Bought FFT on the PSN for $10 last night. I've played FF6 to 13 and also FE:PoR and FE:RD so hopefully I will be well prepared for this.
First off, using O for confirm instead of X is really tripping me up. I can't seem to find a place to change it anywhere. Damn you PSN! The graphics are pretty enough to look at. It's basically SNES graphics with some 3D effects. It's not grating like FF7 graphics (was painful when I played it for the first time in like 2005).
In the prologuey thing I find out that some guy named Delita totally stole my credit for saving Ivalice. What a douche. And then we cut to a church where I have to protect the princess from kidnappers... or something. The first battle is weird because I only have control over Ramza and not the other units. I had no idea what the "Guts" moves did and just tried them out... It didn't occur to me until way later to press Select to find out what things did.
Anyway, I have no idea how the job system works so I just pick two squires and two chemists to accompany me for the first real battle. I assume that brave is like strength and faith is like magic so I picked the units with the highest stats in those respectively. It's really annoying that I can't directly control Delita because he is mostly being a douche and running away to hide in a corner even if he has full health. I also wish I could do an aerial view of the map because the terrain is annoying and hard to see over sometimes (even if I switch through the four ground views). Make it through the battle with only 1 squire injured. It didn't seem to have any permanent negative consequences. What does it mean when a unit dies and they have a number over their head? Is it like some kind of timer and if it runs out they die for real? Because I think an enemy unit turned into a crystal or something.
I play around in the "Formation" menu and apparently Squires still get JP in the Chemist class which allows them to learn how to use items. What the hell is the point in being a Chemist then? I quickly switch my Chemists to Squires to teach my Squires how to use potions. Buy new items, etc.
The second battle (Mandalia Plains) is more of the same. I save some guy named Algus who is probably going to turn out to be a douche. The only thing that was a shock was the panther thing counterattacked me. This game is pretty easy so far but I get the feeling that I can't win by having all squires...
I play around in the "Formation" menu and apparently Squires still get JP in the Chemist class which allows them to learn how to use items. What the hell is the point in being a Chemist then? I quickly switch my Chemists to Squires to teach my Squires how to use potions. Buy new items, etc.
Any time someone performs an action on your side, they get the JP total you see, and everyone else in the battle gets a small portion for that class too, which is not shown during the battle.
Your Squires got Chemist JP from being around Chemists.
From: AsurasKordoth | #001 What does it mean when a unit dies and they have a number over their head? Is it like some kind of timer and if it runs out they die for real? Because I think an enemy unit turned into a crystal or something.
Yeah, you have three turns to revive them or else they're gone for good.
The tutorial in this game actually is decent, even if it's pretty boring. Feel free to poke around and read sections about things that are confusing.
Also, if the game ever prompts you to save, use a second save slot. This happens when you're in a series of battles and you won't have access to the world map between the fights. If you run into trouble it'll make things a lot harder than necessary.
Otherwise I'm assuming you don't want much gameplay advice so I'll keep my trap shut for now.
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No amount of planning will ever replace dumb luck.
Also, you earn new job classes by leveling up the job classes you start with, and it's a branching system, so if you're never a chemist, you will take a long time to open the magical side of the job tree. If you don't care about that for a particular unit, then stay on the physical side.
AsurasKordoth posted... I assume that brave is like strength and faith is like magic so I picked the units with the highest stats in those respectively.
Kind-of. If you open up the stats window, there should be a PA and MA for each character, those are your physical attack and magical attack. They change depending on job class and gender. (Notably males have 25% more PA, and females have 25% more MA).
Brave is mostly used for how often your reaction ability triggers. For instance, if you set "Counter", and have 75 brave, you will counter 75% of the time. It also matters for damage with a small number of weapons (unarmed punches being the only such weapon you have unlocked).
Faith affects a lot of stuff. How much damage you deal with magic. How much damage you take from magic. How much health you heal when a heal spell is cast on you. How much health you heal when you cast a heal spell. How accurate your status moves are (Haste, Frog, etc). How accurate status moves are against you (Haste, Frog, etc). Generally speaking high faith is desirable, but it is a double-edged sword.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision
Thanks for all the info... Does Square expect you to figure out all this stuff on your own? Or maybe it's all in the manual... which I don't have because I bought it on PSN. Anyway, I switch my two females (Jeanne and Sylvia) to Chemists and keep my guys (Ramza and Blake) as Squires for now. According to a friend, I should try to get Gained JP Plus, Move+1, and Auto-Potion as the passive abilities for my units initially.
I walk past Gariland Magic City and get into a random battle with some Goblins and a Chocobo. I assume that later on I would be able to capture the Chocobo somehow? Anyway, I dispatch of them with relative ease even without Delita and Algus hiding uselessly in corners (shocking). The next battle at Sweegy Woods is a little tougher because one of the Bombs blew up and knocked out Sylvia early on. I apparently forgot to teach anyone how to use Phoenix Downs even though I bought like 10 of them >>.
Anyway, Blake has enough for Gained JP Plus and Move +1, so I make him a Monk. I don't think he's gonna need Auto-Potion since I'm going to give him Counter when he has enough JP for it. I also teach Jeanne Bolt and give her the Black Magic command since her Attack does like 10 damage only >>. Will make her a Wizard when she has enough for Auto Potion... The other Chemist will probably turn into a Priest. Not sure what I want to do with Ramza yet, although Samurai and Ninja both look good.
Dorter Trade City! It's too painful to even relive the battle because I got absolutely trashed. The enemy had like a bunch of Archers and Wizards that just tore through my team. And the knight kept freaking dodging my attacks. It also didn't help that I was a moron, casted Bolt on an enemy, then walked two of my other guys next him to attack him... then Bolt hit and apparently it's AOE which hurt all of them.
Strongly recommend that you do not go out of your way to grind your characters' levels higher because enemies in the story battles have fixed levels and it's more challenging if the two of you are roughly equivalent.
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"Getting lucky 100% of the time... it's called PRO SKILL." -BlAcK TuRtLe
AsurasKordoth posted... According to a friend, I should try to get Gained JP Plus, Move+1, and Auto-Potion as the passive abilities for my units initially.
This is good advice, but the only one that's top priority is Gained JP Up. The other two you can delay for quite a while if you feel so inclined.
For instance, if you're having trouble with Dorter, and your Chemist isn't doing enough damage with her Bolt spell, you might make your Chemist into a Wizard, which will roughly double your spell damage and give you more MP. You can always come back to Chemist and learn Auto-Potion later if you want.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision
There's a Tutorial option on the main menu if you want to know things about mechanics. Otherwise, yeah, you'll be spending a lot of time doing trial and error type stuff.
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No amount of planning will ever replace dumb luck.
tag, enjoyed boko's FFT topic. I started playing myself for the first time recently, it's been fun. Ordered Disgaea 3 before I've even finished for more good times.
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or a special pair of boots that have magnets on the bottom so you can do some things that have never been possible before.
Played through the end of Chapter 1. I still suck and have to reset all the time. Everytime I change someone's job, I forget to do things like set Item for their secondary skill. It just doesn't work when the only guy you remembered to give Item to, doesn't know how to use Phoenix Down. Anyway I am running a Knight (Ramza) with Guts, a Monk with Basic Skills (for Accumulate, which is great for getting JP all the time), and two Wizards with Item. Ramza has great support skills that are unique to him which is really quite annoying because I want him to be my main DPS guy. I still get in the occasional Yell but I mostly just have him attack.
I still don't get how spells work sometimes. Sometimes I cast Bolt and it goes off right away, sometimes 2-3 other people do things before it goes off. This can end badly for me if they move next to one of my guys when it goes off. Ramza died like that once but apparently he's invincible and just got back up a few turns later with <10 HP somehow. White Magic still seems unnecessary right now since I can just use items to heal though. Although having Item secondary does stop my Wizards from using Time Magic, etc. Ehhh, I'll worry about it later.
Storywise I am wholly uncaptivated. Apparently there is some sort of war going on and my half-brothers are the bad guys which kind of sucks... I guess?
I still don't get how spells work sometimes. Sometimes I cast Bolt and it goes off right away, sometimes 2-3 other people do things before it goes off.
Spells have a charge stat, and it basically works the same as a character's speed stat. When you are looking at your available spells, you can hit a button, I forget which, that will show you the order of actions if you choose that spell. That will tell you if the unit you are trying to target is going to get to move before your spell executes.
Leebo86 posted... Spells have a charge stat, and it basically works the same as a character's speed stat. When you are looking at your available spells, you can hit a button, I forget which, that will show you the order of actions if you choose that spell. That will tell you if the unit you are trying to target is going to get to move before your spell executes.
Left or right is the button to push.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision
Demon HunterX posted... yell and accumulate are the best skills in the game...if you want to play a "broken" style FFT.
No, they're really not. Slow Dance is better than both of those skills, and even Slow Dance is far from the pinnacle of FFT brokenness.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision
I think part of the argument is that Accumulate is something everyone can get easily and abuse right from the beginning. These other "game breaking" skills are obtained much later.
Leebo86 posted... I think part of the argument is that Accumulate is something everyone can get easily and abuse right from the beginning. These other "game breaking" skills are obtained much later.
Ok, but Accumulate is an incredibly weak ability. You'd be better using a ranged attack like Elemental or attacking with a gun--if you accumulate 5 times and attack twice to finish the fight, then each accumulate dealt like...effectively 12 damage--you can do way, way, better than 12 with ranged attacks. Basic Skill is a solid candidate for "worst skillset in the game."
Yell is a lot more powerful than Accumulate, of course, but still not that great--largely because you only get it on one person. So...the rest of your party gets roasted while one person yells in the corner. Not ideal.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision
My impression was that Yell and Accumulate allow you to run circles around enemies and get tons of JP and EXP with no effort, superpowering you very early in the game relative to the story battle levels.
It's a different concept of "game breaking." It doesn't make any individual battle a quick or powerful victory, it's just a way to power grind in no time right from the start.
There are plenty of easy ways to grind EXP/JP though. I wouldn't say that a particularly easy way to do that is "game breaking."
As for spells, allow me to take a detour in talking about the game's Speed/CT system.
The unit of time in FFT is a clocktick. In one clocktick, all units gain CT equal to their Speed. If a unit has CT >= 100, they get their turn on that clocktick (tiebreaks are handled by who has the highest CT -- the game does keep track even though it only shows it out of 100 -- and if that's still a tie then it's done based on starting position). If you Move and Act on your turn, you lose 100 CT, while if you only Move or Act you lose 80 CT, and if you neither move nor act you lose merely 60 CT.
Spells are a simple extension onto this. The game lists Speed values for each spell. When you start charging a spell, the spell starts gaining "CT" based on its speed until it gets a "turn." When the spell gets its "turn" (100 CT), it resolves. Spells always win tiebreaks, so if a spell reaches 100 CT and a character reaches 105 CT in the same clocktick, the spell drops before the character can move.
So that's why sometimes spells drop really quickly and other times it seems to take forever. If 5 units have 100 CT and you start a spell, all of those units are going to get a turn before your spell resolves so it seems "long." If every unit only has 20 CT though, most spells are going to appear to resolve instantly since no one will get a turn in the time it takes for your spell to charge. If you press left-right on the turn order you'll see where in time your spell will resolve -- use this to make sure targets can't move before you cast and screw up your plans. Also, casters lose all evasion and take 150% damage while they're charging a spell, so be careful not to start casting in middle of a crowd that's going to get their turns.
Hope this helps! The CT/Speed system is why FFT's magic is more interesting than most SRPGs, at least in my opinion.
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No amount of planning will ever replace dumb luck.
My impression was that Yell and Accumulate allow you to run circles around enemies and get tons of JP and EXP with no effort, superpowering you very early in the game relative to the story battle levels.
this
-- Barry Bonds, the True Home Run King! Ed Reed and Joe Flacco >>> Troy Polamalu and Benny Let-down
1. Why would you want to gain a bunch of levels? 2. There's lots of ways to gain lots of levels; just wander around and fight randoms, for instance. It's an RPG, you can grind. 3. You can gain levels faster later in the game. 4. You don't need a lot of JP or exp to make a party that steamrolls chapter 1. (In fact, you can steamroll chapter 1 while still finishing the chapter with your entire party at level 2 or level 3 or so).
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision
My impression was that Yell and Accumulate allow you to run circles around enemies and get tons of JP and EXP with no effort, superpowering you very early in the game relative to the story battle levels.
You can basically do this however you choose, e.g. basic attacking an ally + Chakra, and so forth. I would argue that because story battle foes do not level scale up when you exceed them, any kind of dedicated EXP grinding is indeed overpowered but the particular method you choose to do so is not necessarily.
Overpowered things IMO would be things the AI just never seems equipped to handle, like Blade Grasp, 03 Faith, or Summon Magic.
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"Getting lucky 100% of the time... it's called PRO SKILL." -BlAcK TuRtLe
metroid composite posted... Yeah, file me with Ness on this one.
1. Why would you want to gain a bunch of levels? 2. There's lots of ways to gain lots of levels; just wander around and fight randoms, for instance. It's an RPG, you can grind. 3. You can gain levels faster later in the game. 4. You don't need a lot of JP or exp to make a party that steamrolls chapter 1. (In fact, you can steamroll chapter 1 while still finishing the chapter with your entire party at level 2 or level 3 or so).
1. You're kidding, right? 2. Early, effortlessly. Those are the things I said. 3. EARLY. 4. It's a game, you can do things anyway you like. Just trying to explain what I thought he meant. You disagree that they're the "best abilities". I don't care about that.
And I want to make it clear that I have no opinion about what the "most game breaking" abilities are in the game. But for a newbie, since that's what this topic is about, those abilities are the easiest to abuse where he is. That's what I felt Demon Hunter was saying.
Had work all day, will probably play tomorrow morning. I start my SW:TOR Beta Weekend test at 6pm (/stealthbrag) but I will need something to burn away my morning/afternoon.
Gotta say, not a big fan of the plot at all. I have no idea what's going on. My half brothers are evil, apparently. People are fighting over a crown somehow and I am for some reason protecting an adopted princess. I have no idea why Ramza decided to go against his boss the Gaf-darkknightguy but apparently he did, yay. I got to the level where you have to save some Engineer guy named Mustadio but my guys couldnt get over the wall fast enough. I guess I am supposed to buy more of those Spike Boots that have +1Jump (whatever that means) before I should try again.
Delita also left with a cryptic "I am doing what you cannot" or something which I guess means he might try to assassinate my half brothers. That cool I guess. How did he become a "Holy Knight" anyway? And Gafsomething was a Dark Knight? Can I even unlock those job classes? I didn't see anything about it when I read that Jobs FAQ the other day. That one Dark Knight move that lets you hit from far away and steal life is pretty cool. Oh yeah I also rescued a chocobo from some Goblins, should I be using him?
I still have Ramza as a Knight, Blake as a Monk, and Jeanne + Sylvia I changed to Summoners w/ Item secondary. The animation for Summon Magic is total ass but whatever. I still have no idea what classes I should working towards for the endgame. Gonna play it by ear for now.
Tip: If anything about the story doesn't make sense to you, go into the "Brave Story" section of the menu. The main options here to consider are "Records" and "Person" (occasionally "Treasure" will be relevant but not as much). Personally I find the "Person" option more helpful, since there are a lot of characters in the story, and it just helps to see the name with a face and a backstory. The blurb for each person updates as the story progresses, too, so for example their age will increase, it will explain what they've most recently been up to, you can see if anybody has died, etc. The "Records" section is good if you went through any cutscenes too quickly or need a refresher; it will give a short text summary of every cutscene in the game, as well as giving you the option to replay the scene itself. Like I said, I like "Person" better most of the time, but both can be helpful if you're trying to figure out what's happening in the game. I'm doing a first-time playthrough right now myself, and I'm actually enjoying the story. Quality is subjective, of course, but also the translation isn't great, so it might take a little effort on the player's part to re-read stuff and see what's going on. If you're that unhappy with the plot, though, the whole "Brave Story" section might seem like a waste of time, so it's up to you.
-- bokonon get your sense-making the **** out of this topic now - Cat1001 Brawl FC: 1461-9803-2942 /// X-Box Live Gamertag: AGGGH