Final Fantasy Tactics: How is There No Thread for This?

[hustlertwo]

Seriously. Best game of all time. I have played it about two dozen times on three different platforms, and am pondering going through again. The endless customization is part of what eventually lured me to D&D as well.

On the note of a new play through, looking for suggestions from other FFT enthusiasts on how to do it this time, as I am not interested in a regular run this time out. Here is what I have done so far over various runs:

-A Monk Straight Character Challenge (finished)
-A Knight SCC (did not finish the whole game, got bored shortly after spending literally six hours getting through Riovanes and by the Igros Caatle fight in chapter 4 I was done).
-Ramza and Monsters only (a lot of fun, try it if you have never done it before. Good challenge without being absurdly hard)
-No unique character play through (interesting but still pretty easy)
-Random job assignment (this was my most recent run, did it last year. Rolled dice on the forum to determine primary and secondary job for each character. They were only allowed to be one of those two jobs, and could not have abilities from anything else. Kinda fascinating, pondering doing it again. Breaks you out of your comfort zone when you have an Archer/Summoner).

So aside from this game needing a thread, also looking for other suggestions on how to do the current run. Probably will not do another SCC though.

[danzibr]

Great idea! T deserves a thread.

I've played it only twice on the original PS. I was really considering getting it on my phone when I read you can't steal the Genji gear, ruined it for me.

[hustlertwo]

That was a bummer, especially since I learned it the hard way by trying to steal it for a good little while back when the War of the Lions version came out. But you get some of it as war trophies, and a lot of overpowered items that were not in the PS1 version. New jobs and battles too. And the cinematics are beautiful.

[Alanzeign]

I routinely come back to this game every few months/years. There's always some fun combination that I want to try, like trying to emulate a recent D&D party or MMO party of friends. Whenever I do something like that, I try to make it so that no abilities are duplicated across the party (all unique primary skills, secondaries, reactions, supports, and moves). It keeps things interesting. For example, I played a lot of FFXI back in the day and making parties with job/skill choices that reflect the classes in XI is a ton of fun.

One character type that I often come back to is the Paladin in some variation, i.e.:

Job: Knight
Secondary: White Magic
Reaction: Weapon Guard
Support: Magic Defense UP
Move: Move MP-UP

What I like about this build is that it has low mp and magic power, so the healing it can provide is limited, but the character is tanky enough to be in the melee. Also, because magic power is low spells like protect/shell carry more significant weight. It is fairly adaptable with gear as well, since knights can wear robes (sacrifice some HP for MP) and things like the mythril armlet (+1 PATK and MATK), so you can customize how caster oriented you want them to be.

This is not an optimized class build in any way, but it is really easy to curbstomp any fight in the game if you are familiar with the game and optimize. I get a lot more fun out of lower powered classes and making them fit a theme.

---

I haven't played WotL myself as I don't have the console or a good enough phone, so I'm not entirely sure what the differences are in that version. I do have to say that I generally prefer a hack of FFT to the original though, as it balances a lot of the OP choices and buffs up some of the weaker ones. It also gives better skill selection to the enemy and improves their AI drastically. The hack is called FFT 1.3 Insane Difficulty, though I mainly play FFT 1.3 Content (not insane mode).

Here's a link to the general changes:
http://www.insanedifficulty.com/idwi...sy_Tactics_1.3

And a job chart:
http://www.insanedifficulty.com/idwi...e=1.3_Generics

Content has all of the mechanical changes, including enhanced enemy AI/skill selection, but without the insane difficulty. I got about 2/3 through the insane version a few years ago and my laptop died permanently with no backup, so I'll probably never attempt Insane again. I absolutely love the mechanical redesign and smarter enemy AI/skill groupings in Content though.

I honestly don't think I could go back to Vanilla FFT anymore with things like archers that essentially have no abilities (charge and shoot, or charge up a bunch and the enemies move so you miss). Still, the game will always be really special to me!

[Tono]

One of my favorite games ever. Come back every so often. Can't really play the phone version for long though. I just feel so much better using a controller. And the War of the Lion changes are really nice. Chance to get the Dark Knight job in game. A new chance to kill Algus. Luso for more Super Squire action. A few new scenes. A major improvement all around really. Unless you're on the PSP without the slow down fix. Then I can't play it.

My more recent playthroughs all really only have one thing in common- I try to play at as low of a level as possible now. Gets too easy otherwise.


I nearly lost it when I saw Ramza in the new Dissidia Arcade game. Looks so fresh and the Heretic Armor looks good.

[danzibr]

Oh! Tono, what you said reminded me of something. My only beef with this game is the fact that the random encounters level with you, but the story battles do not.

[Triaxx]

Finath River...

I love this game. I tried a random challenge, but I got such a weird set of abilities on Ramza I couldn't get through Weigraf.

On the other hand, I knew Ulty, who did the TrueCalc SCC, and remember several of the stories in the background of his guide/LP of it.

I tend to try out weird tactics, or abilities that everyone else thinks shouldn't work.

[Seerow]

I was big into this game years ago, and it's still one of my favorites. I did buy/download the phone version of WoTL but couldn't get into it, the UI on the phone just doesn't feel right to me.

I think my most fun playthrough was a Geomancer SCC. Easiest 'challenge' was Holy Swordsman SSCC (even with Ramza Solo, Holy Swordsman is just OP). If I went back to it today I'd probably do either a random challenge or a Samurai SCC (though now that I think about it that would be really painful up until whatever act Katanas start showing up. So maybe not).

[Triaxx]

Katana's show up in act 2. Act 1 consists primarily of getting Blade Grasp, since it has no issue blocking everything. I got part way through a lancer SCC, and that was suprisingly fun without spears, because even a bunch of you landing on enemy heads without weapons hurts quite badly.

[hustlertwo]

Finath River...

I love this game. I tried a random challenge, but I got such a weird set of abilities on Ramza I couldn't get through Weigraf.

On the other hand, I knew Ulty, who did the TrueCalc SCC, and remember several of the stories in the background of his guide/LP of it.

I tend to try out weird tactics, or abilities that everyone else thinks shouldn't work.

I was lucky with my random run on the classes Ramza got. Squire/Geomancer, and of course his Squire class maintains value all game long. And Geo gave Attack Boost, Counter Flood and overall decent ranged attacks. Wiegraf was no incredible challenge.

True Calc SCC, what masochism. Challenge is one thing, but that is insanity. Probably will not do a SCC, the battles get so boring from all the sameness after a while. Am pondering either going no magic classes, or all magic classes.

That mod for FFT sounds a little too cheesy. More HP and speed does not a true strategic challenge make.

[Triaxx]

This wasn't that. It was a full team, randomly assigned and stuck with. So I had a Bard Ramza with Knight Skills, Arrow Grasp, and Move-GetXP. The rest of the team was similarly built. Depressingly useless. Fine as part of a group, but one on one? No dice.

[hustlertwo]

Yeah, that is a bad setup. Bard would be almost impossible to save with any ability set, especially Knight.

[danzibr]

How do you pros handle brave and faith? Max brave min faith on your melee peeps?

And zodiac signs? I know jack about this.

[hustlertwo]

Zodiac signs matter for battles but no reason to care about having specific ones on your team. Just something you look at before attacks.

Faith matters a lot more for mages than Brave for physical fighters. Brave mostly just impacts reaction abilities. Faith directly determines magic damage both taken and received. So while that means low Faith is usually good for someone who will not use spells, at the same time that makes it hard to heal or raise them effectively.

[Triaxx]

Actually, a party of pure monks, as long as you keep yourselves on reasonably level ground(IE one of two squares the same height at least), can get away with being basically agnostic, since their success rates don't rely on faith.

[Seerow]

How do you pros handle brave and faith? Max brave min faith on your melee peeps?

And zodiac signs? I know jack about this.

Really depends on team comp.

For SCCs it's usually pretty simple, you always want high brave; and faith is high if you're a caster low otherwise. (In some weird cases for harder SCCs you may want one inverted for odd strats like baiting out a specific spell or something, but that's like truecalc level BS that most people aren't going to bother with).

For mixed teams you follow the same general guideline, but with the addendum that some faith is nice if you have any support magic. Faith impacts not just healing amounts (though that is valuable), but also success rates for buff spells and other such things. On the other hand if you're running a team that relies on stuff like Monks and Samurai for support, you can afford to dump faith entirely; running around with a team at minimum (03) faith is pretty nice for general tankiness as it shuts down most enemy status and direct damage spells.

Edit: Zodiac signs between party members can increase synergy. So if you have something like a high faith caster combined with low-mid faith melee but best Zodiac compatibility, you can get pretty effective spells on your own units while still being pretty tanky against the majority of matchups. Other than that a main concern would be having Ramza set up with a good compatibility for certain fights (usually Wiegraf), but that only matters in certain challenge scenarios.

[T.G. Oskar]

It's one of the few games I've finished twice, in different playthroughs. The other is Shadowrun Returns (both the first campaign and Dragonfall). And I bought War of the Lions.

I recall finding about it on the demo CD that came with Vagrant Story (which I rented, of course), and I found the game was so great, I just had to purchase it. Those first chapters were merciless (Dorter, then Windmill Hut vs. Wiegraf), but then the difficulty just caved in until you get Orland(ea)u, and then it's pretty much impossible to lose except on the special random battles. I recall going with Squire/Monk for Ramza, but then I found Samurai was even more awesome and went for Squire/Samurai - Bushido/Draw Out is one of those unique skillsets that has everything, including some sweet buffs and AoE healing, for no cost whatsoever. Tweaking with the builds was fun, as well - in one of the playthroughs, I actually made Agrias a Thief for the explicit purpose of stealing all of the Genji equipment. That was an achievement; that said, I don't mind that Elmdor has Maintenance in the remake, as while the Genji equipment is really solid on its own, it echoes the feel of lack of accessibility from Matsuno-made games (see: Tactics Ogre and all those inaccessible pieces of equipment the Dark Knights wore).

WotL is a pretty interesting remake, though the lack of other people with PSPs AND the game kinda ruined it, because of lack of access to ad-hoc multiplayer. The Dark Knight skillset is pretty interesting, the new stuff is pretty cool, but I miss the quotes when casting spells or using sword skills. The new battles aren't as challenging (particularly once you get the Dark Knight skill, a Calculator or some of the more advanced classes, or Orland[ea]u), but are pretty cool, and give you a sweet rematch against Algus/Argath, and let you control Delita in combat. Since Ramza was a prime candidate for Dark Knight status (hey, he needs the sword skills!), I basically turned Orland(ea)u from Godlike to Official God by adding Bushido. Nothing can be more outright broken than making the best attacker in the game a solid healer and buffer as well, because of the effects of the katanas. Or the set of items that provide you with all buffs that the Wall spell gives you (Chaos Blade, Excalibur, Robe of Lords and Angel Ring). Less broken but still interesting was making Rapha and Marach useful...by making them Bard and Dancer, respectively, and just slap Swiftness on them. Buffing or debuffing from a distance and stopping just to use the randomly accurate multi-hit spells gave them some utility after all. The extra slots also allowed me to tweak with builds, such as Ninja/Geomancer, or a Knight with Equip Crossbow to debuff from a distance (still effective by late game), slapping Arithmancy just for fun.

I guess that's what made it interesting for me - the ability to tweak characters into something interesting, including the story NPCs.

[KillingAScarab]

Actually, a party of pure monks, as long as you keep yourselves on reasonably level ground(IE one of two squares the same height at least), can get away with being basically agnostic, since their success rates don't rely on faith.

I found this interesting, as Tactics has a lot of things about it I do not like, the double-edge on faith being one of them. Would it be possible to also completely ignore zodiac signs while using solely monks?

[Seerow]

I found this interesting, as Tactics has a lot of things about it I do not like, the double-edge on faith being one of them. Would it be possible to also completely ignore zodiac signs while using solely monks?

Yes.

Basically unless you are optimizing, you can ignore Zodiac Signs in just about any playthrough unless you are doing very specific challenges where certain matchups are critical. If you're doing a Monk SCC, that's one of the easier classes and you won't need to worry about compatibility. If you're just doing a regular playthrough with monk as a main focus, it's even easier. So I wouldn't worry too much about zodiac signs in general.

[Triaxx]

That said, Zodiac based matchups tend to be more frequently useful than faith based ones. For example, my primary party of Generics always has two females with the best match to Ramza, and two males with a good match to him.

Since I always give him Aquarius because that's mine, he tends to match well against most enemies. Particularly Weigraf if I recall correctly. Either him or Galg.... However his name is spelled.

[Seerow]

That said, Zodiac based matchups tend to be more frequently useful than faith based ones. For example, my primary party of Generics always has two females with the best match to Ramza, and two males with a good match to him.

Since I always give him Aquarius because that's mine, he tends to match well against most enemies. Particularly Weigraf if I recall correctly. Either him or Galg.... However his name is spelled.

Gafgarion?

[Hunter Noventa]

Ah man, FFT is such a good game. I've played it countless times, both on my PS1 and on PSP (both versions, since a hacked PSP can play PS1 games)

When it came to Zodiac signs, after a while I left Ramza's birthday as Jan 1, this gives you Capricorn which has a lot of good compatibilities with bosses and some fixed enemies, as well as some fixed party members.

I never got around to finishing an SCC, I started a Monk one but it fell by the wayside.

One of the more entertaining things I did was hacking my game saves. Using a DexDrive (An arcane device from the late 90s, that allowed the transfer of PS1 memory card data to a PC) and some specialized programs, i was able to do all sorts of fun things like adding enemies or NPCs to my party, putting ability sets you basically never see used into my party, stuff like that. Like, I added Zalbag to my party and finally got to see his actual abilities, because the two battles he's in, his AI prioritizes doing damage which his abilities don't. Or adding one of the Assassin girls. Or Izlude. Or Elmdor.

If I didn't have so many other games to play, I'd probably play it again sometime.

[Triaxx]

Yes, Gafgarion. That's the one. of course he's never terribly hard to deal with anyway.

[hustlertwo]

Especially at the waterfall, since after the first time you play you know his defection is coming so you can turn him into an unarmed Wizard. Not taking my good swords, Gaff Gafgarion.

[KillingAScarab]

Yes.

Basically unless you are optimizing, you can ignore Zodiac Signs in just about any playthrough unless you are doing very specific challenges where certain matchups are critical. If you're doing a Monk SCC, that's one of the easier classes and you won't need to worry about compatibility. If you're just doing a regular playthrough with monk as a main focus, it's even easier. So I wouldn't worry too much about zodiac signs in general.

That said, Zodiac based matchups tend to be more frequently useful than faith based ones. For example, my primary party of Generics always has two females with the best match to Ramza, and two males with a good match to him.

Thanks for the advice. Perhaps I will someday give FFT another shot. With the JP scroll glitch to grab everything from chemist, because not being able to use your purchased items is dumb.

[Seerow]

Thanks for the advice. Perhaps I will someday give FFT another shot. With the JP scroll glitch to grab everything from chemist, because not being able to use your purchased items is dumb.

I'll be honest the last several times I played I either hacked all abilities/jobs unlocked or abused the scroll glitch.

Spending 3 hours in 3-4 random battles accumulating against a speed broken enemy to max out jp on a small party isn't particularly challenging, but not really all that engaging either. I'd rather just have my abilities and enjoy playing.

[Gnoman]

Spending 3 hours in 3-4 random battles accumulating against a speed broken enemy to max out jp on a small party isn't particularly challenging, but not really all that engaging either. I'd rather just have my abilities and enjoy playing.

That is a terrible way to get JP. It is both faster and much more entertaining to simply take advantage of spillover, especially when you only bother getting the abilities worth having in the first place.

[Triaxx]

Yeah, I used that once, but it breaks the game enough to be boring.

Frankly, it's not so bad earning JP if you use the bonus JP power from Squires and tweak actions so you get lots of JP for them. IE use the least powerful attack, instead of strongest one. The longer the fight lasts, the more JP you get. That said, I never found a reason to get ALL the item abilities, just because by the time I get magic, that's more effective, and most of the others I end up never using.

Seriously, how often have you used an item to cure silence, instead of just stomping forward and beating whoever did it over the head with a sharp object?

[Gnoman]

The best way to get JP is to just make everybody the class you want to get abilities for while wandering around the map, then fight any random encounter without any other gimmicks. This will get most of the good abilities for most classes in two or three battles, and is nothing more than fighting battles you'd have to fight (if you're just hitting the randoms while going to the next story battle or making a run to Igros to buy armor or something) anyway. It doesn't break the game over your knee like the JP Scroll glitch does, but FFT is honestly much too easy as it is with the exception of two, maybe three story battles.

[danzibr]

Ugh. Yeah. JP grinding, hated that. If only the random battles didn't scale...