-Hyudra is weak to Earth and absorbs Lightning. It has Triple Attack, Triple Breath, Triple Thunder, and MS: Dark Whisper.

-Hydra is weak to Water and absorbs Fire. It has Triple Attack, Triple Breath, Triple Flame,  and MS: Dark Whisper.

-Tiamat is weak to Dark and absorbs Holy. It has Triple Attack, Triple Breath, Holy Breath, and MS: Dark Whisper.

spoiler: "Monster Elemental & Status table"

spoiler: "Special Classes"

Ramza's Ubersquire

-PA, MA, and HP growths up

-Crossbow equip possible

-Chapter 3 Ramza has the slot for Ultima, making learning it from the Assassins on Riovanes castle roof possible.

-Ultima is buffed.

-Innate Defend, like the normal Squire.

Delita's Ubersquire

-Crossbow equip possible

-Innate Defend, like the normal Squire.

Algus' Ubersquire

-Shield equip possible (he also now brings a shield for his final battle)

-Innate Defend, like the normal Squire.

All Holy Knights, Divine Knights, and other swordskill users

-Sword Skills now cost MP. The amount is roughly based on Beowulf's skills.

-MP growth slightly improved across all classes. MP multiplier set to an average amount, as it was very high or low for some classes.

-Due to a bug fix, sword skills now correctly apply the skill's element instead of the weapon's.

Agrias' Holy Knight

Nothing besides the above changes.

Mustadio's Engineer

-Speed growth up

-Can now equip crossbows

-Snipe lost Seal Evil (which now belongs to Knight's Battle Skill), and gained the equipment break skills (Knight lost access to these). Base accuracy is up slightly on these. This change puts these situational abilities in the hands of a ranged attacker, and out of the hands of the enemy knights who either waste turns attempting to break meaningless equipment, or potentially destroy unique items.

Rafa's Heaven Knight

-HP, MP, PA, & MA raised.

-Truth now has no cast time, and an MP cost.

Malak's Hell Knight

-HP, MP, & PA raised.

-Un-Truth now has no cast time, and an MP cost.

Miliadoul's Divine Knight

-PA growth & multiplier down.

Orlandu's Holy Swordsman

-MA growth and Speed multiplier down.

-Can no longer equip Katanas and Ninja blades.

-Now has access to the following: Status Sword & Split Punch, Dark Sword, Blastar Punch & Shellbust Stab, Power Ruin & Mind Ruin.

Beowulf's Temple Knight

-PA Multiplier down.

-Shock's range is now down to 5.

-Chicken now lowers brave by 30 instead of 50.

Reis' Holy Dragon

-Innate Monster Skill

-Now weak to Dark, still absorbs Holy.

Reis' Dragoner

-Speed multiplier down

-Holy Breath is now similar to the Hydra's triple abilities, striking 3 times with an AOE of 1, and no vertical tolerence.

Cloud's Soldier

-Now joins at a level appropriate for Chapter 4.

-Limit skills resolve faster now, but also cost MP.

-Materia Blade now has improved power and provides a small MA boost.

Worker 8 & Worker 7's Steel Giant

-HP up

-Destroy is now a range 2, linear attack.

-Now only resists Holy & Dark instead of cancels them, and no longer resists Fire.

-Not immune to oil anymore.

Byblos

-Move +1

[Desocupado]

I would suggest swapping charge and battle skill. Makes more sense for each class. Power and mind break are also a bit useless compared to attacking.even more so because they don't scale up.

I'm surprised you didn't mention ethers. They are underwhelming by default. I'd add some mp recovery on elixir.

Both mediator and oracle are quite underwhelming by default as well.

In hindsight ramza would make a good mediator replacement.

[IronJustice]

I would suggest swapping charge and battle skill. Makes more sense for each class. Power and mind break are also a bit useless compared to attacking.even more so because they don't scale up.

Yeah, I definitely see what you're saying about the stat break skills being underwhelming compared to attacking. The reason I decided to keep them with the melee attacker is for the synergy with Two Swords. Although still underwhelming for normal encounters, this can really neuter bosses. Also Knights have a hard enough time getting into position, I can just see their targets moving away while they're charging.

I'm surprised you didn't mention ethers. They are underwhelming by default. I'd add some mp recovery on elixir.

Ethers are a bit underwhelming late game, but are really effective early on. I figured since I'm using MP as a way to limit swordskill users a bit, I'd leave it alone.

Both mediator and oracle are quite underwhelming by default as well.

Yes, mediator and oracle are underwhelming in vanilla. So here I gave them a stat boost, upped the accuracy of a few skills, and boosted the power of books (which Mediator can now wield too). They still aren't super amazing, but I didn't feel going much further than this would still be in the spirit of the original game.

In hindsight ramza would make a good mediator replacement.

FFT1.3 and some other mods did the mediator Ramza thing, where he can invite. It makes sense in a way, and is reminiscent of Tactics Ogre. Seems like doing that though would just make the mediator that much more useless, unless he's reworked and given more uses.

[Julfordio]

Found this through Barren's youtube videos/streams, sounded cool and I gave it a go. I'm in chapter 2 and just finished Zigolis Swamp, I'm mostly enjoying the changes but I wanted to bring a few to your attention:

-Dancer's job requirements are somewhat broken, you have both Monk/Thief 2 as reqs while also having Geo/Lancer 2 as reqs as well, but Geo/Lancer require level 3 Monk/Thief to unlock. I get that you set them up to mirror Bard (Which lacks this issue as TM/Oracle 2 unlock their next stage), but it makes them super annoying when I technically have everything for Dancer thanks to shared JP from my other Geo/Lancers but still have to grind out the Monk/Thief level so that the game gives me credit.

-Calculator and Bard have really, REALLY similar unlock conditions, with Calculator basically just having Bard unlocks without the tier 4 class levels. I get that you nerfed it's ability to invalidate later sections of the game, but it should really have more unique conditions. Maybe give it something like Bard's old Summ/Mediator 4 reqs?

-Speaking of Bard, it's absurdly good now and definitely feels way too strong. I rushed Bard reqs as I love the class, but Life Song healing ~65 HP with 4 MA just overpowers all other healing options for most of the game, especially since it's so fast it will trigger 2-3 times a turn. Really recommend nerfing this to about half the current healing, the AI ends up just sitting around not acting because the healing from Life Song is just that good. The increased accuracies on the other songs also feel overboard, after a couple turns of Cheer Song my army is looking at about +3 speed each which is crazy. I'd really recommend a second pass on this class, it's gone from an inconsistent buff class to broken levels of support with these changes.

-I'm unsure if this is related to your mod or just an oddity with the game itself, but I ran into THIS graphical issue on Zigolis Swamp (Which actually prompted me to make this post now rather than at the end of the game). My dancer became an exploded mess of corrupted graphics for the entire battle, and I'm not sure what exactly caused it. I've been using a Dancer for a while now and haven't had any graphical issues until this moment. Maybe due to all the different sprite classes being drawn on screen, as I have 6 unique player sprites as well as 6 different enemy classes? Idk, figured it was worth mentioning.

[IronJustice]

Julfordio,

I'm so glad you decided to give this a try! And your feedback is very valuable. Sorry to see there's a few bugs still, but I may not have noticed these without your comments.

My idea with the class requirements was to have higher levels required of the lower classes rather than the higher ones. Perhaps just a personal preference thing, but it seemed to make more sense to spend time in the basic classes before selecting a more advanced class, rather than jumping from one advanced class to another. I suppose in your case, it ended up prolonging it, which was not my intention.

Wow, what an oversight with the Bard's Life Song. I was editing all of the songs to raise accuracy from 50% to 60%, and accidentally made Life Song have 60 base power. Dropping this down to to 20, which is only a small buff from the original 10.

As far as the swamp, I did edit that particular battle in order to make it consistent, you always get a Morbol and a Urbio now instead of a random chance. In doing so something must have been screwed up. I looked over everything and made a few tweaks to change some minor settings closer to vanilla. Hopefully its fixed now, I'll check it later on. If you have the ability to try it again you can let me know if this fixed it or not.

Patch updated again! Thanks again to you and Barren for helping make this better.

[Julfordio]

I went ahead and updated my file, clean install on a fresh .bin file for FFT, and I still get the same issue in Zigolis Swamp. I don't think the game is capable of loading 12 different sprite sheets at once, which is causing the glitch - Once I changed one of my classes to a duplicate (ie Two female Wizards) the game loaded all of my party members in properly.

I'd look into changing one of the enemies in that map to a duplicate class, which should fix this issue. Right now you have two different ghost classes (Which despite being palette swaps the game would load their sprite sheets separately), two different skeleton classes, and the Uribo/Marbol you mentioned before. Doubling up on any of these should fix the problem, if I'm diagnosing the situation correctly. I've gone ahead and uploaded my memory card with a save at Lionel Castle for you to test with yourself.

[Nyzer]

-Dancer's job requirements are somewhat broken, you have both Monk/Thief 2 as reqs while also having Geo/Lancer 2 as reqs as well, but Geo/Lancer require level 3 Monk/Thief to unlock. I get that you set them up to mirror Bard (Which lacks this issue as TM/Oracle 2 unlock their next stage), but it makes them super annoying when I technically have everything for Dancer thanks to shared JP from my other Geo/Lancers but still have to grind out the Monk/Thief level so that the game gives me credit.

I'm not sure what you mean. In vanilla, all jobs that require previous jobs to be unlocked also require those jobs' requirements - you wouldn't be able to unlock a Samurai if your Knight level was only 1, even if you had a max level Dragoon.

I don't think the game is capable of loading 12 different sprite sheets at once

No, it is not. The max is nine. That means in most cases, five sprites saved for the player's party, with four left over for enemies/guests/etc.

[Julfordio]

I'm not sure what you mean. In vanilla, all jobs that require previous jobs to be unlocked also require those jobs' requirements - you wouldn't be able to unlock a Samurai if your Knight level was only 1, even if you had a max level Dragoon.

I'm not sure what you're getting at with your example, Knight 3 is a requirement for Samurai and not related to unlocking Dragoon at all? What I'm talking about is that the syntax for Dancer unlocks is broken as presented, with Monk/Thief 2 technically being required for Dancer unlock but in reality Monk/Thief 3 are the required class levels due to how unlocking Geo/Lancer works. I was merely explaining a case where I technically had the presented Dancer reqs (Squ 4 Kni/Arc 3, Mnk/Thf 2 Geo/Lnc 2) but due to how the class unlocking system works I wasn't awarded the Dancer class yet because the game didn't/couldn't recognize my Lancer levels as the class wasn't technically "unlocked".

No, it is not. The max is nine. That means in most cases, five sprites saved for the player's party, with four left over for enemies/guests/etc.

I didn't realize the game could properly recognize identical sprite sheets with different palettes, cool. So then the problem with Zigolis in this hack would be forcing four different enemy classes (Skeleton, Ghost, Morbol, Uribo) with a Mustadio guest, not the forcing of six enemy classes (Blue/Green Skeleton, Green/Red Ghost, Morbol, Uribo)?

[IronJustice]

Thanks guys, it tests good now! File updated.

[Barren]

I was doing a live stream today. And my samurai used up Kotetsu and Asura and they both eventually broke while I was battling. Is there a reason for that? I thought that katanas no longer break when using Draw Out

[skiploom188]

Hello,

I've started playing this mod recently and I noticed something that needs a quick fix right away...

So I tried doing the JP scroll glitch as a joke, and apparently it still works. Please sort it out when you got the chance.

[Desocupado]

Isn't the JP scroll glitch simply a cheat? Any particular reason for "needing" to block cheats?

[IronJustice]

Hello everyone,

Its one year later (and one baby later for me in my personal life) but I decided to check and see how my pet project was doing.

I'm sorry to Barren and anyone else who experienced problems with my patch. I have just updated it and everything should be working now. I'll check in from time to time and make sure this isn't having any more issues.

Regarding the JP Scroll glitch mentioned in the last two posts, leaving it in was intentional. I don't see any reason to remove it, because it is completely up to the player to decide if they wish to use it or not. It's not like it will happen by accident and ruin your game. Also, it is sometimes nice to be able to use it in order to test out the new changes on a file. Which I do encourage

[Ixium]

I just finished your mod. What and refreshing experience. I liked your mod because you have extreme respect to the source material while adding numerous quality of life changes.

But I have many points to aproach here; I will talk about things I see that are great, and talk about what can be improved. Let's go:

Quality of life improvements:

-Start button now skips cutscenes, dialogues, and ability animations

-Holding X skips ahead as if you were mashing the button

-Smart Encounters: Random encounters will never happen if you are moving to a blue/town location, and will always happen if you move to a green/wild location.

-The title menu defaults the cursor to Continue instead of New Game.

-Excessive HP/MP recovery will not be displayed.

-Second Squad is optional, even if you have more than one unit.

Everything here, for me, represents the gold standard of mods. Every mod should do this. The game don't need to be an slog, dragging you through slow animations and tedius waiting time. We already know the game from head to toe; we doesn't need that.

Fixes:

-All formulas properly apply element. Sword skills now work as intended, as does Oil.

-Equip Change now works properly with Two Swords.

-Minor Reraise icon glitch fixed.

-Removed the forced slowdown from Math skill.

Ok, great fixes, appreciated.

-AI now properly uses Protect & Shell preemptively, like they do with Haste.

-AI will no longer attempt to use Jump to wake sleeping allies.

THIS! Oh my god, I felt genuine relief seeing this. I can't belive in my own eyes, the AI do improve A LOT because of this and other details I'll talk later. I have seen the AI indeed casting Protect/Shell and other buffs accordingly, choosing better options to deal with sleep/confusion/charm and even preparing ressurrection for the unit in range that's gonna die next turn. Amazing! That's so important to me because I dreamed about that for years.

One thing that bothered me since the first time I played FFT and switched on the AI is: the computer is absolutely stupid. The commands make the character act very counterintuitive and I spent a lot of time trying to understand how the AI select their next move. But in the end, I never been able to trust one character to AI and focus in control fewer units to play in the way I like. Because AI tends to suicide.

But in this mod, I've seen my white mage grouping with the party in formation for eveyone to recieve protect one round before the enemies reach to attack. And that almost made me cry. OH! I FINALLY can set one or two units to "Save Fading Life" and they ACTUALLY do that! Without throwing themselves to death or doing any stupid moves besides orders given. Thank you man.

-Zalmo can now properly use his Oracle skills. In vanilla, he had Beowulf's sword skill versions, which he couldn't use.

-The mistranslated 'bracelet' is now corrected to breath in the context of 'stop bracelet', etc.

That's ok too, great fixes.

Balance/preference changes:

-Blade Grasp now only works against bladed weapons (knives, swords, spears, and axes). This OP skill used to even stop the elemental guns, I think an oversight of the developers.

I have mixed feelings about this. The changes in Blade Grasp make sense. After all an skill with that name, originated from a Samurai it represents one quick reaction that stop the swing of a weapon by grabbing the blade with your bare hands. Makes sense that it only works with bladed weapons. But this nerf is... heavy.

Look, I'm not gonna lie, vanilla Blade Grasp is one of the gratest reactions in the entire game. I never thought in a good way to nerf this. Blade Grasp indeed need to be nerfed, for other skills to shine; in the other hand there's no reason to use this over Abandon or Damage Split. Why? Because I have to manipulate Brave to make it's evasion rate goes up. I only do that for the character I intend to equip Damage Split because it cuts the ALL damage in half and hurts the enemy at the same time; Abandon don't need high brave to work, raising my evasion for the majority of attacks and spells.

Perhaps Blade Grasp need to be rebuilt. I don't know.

-MP Switch overflows into HP. Still a good move, but no longer game breaking when combined with Move-MP Up.

That's another punch. I know why vanilla MP-Switch is considered OP. Two HP bars are better than one, huh? To me, making the damage overflow into HP defeats the purpose of the skill entirely. To the point it's unusable. Why? Because you sacrifice your reaction AND move skill in your characters (usually a martial) to make it consistent. Or you can equip Damage Split and feel free to choose any movement you want while reflecting half of the damage taken back at your enemies. You can equip this combo in your mages but it's annoying to do that. You end up loosing casts due to the lack of MP more often than not.

In enemies MP-Switch feel like an weakness instead of a great defense tactics. If the enemy have something that requires MP, you can shutdown that ability just by attacking them. See that mage trying to cast that dangerous summon? Focus fire and the spell never goes off. Now the mage is useless and defenseless ready to run away in the next turn or die to the next barrage of attacks.

In martials MP-Switch feels like an weakness too because they naturally have low MP and if you equip items to boost max MP your HP goes down too much to justify the trade. And remember you're sacrificing one reaction AND one move to do that. In the other hand my ninja with Abandon is almost untouchable.

Maybe the best decision to make it balanced is make the damage taken be divided into HP and MP simultaneously. If you take a hit and have MP left half of the damage goes to your HP normally and the other half goes to MP without overflowing to HP again. With at least 1 MP you can trigger the reaction and cut damage by half, fair enough I think. Or you can refactor the skill, rename it and make it unite HP and MP into 1 bar, same effect as described before. You can even adapt the Half of MP passive to reduce the MP damage taken by half effectively allowing one unit to synergize 3 different skills into one build that reduce damage recieved to 75%. With that MP-Switch will now compete with Damage Split.

I compare the weight of MP-Switch to the Talk Skill. Talk Skill is AMAZING, but requires the sacrifice of one active skill and one passive to work with all enemies if you aren't a Mediator.

-Lancer skillset is now incremental. They all increase the Jump range by +1, so each one has value. Now mastering the class is worthwhile. JP cost of these skills is also lower.

-Knockback chance is now 100%. This affects Dash, Throw Stone, Cat Kick, and Tail Swing (which all Dragons now have access to). These previously underpowered abilities can now be used tactically without relying on luck.

Very very nice. I like the knockback, it adds some layer of strategy.

-Undead revival chance is now 100%. This prevents the player's undead units from being permanently lost since they can't be revived normally.

-Undead now ignore Phoenix Downs. In addition to the above, this makes them more of a threat and justifies the use of Petrify abilities. Other healing skills still damage them.

Another great change. Undeads now feels much more powerful, it feels like you're dealing with something beyond the natural cicle, a true undead.

-Draw Out no longer breaks Katanas. I thought hard about this, and decided to implement this to allow the player to freely use the two unique katana skills. Most of these skills have been slightly nerfed in power to offset the removal of their natural 'cost.'

OH YES! My goodness I loved this! Loosing my precious katanas is a huge headache. Thanks for that.

-Math skill is reflectable.

I like this too. Actually I like every change to Math Skill. It's still the best magic skill in the game, but it's much more balanced and combos perfectly with AI adjustments. One thing that bothered me in Math Skill since forever is: if I equip Math in one character I need to control that character manually. Because the AI always choose to cast CT4 Holy ou CT4 Flare. I remember that in one specific map (Yaguo Woods if not mistaken) I've faced many undead, halfway through the battle my team gets low in HP and my AI controlled calculator sended an massive healing wave to almost all units in the field damaging the undead and healing my allies in one move. That's awesome! Ah! Because only some low tier spells work with Math i've seen the AI using that to buff, debuff and heal accordingly. That's a huge plus. The balance is on point here, but I'll exclude Death and Petrify for the next update. Death and Petrify are too powerful to be used with Math.

-Broken/Stolen items can be bought back at the fur trader. Similar to the above, I no longer want the player to feel pressured to reset due to a lost unique item.

-Random units appear with both more diverse skillsets and equipment. 'No longer should you see a Knight in Chapter 2-4 wearing linen.'

-The enemy units in some story and random battles have slightly altered or improved, primarily to give more screen time to some rarer skills, monsters, and job classes. Some pushover late game boss fights, like Zalera, should be slightly more challenging. More generics with Monster Skill should appear in random battles among monsters.

-Stats of some equips slightly tweaked or improved. Heavy armor provides a bit more HP than before. Some underpowered weapons like bows and books are buffed a bit. Shields are slightly improved, offering more magic evasion on average.

-Store availability of items modified a bit, giving a slightly longer window of usefulness of some items that got passed by in my experience. Potions are less available in order to help the Priest compete with the OP Chemist.

Fantastic. Love all of that.

I've seen an minor graphical bug while reading some skill description. Some strange diagonal bars cutting the text box, but nothing game breaking besides that.

For me your mod is one of the best I've ever seen. Minor changes needed, but nothing crazy, you're in the right path.

One little suggestion I have to make every class worth taking is: make move and passive skills become native of the class once you reach lvl 8. If you do that, then will be a reason to use certain classes instead of the most powerful and obvious ones.

Another good change is rebalance the debuffs. Darkness must be, to the martials, what Silence is to casters. Silence prevents casting, but Dakrness must reduce the accuracy of all physical attacks and steals attempts a lot more then they actually do.

Poison need to be permanent until removed.

Slow must reduce move speed from the affected unit and reduce the accuracy of physical attacks or steal attempts.

Stop is better than Slow because it delays the enemy for several turns before it expires; and Petrify is better than Stop; because it's permanent until removed. To balance this Petrify shouldn't freeze the enemy instantly, instead it needs to take some time to completely halt them. Once you cast Petrify in an unit make a countdown of 2 turns (like Death Sentence) appear above the head of that unit, indicating that it will petrify soon. Until this affected unit become rock solid, their movement must be reduced (it makes sense, he's turning into stone so his movement is hindered).

Frog should be temporary, like other debuffs. I'll argue that it must be removable by Dispell Magic too. I think frog is too powerful to be permanent or to have only 3 options of removal (casting Frog again, Esuna and Maiden's Kiss). Remember, frog can be used with Math Skill, so it's easy to trivialize encounters with that. The same occurs with Petrify, Death and Stop.

Berserk, more often than not, is an excellent option to shutdown casters. This can't be permanent, because once your character is affected you lose control of that unit, cannot use any active skills and it's reaction ability is disabled while frenzied. Much more powerful than Silence. Berserk should end after the first kill or naturally by time.

My rule of thumb for balance is: powerful status effects must end faster than the less powerful ones.

And Monster Skill need to have 3 cell horizontal range instead of vertical.

Thank you for the experience with Spirit of '98. It'll be great to see an update somewhere in the future.

[renegadeofunk]

I'm absolutely loving doing personal challenges in this! It really feels like the "what if the devs had more time" mod and its great.

Edit: Quick question if you see this -- do you think using FFTastic just to modify some abilities (i.e. skip grinding) would mess things up? Not doing level up/down or anything else. I tried it already and everything SEEMS the same, but I was wondering if it isn't subtly changing the game back to the vanilla version in some way by doing that.