Squeenix Final Fantasy Tactics mod discussion

[Monocause]

So I got into FFT recently. Decided to try it with the 1.3 easytype mod, but started hating it real quick. While I like the changes made to class balance and AI abilities usage and it did make the battles more challenging, the thing that killed it for me was poorly-designed level scaling as it eliminates the sense of progression and actually makes you want to keep your squad as low-level as possible. Every encounter is level-scaled to the highest level present in your squad (regardless if you pick the high-level one to participate in battle or not). It makes all the battles doable even if your picked squad is underleveled, but forces you to metagame in ways that I don't appreciate (like, say, scouting out the next encounter, reloading and than fitting a proper counter).

Have you guys tried the other available mods? What about FFT+? Basically I want a more challenging game with balanced classes/abilities like those present in 1.13 that doesn't introduce level scaling.

 

[betamin]

FFT 1.3 is IMO the best challenge mod ever, you just have to play it like Age of Decadence, saving skill points until the next encounter and avoiding grinding (I see this as a MAJOR positive), at least for the first 2/3 of the game, then you may need to grind a bit if you want to use special characters.

Level scaling is actually great in tactical games since you can't just grind to blow through all encounters.

But if this kills your boner then commit suicide.

 

[OSK]

The level scaling sounds great to me, but maybe I just play these types of games wrong.

I always use a large, diverse party and avoid grinding. This spreads my party's experience thin and always keeps me under-leveled. I always also force myself to use characters with the lowest level/experience to keep everyone typically within a level of each other.

Maybe I'm weird.

 

[Monocause]

FFT 1.3 is IMO the best challenge mod ever, you just have to play it like Age of Decadence, saving skill points until the next encounter and avoiding grinding (I see this as a MAJOR positive), at least for the first 2/3 of the game, then you may need to grind a bit if you want to use special characters.

Level scaling is actually great in tactical games since you can't just grind to blow through all encounters.

But if this kills your boner then commit suicide.

Heck, there's no need for grinding in vanilla. The issue with vanilla is that it's just too fucking easy, but going overboard in the other direction is not a good way to solve issues. Let me elaborate:

1) First of all, what 1.3 offers is a perversion of the original's progression mechanics. Levelling should always mean that you're getting stronger and you should always *want* to level up but here you want to avoid it as much as possible. It leads to stupid moments like "I won't attack with this character now because he'll get lvl 5 while my other guys are level 3".

2) Random encounters are completely fucked up. Case in point - in a random encounter I meet a minotaur and two floating eyes. The minotaur has 120 HP. I approach with Ramza, at the enemy turn the minotaur one-shots me for 85 HP while Ramza has something around 70. End result is total rape which is unavoidable; at this stage of the game I have no real access to debuffs and no reliable magic artillery. I theoretically could get by with slowing the bastard and then wasting him at range, but I'd need a very specific party setup for that. Result? Reloadan'.

3) First Mandalia Plains battle. Had to reload two times until Algus managed to survive the very first turn.

4) You basically need to scout every single story battle, reload and then tailor your party to the best counter-fit possible while the vanilla game is designed around picking the best balance you can afford and making the best use of resources you've at hand.

The end result is a game that doesn't work as it was intended to. You avoid levelling, need to abuse your metagame knowledge to its limits - and whatever "grinding" you got rid of is nicely offset by the amount of times you need to reload the game. So no, it's not level scaling per se that kills my boner, it's that 1.3 introduces "challenge" that forces you to play counterintuitively all the time to succeed.

I'm fine with people enjoying the patch, and I suppose that once you're an FFT vet it can be fun and refreshing, but I'm not a vet. I abandoned my first vanilla playthrough around the time Gaffgarion turns on you due to the game being too easy and got to look for enhancements; in vanilla the only battle that was challenging was the one with Agriath-Algus in the fortress. So, again - anyone can comment on FFT+ or some other mods that increase the challenge while not being that bonkers about it as 1.13?

 

[Gozma]

Yah I have the same problem with it.

It's for people that are like:

1. I love FFT and have intense metagame knowledge of it
2. I would like a challenge
3. Therefore I will install this mod that is balanced on the pretense I have intense metagame knowledge

I am like:

1. FFT is too boring to note any of the mechanics or major details and I don't like it much
2. Maybe I'd like it if I had a mod that makes it not-boring
3. This mod with a lot of good effort put into it unfortunately presumes I am already deeply in love with the game

 

[oscar]

Yeah played for a while and was like "Fuck this I'm going back to Tactics Ogre".

 

[betamin]

Yah I have the same problem with it.

It's for people that are like:

1. I love FFT and have intense metagame knowledge of it
2. I would like a challenge
3. Therefore I will install this mod that is balanced on the pretense I have intense metagame knowledge

I am like:

1. FFT is too boring to note any of the mechanics or major details and I don't like it much
2. Maybe I'd like it if I had a mod that makes it not-boring
3. This mod with a lot of good effort put into it unfortunately presumes I am already deeply in love with the game

I guess I'm kind of a freak in the the sense that I got addicted to the mod probably because I didn't know anything about it and it shit all over me. I actually remember finishing FFT vanilla many years ago but I didn't even pay attention to the mechanics. When I installed 1.3 I got massively destroyed but I hit my head against the game until I "learned" (AKA was bothered enough by defeat to actually check the battle mechanics guide). I needed more than 3 weeks to clear the first chapter and the defining factor in the end was a tip from someone of the forum.

I don't know, I guess it was kind of a mix between an ego thing where the game title had the word "tactics" on it and it was a "challenge" mod and I couldn't believe how it raped me so hard so I made it my conviction to be the rapist instead of the rapee; and the randomness of it creating an effect similar to what's described on item number 3 on this article http://www.cracked.com/article_18461_5-creepy-ways-video-games-are-trying-to-get-you-addicted.html

To Monocause , it's true that the mod is a very very different game from vanilla but to me there are only improvements, the original could be broken way too easily. Playing counter intuitively to me meant that you couldn't just do what you like (like an RPG where you say "I wanna break shit as a warrior"), you actually had to adjust every time and there was no room to LARP, and at the same time the game was good enough to not be as restrictive as a straight puzzle game. Furthermore, I believe a game with fixed battles where you don't reload, you don't meta game and you don't do some trial and error CAN'T BE TRULY HARD. It's impossible. Only with randomized environments you can do that shit. What you say about Algus/Rafa situations is true though but whatever. A small price. But tastes in gaming are like a pregnant girl's wishes IMO, sometimes you want this or that and it doesn't matter why because after all yo do it because you want to (modded BG2 is fun fuck y'all.)

Other than that, the game's items, spells, skills and, above all, SPEED system are great, I wish they would get imitated more often.

TL;DR: I'm a masochist, this shit is not everyone's pleasure, Easytype mod comes with a ticket to tranny mansion, 1.3 is king.




You could try FFT enforced generic challenge but I don't know if anybody actually completed it. Other than that FFT+ is kinda nearer to the original FFT.

Edit: And the 1.3 CONTENT mod I guess could be right up your ally since it doesn't have level scaling and keeps the awesome modifications to the system.

 

[spekkio]

Did a LP of 1.3 Easytype and abandoned it rather quickly. For same reasons Monocause mentioned: too much metagaming knowledge needed, not enough fun.
Only for masochists who completed vanilla 70 times and are ready to play "scan, reload, try different setup" bullshit.

@ Content Mod:

So, in old "Easytype" eniemies scaled to your level in both random and story battles, while in the new "Content" version they only scale in randoms? May check this out at some point, then.
ATM I only recommend using new translation (PSP one) with PS1 FFT.

Oh, great rant from project site:

In 1.3.0.6 the story battles always match your levels (instead of content/vanilla where they don't), and will always have better gear (by 1-3+ tiers above yours). In content, the story battles are set in their levels (so you can out-pace them), but random battles will level up with you and their gear will be same/better than yours as you level (but then you could just do a bunch of randoms and steal to your heart's content). 1.3.0.6. can be difficult because, for example, you can be in chapter 1 with story battle enemies that have gear from the end of chapter 2 while you're stuck in crappier gear. And note: in 1.3.0.6 the story battle gear will always be higher quality than the random battle gear. So no matter how much you steal/etc from the randoms you'll always be outclassed every story battle. The only way to combat this is to keep your levels as low as possible, so that way the story battles are about the same quality as the stuff you can buy from the store. This means avoiding 95% of any gridning/leveling/random battles unless you use goofy work-arounds (like everyone spamming abilities on a level 1 character and gaining full JP but like 1 EXP).

Supposedly you can combat this by using "skill and game mechanics over equipment", but when the archers can 1HKO you from across the map and their wizard can do a cyclone for 150 of your team's 120 HP before you can even get a turn... yeah I'm just not seeing it. Every video playthough I've seen either has everyone as low as possible or goes for 99 at the start of the game to even up the gear (randoms will have the same as story for gear). So while the philosophy of the patch is "skill over gear", I have yet to see anyone prove it. But that's just my rant of 1.3.0.6.

Exactly my problem with old "Easytype", not to mention "Hardtype" a.k.a. "Tru 1.3".

Concerning FFT+ : I can't find any detailed info about the crucial aspect of every "FFT rebalancing" mod: do the enemies scale to your level in story battles and how their equipment works (is it always better than yours). Both things can completly break the game, making it way too hard (as we can see in 1.3).

 

[Mother Russia]

Play War of the Lions. it's sweet.

And this game is not 'too easy', at least not War of the Lions

When I first played it in 1999 or so I got up to that mega difficult boss battle and could not get past it. Getting upto that was not difficult, but in that battle i realize I should have grinded more because the boss was too tough.

 

[spekkio]

One other important thing I forgot to mention: brave / faith mechanics.

In both versions of old 1.3 (hard/easy), B/F permanent manipulation was impossible (one of the most important IMBA things in vanilla).
But this made things even worse: you had to choose recruits with the highest B/F possible at the beginning, or they would ALWAYS be inferior to enemies. Check my LP to see how bad it turned out.
Of course, you can use their high B/F stats against enemies, or use skills than don't depend on B/F (not that many), but... DERP.

tl;dr

IMO 1.3 is even more broken than vanilla, not sure about this new "1.3 Content" - have to try it out at least to a battle with a certain female swordmaster (close to immortal in old 1.3).

 

[Monocause]

spekkio:

I think FFT+ doesn't scale gear, and the modder's claiming that he intends to make a rebalanced and more difficult FFT without making it a masochist's experience. If an encounter is too difficult for you you can grind some levels and get better gear and come back to beat it. Another mod is FFT Rebirth: http://www.moddb.com/mods/final-fantasy-tactics-rebirth, though I don't know much about that one.

My main gripe (and why i haven't tried) is that it doesn't include the improved translation. Some of the people on ffhacktics boards are seriously retarded; apparently some of them say the initial translation (half of which doesn't make any fucking sense) is superior because it has its own 'style' while the improved version is 'bland'.

Also, I gave another try to easytype now, reached chapter II. To be honest you did screw up quite a few things in your usual party setup; most of it was due to you just making a LP and allowing others make choices for their characters. In vanilla FFT that would've worked easily, but in easytype you just can't afford not min-maxed setups.

One example is how you pretty much never used black mages. Higher tier black magic spells kick ass and are fairly easy to reach; barely anything survives getting hit by firaga and thundaga in the same turn, provided you wield appropriate rods and your faith doesn't suck. At the same time yeah, bravery and faith mechanics are made of pure suck in FFT, 1.3 or no 1.3. All this doesn't change the fact that 1.3's rotten to the core, and all the early fights with Milleuda (Steal, Lifefont, and Agriath (who's able to jump on the tower to which your people probably can't AND who's got lifefont AND who's got autopotion) serve as an example of how sperged it is.

I think I'll give FFT+ a try this evening and give a sign how it works out. 1.3 feels stupid and vanilla is boring, there's got to be something better out there. Generally I think that it's not about the levels in 1.3, it's that enemies have access to combinations of abilities which you likely can't access at the time you meet them and they have better gear than you do; and that each and every enemy are designed around optimal gimmicks and bosses are the gimmickiest of them all. Oh, and of course the completely unfun and rapetastic random encounters.

If it's decent - maybe you should run another LP with FFT+ instead of 1.3? You didn't seem to be active much around the playground recently and that's a shame.

@Mother_Russia:

Having a piss easy game and then suddenly realising that you're hosed in a boss battle isn't really an example of good design.

 

[spekkio]

Monocause:

a) I would be thankful for info about FFT+, esp. 3 things I mentioned before:
- how level-scaling works (both in random and story encounters),
- how equipment-scaling works, esp. in story battles (powerful human enemies),
- how B/F mechanics work.

b)

Some modders are seriously retarded

This. WOTL translation is superior to PS1 translation in every aspect. I don't get teh haters. Some people were criticising it in my LP - I completed vanilla PS1 version with PSP translation (FFT Complete mod .050) and still don't get what's supposed to be wrong with it. It makes fucking sense for starters, while original doesn't. Of course hackers mostly use original translation...

c)

you did screw up quite a few things in your usual party setup; most of it was due to you just making a LP and allowing others make choices for their characters. In vanilla FFT that would've worked easily, but in easytype you just can't afford not min-maxed setups.

AFAIR I tried many different things: switching jobs to something more usefull, hex-editing brave/faith values, etc. But in the end, some battles are totally fucking broken, like for example...

Milleuda

d)

it's that enemies have access to combinations of abilities which you likely can't access at the time you meet them and they have better gear than you do

This and

the completely unfun and rapetastic random encounters

that, killed 1.3 for me. What's the fun if this shit is even more broken than vanilla?

e)

maybe you should run another LP with FFT+ instead of 1.3? You didn't seem to be active much around the playground recently

If I ever make a LP again, it's gonna be something OgreBattle related: Tactics Ogre: LOTC (better game than FFT IMO), some version of FFT (as long as it's fun to play) or Ogre Battle 64 (interesting mechanics + gayer than mASS Effect).
Either that, or Front Mission 3, the best japtactical game evar, suck it haters.



f)

and that's a shame

 

[felipepepe]

Tactics Ogre: Knight of Lodis was the most fun game of the kind I ever played, have you tried it, spekkio?

 

[spekkio]

felipepepe

Goddamn' oldfags, how do they work?



It's waaay too easy. But the system is great (achievements needed to change job, etc.).

 

[Monocause]

spekkio:

I read a bit more about FFT+ and decided to resign after watching a few videos; . I'm going to give a try to two mods instead http://www.mediafire.com/?51clm656znt7rgy

It's FFT Rebirth combined with FFT KO (kind of) patch. It offers rebalanced spells and abilities and has KO's level-scaled story battles tacked on it. I think level-scaling in story battles coupled with reasonable ability and gear distribution for enemies (rebirth tailors enemies to a reasonable degree) should provide for a balanced game that actually discourages grinding without making it a PITA. I'll post away about it later this night.

Are the Tactics Ogre games runnable on an emulator? I've only seen PSP version on the non-removal sites, what's the deal with PSP emulation? About Front Mission 3 - I remember reading about that game some time ago. What can you tell me about the series? Are all the five games worth it?

 

[felipepepe]

Goddamn' oldfags, how do they work?

Forgive me, I'm not really a follower of LP's...

Anyway, retroactive brofists:

 

[Murk]

Front Mission 1 is cool -- 2 is a sidescroller, 3 is pretty good but changed quite a bit from 1. In 1, the game was very easy to win so long as your characters just used machine guns. In 3 the weapons you used depended on the wanzer mech you used. I have not played in years so the mechanics escape me.

Tactics Ogire: LUCT (the original) has an english version on ps1 and there's a slightly less hardcore but better designed installment on GBA called Knight of Lodis.

TO suffers from the "one level above enemy = insta-win" syndrome in many ways, and is focused more on leveling the right combination of classes to configure the right stats. Like, if you level only as a Knight then a Dragoon then you'll have piss AGI but good STR and DEX so you gotta switch to an AGI class at some point. There's no carry-over of class abilities, only of attributes. Still, it's got perma-death, branching storyline, and a decent list of classes that unfortunately have redundancies and/or inferiors.

Still worth a play tho ;D

ps1 version of Tactics Ogre works fine on emulators as does the GBA version. I believe AGTP (agtp.romhack.net) translated the SNES rom to english, so that will probably be better written than the ps1 version.

I played the FFT 1.3 content patch and what really made the game interesting was not the scaling/ai but the change in skills. It really re-aligned what each class does and made EVERY class useful, maybe not 100% useful as each other but entirely viable. Classes like Archer and Mediator are no longer a joke, and the monsters became legitimate threats.

Reminds me of one fucked up encounter tho. 5 Ahriman with innate reflect and 5 behemoths who can cast meteor (comet on everyone). Behemoth casts meteor -- the 5 ahriman all reflect it back killing everything before I can even get all my chars to move. Heh.

Still, it made the actual game a challenge and forced me to play using real tactics and a proper party instead of the usual 3 ninjas. I do agree with those who said it's for metagamers who already know everything, tho. I've been playing Tactics since it came out nearly every fucking year -- i already know everything about it so I purposely seek new challenges with it, and self-imposed gamisms can only go so far.

 

[spekkio]

Tested FFT_Content_1.3.0.6 a bit.
I was killed in the initial battle (Orbonne Monstery) - thanks to "Recover HP by moving" + "Counter" a single knight was able to wipe out my entire party (Agrias and Gaff being controlled by AI didn't help). Of course I can only control Ramza and he can't revive dudes.



It's a pass, I think...

Monocause:

1)

level-scaled story battles

Doesn't sound that good. Depends on skills and equipment that enemies can use.

2)

Are the Tactics Ogre games runable on an emulator

a) original Ogre Battle was made for Snes, there's a PS1 port as well. Both released in US. Go with Snes version.
b) Tactics Ogre - LUCT was made for Snes as well, but only released in Jap. There's a PS1 port too, which was released in US. Snes game got english translation recently (Aeon Genesis), but SCO claims it's buggy as fuck. Plus they used PS1 translation, which is p. shoddy at times. There's a PSP version as well, with new translation (not sure how good) and some newshit added. Use PS1 version.
c) Ogre Battle 64 was made for Nintendo 64 and released in US.
d) Tactics Ogre - TKOL is a GameBoy Advance game, released in US.

Snes, PS1 and GBA are fully emulated. N64 emulation is decent, but all emus have problems with OB64 (graphical glitches, but nothing serious - I was able to complete the game). PSP is not fully emulated + requires powerful PC + jpcsp has problems with TA-LUCT (glitches).

3)

Front Mission

I only played 1 and 3 so far, 2 isn't translated yet (but should be soon), 4&5 were released for PS2 and I can't get decent speeds with them on my rig.

FM3 is one of my favorite games for PS1, I like it more than FFT for example. As almost every japtactical game, it can be considered too easy. Due to problems with emulation, I've played it for the first time without grinding and without items - you can either use items (item backpack) or make your mecha wanzer stronger (power backpack). It turned out that those conditions made the difficulty just perfect. Has >9000 customization options.
More info here. It's well worth trying if you liked FFT or similar games.

I played FM1 after FM3 and found it way too easy: you can make identical, strong units to win the game easily, which is rather impossible in FF3 - you need some close combat units and ranged units. But it was a blast when it was released.

One of the most interesting Japanese series for sure.

 

[Murk]

I can't recall, but if Ramza has 'wish' then he can revive. Nearly every skill was changed, and revive abilities are the most important for surviving battles.

 

[spekkio]

2 is a sidescroller

You probably mean Front Mission - Gun Hazard (snes), which is a spin-off platformer. FM2 is a PS1 japtactical game, released only in japan. But english translation is on the way.

In 3 the weapons you used depended on the wanzer mech you used

Not 100% correct. Pilots can improve their skills in 7 types of weapons: melee, shotgun, machinegun, rifle, flamer, rocket and mortar. So if you equip your wanzer with a shotgun, and put inside a pilot who sucks at using it, the damage inflicted will be low.

I'm gonna LP it one day, so all you naysayers will be enlightened.

 

[Murk]

Oh, I thought the body type you used influenced how effective certain weapons were. Interesting.

Also, didn't know that Gun Hazard was a spinoff. Thanks, I'll seek out info on the translation. The FM games are pretty cool and def worth a shot. I recall being somewhat impressed but also let-down by how the "internet" worked in FM 3.

 

[spekkio]

FM2 translation can be found here:
http://frontmission.info/wiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Downloads

Currently at 0.2 beta.

 

[Monocause]

spekkio Mikayel
BROs, give a try to the Rebirth+KO patch I posted a link to earlier. Just got my ass handed on Dorter 1, but so far it seems fair. Monsters are beefed up and more challenging, but nothing that should give you a headache if you're careful.

Example: Random mandalia plains, two goblins and three chocobos. I chose the underleveled squires and chemists to level them up, turned out to be a mistake because Chocobos have been beefed up and are no longer a joke. They prioritise healing and are very fast, with my underleveled party I was unable to corner them. Reload.

Also, goblins have a nice gimmick now. Instead of being ultra-ninjas that can strike everything around them like in 1.3, they have stealing abilities. The basic goblins steal accessories, the black ones steal helmets. It's a nice twist, nothing too punishing but can bite you in the ass. Skeletons have a range 3 lightning attack.

For Dorter 1 you need to be aware that archers now have innate concentration and this means that you need to gang up on them ASAP and bring in preferably two knights for their high HP.

Downloadan' FM3 now. Any tips for ePSXe config, spekkio?

 

[Murk]

I'm on Chapter 3 of the 1.3 mod, might try that configuration for the next round.

My favorite fight so far, and by favorite I mean most painful one, was in the undercellar of Orbonne Monastery where you fight Izlude. There's an addition of an Onion Knight there that if you keep alive til the end will join you. Fucking ridiculous the kind of shit I had to rely on/pull to be successful. It basically came down to Agrias' Crush Punch Proc'ing the insta-kill effect a few times and a critical hit that basically saved one of my units from counting past 0.

I don't even want to think what the roof-top fight against Elmdor will be like. The screen-shots I've seen of the Deep Dungeon all look like absolute masochism so I'm kind of eager to see what's up, heh.

 

[Monocause]

Beaten Zeklaus desert, the game really feels good. The only con so far is that horrible translation. Yaaaaaeaaaghhh oh, God...

Mikayel:

If you enjoy 1.3 and reached so far you should probably stick to it. All the other mod combinations aren't nearly as hardcore as 1.3 and will probably seem piss easy to you.