Final Fantasy Tactics Thread

[Calemyr]

I think I ended up with an archer, summoner, ninja, samura and lancer as my team. There was always another way to deal with being hit at range, usually just closing range and screwing up the bad guys.

You know, I often end up the same way, strangely enough. I end up with a Squire/Geomancer(or Dark Knight) Ramza named Cecil, a Summoner/Black Mage named Rydia, a Ninja/Thief named Edge, a Dragoon/Knight named Kain, and an archer/white mage named Rosa. It's the strangest thing, really. I just can't explain it.

Of course War of the Lions usually ends with Cecil teaming up with Cloud, Baltheir, Luso, and a Construct 8 named Robo. Again, I just can't explain why.

[Beacon of Chaos]

I have FFT on my phone, didn't really get far into it before losing interest, but I've been meaning to try and give it another go.

I'm a big fan of FFTA and A2 though. I still fondly remember my first character, a ninja paladin.

[TillySparks]

I'm currently playing through the game for the first time. Can someone explain what the 1.3 mod is?

[Larkas]

I'm currently playing through the game for the first time. Can someone explain what the 1.3 mod is?

It fixes some perceived bugs and inconsistencies and is also a difficulty mod of sorts. It's not bad at all.

[nhbdy]

It fixes some perceived bugs and inconsistencies and is also a difficulty mod of sorts. It's not bad at all.

It does however have a reputation as being rather difficult

[TillySparks]

Mmmm I'm playing the PSP version. I'd heard that'd fixed a lot of the issues anyway?

[NecroRebel]

Mmmm I'm playing the PSP version. I'd heard that'd fixed a lot of the issues anyway?

1.3 is more intended to fix exploits, though, rather than bugs, and just generally rebalance the game. For instance, it completely removes the Calculator class (except for one optional boss that you can't recruit) because it's seen as overpowered. Story battles are made to scale with your level, so you can't just grind your way to victory, and enemies are more likely to have full complements of abilities including passive abilities. In fact, since enemies scale, grinding is likely to make the game nearly unwinnable due to the enemy having superior equipment. Furthermore, in many cases the enemies' classes are changed to make them more difficult, such as in third battle of chapter 2 the enemy knights are all replaced by lancers.

It's very nearly a completely different game with similar mechanics and an identical story. I've not tried the PSP version, but I can't imagine it being anything like 1.3 is.

[Gnoman]

Disclaimer: I haven't played 1.3 in a long time, and don't even know if I have the latest version.


To compare, by far the most difficult battle in the early game is the first Dorter Trade City battle, which is oddly one of the only story fights in the game that level scale. 1.3 makes that battle roughly twice as difficult (due to a combination of giving the two unarmed archers from vanilla bows and the reworked version of Black Magic), and it is one of the easier fights. When starting a game, it takes me between 5 and 20 tries to get through the game's first battle (the intro fight at the monastary, which is almost impossible to lose in vanilla.)

The meat of the mod, however, is the greatly reworked skill system. For example, instead of Bolt 1 2 3 4/Fire 1 2 3 4/Ice 1 2 3 4 and a few others, Black Magic now contains no two spells that are alike, using some of the less common targeting templates. Pretty much every class list is reworked to some degree or other, the most common being replacing stat changes with the appropriate status effect (to prevent permanent changes).


The only thing I really dislike about it is that he removed the elemental weaknesses from monsters, which eliminates some of the metagame.

[danzibr]

1.3 is more intended to fix exploits, though, rather than bugs, and just generally rebalance the game. For instance, it completely removes the Calculator class (except for one optional boss that you can't recruit) because it's seen as overpowered. Story battles are made to scale with your level, so you can't just grind your way to victory, and enemies are more likely to have full complements of abilities including passive abilities. In fact, since enemies scale, grinding is likely to make the game nearly unwinnable due to the enemy having superior equipment. Furthermore, in many cases the enemies' classes are changed to make them more difficult, such as in third battle of chapter 2 the enemy knights are all replaced by lancers.

It's very nearly a completely different game with similar mechanics and an identical story. I've not tried the PSP version, but I can't imagine it being anything like 1.3 is.

That would be a nice feature.

If only they had a 1.3 but not way harder...

[Larkas]

That would be a nice feature.

If only they had a 1.3 but not way harder...

There's a variant with just that, IIRC. But eh, I don't mind it being way harder, the original game, save for a few key battles, is way too easy.

[Gnoman]

That "nice feature" is the main reason why 1.3 is so hard. In fact, the primary difference between Insane Difficulty 1.3 and 1.3 Content (AKA EasyMode) is that the latter doesn't scale (their gear is also less good, but that is a function of scaling.)

[danzibr]

My first playthrough, Ramza was a Monk/Ninja. Dual-wielding his fists with +3 movement. I grinded a lot of random battles, and got to some story battle where the boss starts out talking to the party, then for his first move is supposed to retreat behind his subordinates. Ramza, being fast, went first, and with the extra movement, walked up to the guy, and with his mad offense, killed him in one hit. Disappointing.

[Ogremindes]

I have FFT on my phone, didn't really get far into it before losing interest, but I've been meaning to try and give it another go.

I'm a big fan of FFTA and A2 though. I still fondly remember my first character, a ninja paladin.

I really liked FFTA, it's one of the few games I 100%'d, even after having to restart 'cause of the freakin' White Thread. A2 didn't resonate with me anywhere near as much, I think mainly because the new races and classes seemed poorly thought out. The trickster class in particular rubbed me the wrong way.

[DigoDragon]

Best use for break is dual wielding speed break. Never bothered using it from a distance. Just run up and double break someone's legs, and start running laps around them.

Bonus points if you have a bard singing the speed song.
At that point the enemy practically stops receiving turns.

You know, I often end up the same way, strangely enough. I end up with a Squire/Geomancer(or Dark Knight) Ramza named Cecil, a Summoner/Black Mage named Rydia, a Ninja/Thief named Edge, a Dragoon/Knight named Kain, and an archer/white mage named Rosa. It's the strangest thing, really. I just can't explain it.

Of course War of the Lions usually ends with Cecil teaming up with Cloud, Baltheir, Luso, and a Construct 8 named Robo. Again, I just can't explain why.

I LOL'd. That's pretty awesome.

[Seerow]

I really liked FFTA, it's one of the few games I 100%'d, even after having to restart 'cause of the freakin' White Thread. A2 didn't resonate with me anywhere near as much, I think mainly because the new races and classes seemed poorly thought out. The trickster class in particular rubbed me the wrong way.

My experience is most people who liked FFTA played that as their first tactics game.

Most people who played FFT first, and then went to FFTA looking for the same style of game got disgusted and quit early, and tend to hold a grudge against it if they even choose to acknowledge its existence.

[ArlEammon]

My favorite Faith score is 65. High enough to be very dangerous to enemies, low enough to not get creamed too fast by magic.

[Calemyr]

My experience is most people who liked FFTA played that as their first tactics game.

Most people who played FFT first, and then went to FFTA looking for the same style of game got disgusted and quit early, and tend to hold a grudge against it if they even choose to acknowledge its existence.

I played (and enjoyed) FFT and Tactics Ogre long before playing FFTA, but I have to say I liked it. And that was largely for one reason: Marche is, for all intents and purposes, the bad guy. He gets pulled away from his life against his will and he spends the entire game pulling at the threads of the world in order to get back without any regard for the damage he'll do to this world or the fact that all of his friends are happier here than they were back home. And when the heroes come to save the world, he dismantles them one by one and destroys his own friends to the point that they have nothing left but to go home with him. Once I realized that, I just had to appreciate the game.

[SiuiS]

Honestly, Charge isn't that good. Even with Short Charge. Other secondary ability sets give something in the way of new options or versatility. Charge would be fine as a single ability, but as an entire ability set it falls way short of the mark. Characters relying on weapon based attacks already deal plenty of damage to nullify enemies, Charge will very rarely make the difference in landing a kill or not. And if you try to cut it too close (ie aim for more than a clocktick or two out), you run the risk of an enemy casting Haste or Quick or something to let your target act first and move out of the way (admittedly not usually an issue when playing against the AI).

Charge had it's uses, but really any plan in general requiring what we would think of as tactics just ends up being inefficient compared to "storm in and murder all the things".

My favorite instance of timing shift though, I had Ramza training as a monk and I had that move that boosts your stats across the board. I either had no one else or decided to try and train up new mooks who all died, because it was just Ramza at the waterfall stage against twelve Mind Flares.

The entire match was me running away boosting my stats, especially speed, until I got three or four rounds to their one - Like, I went between each monster. I lured them onto the bridge and just started throwing down earth slash until they expired.

I have FFT on my phone, didn't really get far into it before losing interest, but I've been meaning to try and give it another go.

I'm a big fan of FFTA and A2 though. I still fondly remember my first character, a ninja paladin.

Advance wasn't bad, but it didn't have the same draw. Tactics was very much a game you could screw up in battle as opposed to on missions or on the map. Advance was... Easier in that regard, but harder to milk once you got to milking. I forgot you did that though! I always wondered if you got that better phone working, I recall the speed being sub par for you.

Bonus points if you have a bard singing the speed song.
At that point the enemy practically stops receiving turns.
.

Just bard? You haven't lived until your lone champion sallies forth, backed by two bards backed by two backup dancers.

My experience is most people who liked FFTA played that as their first tactics game.

Most people who played FFT first, and then went to FFTA looking for the same style of game got disgusted and quit early, and tend to hold a grudge against it if they even choose to acknowledge its existence.

Yeah. I'm a rarity, but that's also why I like both 3e and 4e D&D. Judged on their own merits~

[Triaxx]

Two Bards and Two Dancers? Try Bard, Dancer, dual mimes. That makes calculators look like they're not even trying. Three songs and three dances for each time it comes up.

I'd forgotten how much fun the Lancer is. And it's not just the jump ability either. Ignore Height is invaluable for an archer. Especially since the first chapter doesn't have spears.

[danzibr]

Personally, my first tactics game was Shining Force.

[SiuiS]

I thinknIgnore height was my default movement skill, actually. I changed it for some maps, but relied on those shoes for the distance boost.

Except the archer. The archer got walk on water and stood in the middle of a lake dropping shots on fools. XD

I never once got my mime to successfully mimic a dance or song. Don't know why. And when she killed stanza because my lancer happened to attack in just the right way... Yeah.

[Triaxx]

I always wanted my Archer high up, so he could have longer shots. On the other hand, a Ninja on the water with a full load of Shuriken or the elemental spheres, could be a very dangerous thing.

I always switched around what I was using for my movement otherwise. Though one game I played through entirely as Monk Class with the Teleport Ability. It felt more like DBZ Tactics. Which was pretty awesome.

[nhbdy]

When I played 1.3 I really loved a break archer on the maps with significant high ground, in fact, my kill-algus-with-all-things-pointy strategy relied on it (and he is significantly harder as one might suspect)

[KillianHawkeye]

Anybody besides me like training monsters? Last time I played (years ago), I had one of those three-headed dragons, some really big badass monster (maybe a minotaur or something? can't remember), and of course a red chocobo.

I really didn't use generic soldiers that much since you get so many named characters who all have cool unique abilities. Except for Rafa and Malak, they suck and I ditched those losers as soon as possible.

[Triaxx]

But Malak is incredibly useful with Move-Find Item! He's almost guaranteed to find something.

Rafa... yeah, drop her like a hotcake. :P

Was Algus ever hard? True, he's got auto-potion, but it only keeps him from being unhealthy. It doesn't do squat for status effects. Geomancy for the win. Litterally.

[Tono]

Algus is only hard if you don't know what you are doing. I've had friends complain about him when they had nothing but chemist/archers and maybe a knight or BM. Those same people just... gave up at Wiegraf too, but yea.

[Larkas]

He's talking about 1.3's Algus. Forget anything you think you know about the game when talking about 1.3 content. Think FFT: Dark Souls Edition.

[Seerow]

Algus was also a pretty rough point for a lot of challenge runs. It's one of those fights that's not too hard normally because you can overpower it, but if you're restricted much it becomes a much bigger pain.


And Rafa/Malak can be useful... they have the highest damage potential of the game! Honestly if their attacks had less vertical tolerance so you could narrow down their attack's wide area, it'd be amazing. But since it's not, never really used them.

As for monsters, I never really had an interest in any of them. I tried grabbing some chocobos once, but since you can't make characters start mounted, and they take up character slots, it's not worth it. And most other monsters are too weak to justify a slot on the team. Some of the lategame ones (I think Behemoths?) may be worth it, but by then you've got a full team of specials and other soldiers you've been training for 3.5 chapters.

[nhbdy]

He's talking about 1.3's Algus. Forget anything you think you know about the game when talking about 1.3 content. Think FFT: Dark Souls Edition.

Indeed I was, regular algus isn't hard at all, but 1.3 takes what you think you know and murders you horribly with it. As far as generics vs specials go I used them (specials) quite extensively early on in my FFT days, but now I find more joy in having well rounded generics, something about the feeling of being able to make a fighter good for your specific situation, without help from those OP special abilities like holy sword just feels good to me.

On the 1.3 algus fight:
In short, the algus fight has a lot of more capable mooks, and while I'm sure it's possible to defeat them all, I never had success with it. As we all know, algus has auto potion, yet unlike normal, he has access to high tier potions, meaning it's hard to actually keep damage on him. Therefore my strategy revolves around killing him in one hit. How? You reduce his maximum HP stat, and force him to overextend, and this is accomplished by breaking his weapon (to force him to close in) and then his armor (no more HP bonus). Follow this up by a new archer ability called cursed strike (blind and oil) and then explosion from your wizard (fire damage, oil buffs it by a lot) and you have a good recipe to drop one annoying character who is pretty hard to like.

edited for clarity and some explaination

[SiuiS]

Which one was Algus?

I remember at one point I started fresh, and was switching around and playing totally different for the challenge. It was really fun, up until I got to the guy who became Ares, and had to fight him as Ramza the chemist, and accidentally saved over my file with the "do you want to save, deep in this dungeon?" Feature.

That sucked. Even spamming jump he eventually desynched and spent his actions murdering me.