Current Events > playing Final Fantasy Tactics for the first time AMA

(+) Yeah! (+)

Here are some of my old poems about FFT -

*Spoiler Safety Warning*

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/197339-final-fantasy-tactics/58337916

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PMarth2002 posted...

I like most of that, but why knowledgable for knights?

Knights are Killers and often abusive
Ninjas are Nasty, but also elusive

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Why minmax when Calculator - Holy plus your party wearing Holy absorbing robes will kill everything in the game (and heal your team in full)? If you want to break the game just do it the easy way.

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why even bother with calculator when you can steamroll everything with Orlandeau?

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Okay, TC, I'll ask you a question. Are you enjoying the game?

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I so sick of getting my heart broken over this game. Just update me!!!!!

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DuranOfForcena posted...

wtf is this about unlocking a unique job by absorbing a crystal? never heard of it.

It's an old, *old* joke/troll/meme from the original PS1 Final Fantasy Tactics.

Pretty much the "revive Aeris" of that game.
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EIiza posted...

Did TC die?

Last post was 5 days ago

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Tag for later

I own the black label version.

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lol tc left

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I tried playing through the original FFT (and later WotL) for the first time earlier this year. Much to my shame, I just wasn't enjoying it and ended up giving up. Alas, it just wasn't for me.

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Fantastein posted...

I tried playing through the original FFT (and later WotL) for the first time earlier this year. Much to my shame, I just wasn't enjoying it and ended up giving up. Alas, it just wasn't for me.

How far did you get??

KLouD_KoNNeCteD posted...

How far did you get??

I believe I was at the start of Chapter 4. I really wanted to like it and kept pushing through, but eventually it just got to the point where I couldn't be bothered.

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DuranOfForcena posted...

since stat growth has been mentioned, one thing i don't get is, according to this table:

https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Stat_growth_(Tactics)#Normal_jobs_2

almost every normal job has the same Magic Attack growth rate, and it's low? is that accurate? if that's the case, wouldn't it best for your mages to just level them up as Ninjas as much as you can for the higher speed growth?

It is accurate, but as another states, speed and charge abilities have issues with each other.

If you reach your turn first, then cast a spell, there is a large chance for no enemies to stuck in range when it finally casts. Whereas if you got your turn second, you now have a huge window to land a very long charge on many targets.

It's why they gave Summoner a slightly lower speed multiplier.

DuranOfForcena posted...

i have them both with Swiftness. landing spells has never been an issue for me. i usually target the unit when that's the better option anyway, not the tile. and in any case, once i get their speed up to where they are taking 2 or 3 turns before the enemy even takes one, the enemies are not going to get the opportunity to move.

Ninja do give a better speed level growth, but it's not that extreme. IMO it's not worth training as a class just to get some stat points in FFT.

Over the course of the game I would consider it a design flaw of the game, how speed makes charging spells worse and worse as the game goes on, while at the same time those giant spells require much more JP to unlock.
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EIiza posted...

Did TC die?

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I try to get into this game once every few years because I'm desperate for old school FF vibes after beating all of them already.

I tried wotl last week and it was the worst version thus far. They threw an awful medieval dead language filter over the dialog, made the text blurry, and now every character looks like the same generic ceramic angel you see in old people's homes. This game was hard enough to keep up with at the start ffs.

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I actually like WotL dialogue.

The version I always play is the modded PSP version. It runs so bad on PSP it was optimized by a fan patch to run perfectly (which shows the port was weirdly lazy on the technical side of things despite paying for an entirely new translation). Also it rescales the resolution so it's not all stretched, which is nice.

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^ I hear the one for your iPads or whatever fixed all those issues as well. But I don't like WotL simply because all I do is challenge runs. I don't have any time for all that extra shit they give you, I don't like all the name changes for skills, and I don't like them taking away my items I can steal [which isn't a big deal because I never steal that shit anyways, lol]

But yeah, I hope TC is alright IRL. Just vanished. Have they even been active yet? Last time I checked it had been like 4 or 5 days

• Yes, they were last here 2 days ago. At least that's what their history says, lol

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DuranOfForcena posted...

thanks, but i dunno, like i said, i don't really have much issue with landing spells with my mages. i target the unit and not the tile if they are gonna move. and if my mage's turn comes up at a bad time and/or the charge times are all longer than i'd want them to be i usually just pass turn without taking an action, so their next turn comes up sooner, which usually works out to better timing.

but anyway, it doesn't matter much, cuz i'm mostly just destroying everything with Orlandeau now. not much of the game left to go for me.

Oh yeah, speed vs charging is not a big deal in practice, because the game isn't too hard on us. Just from a technical pov having instant attacks get better as the game goes on (like Orlandeau) over magic is a pet peeve. Like having enemies who have spells locked on them kamikaze into your units (and losing multi enemy hitting on a spell if the spell is unit targeted) because they move due to the enemy only being 10 CT from their turn because your mage was slightly faster than the enemy.
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why speed even an issue with casting?
as if you're dumb enough to not check the cast time and unit turn list, they even provided the list in game ffs. just press the right directional button when selecting a spell, and you can see when will the spell lands.

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Ricemills posted...

why speed even an issue with casting?
as if you're dumb enough to not check the cast time and unit turn list, they even provided the list in game ffs. just press the right directional button when selecting a spell, and you can see when will the spell lands.

Because if you go before the mobs, they will always move before you can land them. You can fix by CT manipulation. Its a very minor issue since not many people are running around with Ninjas that have Black Magic or Summons


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Bad_Mojo posted...

Because if you go before the mobs, they will always move before you can land them. You can fix by CT manipulation. Its a very minor issue since not many people are running around with Ninjas that have Black Magic or Summons

like i said, check the turn list.
you can see if the spell will land before or after they moved.

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Ricemills posted...

like i said, check the turn list.
you can see if the spell will land before or after they moved.

You're missing the point. It does me no good to know that the spell would land after they moved if I don't know how to arrange things so I can get a spell off before they move. I've seen plenty of complaints from inexperienced players about mages becoming "useless" because their mages were just barely faster than the enemies and they didn't know how to compensate.

Get a chocobo. Run between two blue dots till red army.

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Ricemills posted...

they even provided the list in game ffs

duh.

But consider several issues.

1) Your ninja'd mage is speed 15 (not even considering Haste and haste equips), that means any spell that takes over 7 ticks to cast now takes TWO of your action turns. (since you will get your second turn before the spell casts) Is 1 spell worth 2 turns? Or is it better to instead use 2 instant attacks? Especially late game, you'd probably be better served with the instant attacks. (on top of MP usage and MP Switch reaction abilities being a strong case for MP usage instead)

2) You have your Ninja leveled mage of speed 15, that takes 7 clock ticks to get your turn on avg. Then your enemy of speed 14 will take about 8 clock ticks to get their turn. There is no charged attack in the game that can hit in that time. This will be an issue for the whole battle. However if it was reversed, and your mage had speed 14 and the enemies are at speed 15, now you have a huge window to land your charge spells on the average.

3) You can say "use the charge speed support skill!", which can be counter replied with "or better yet, use attack up support or another more helpful support instead of trying to mitigate a weakness you dont need by speeding up charging."

4) This shows that speed isn't always a good thing.

In other words, there is absolutely a conflict between going first or last (speed) and charge times, rather than the contention made earlier in the thread of "Why wouldn't you just min max always level up as a Ninja for the speed on your mage?"

It's a game design issue that might be better solved another way by the devs. But whatever, these are picky 20 year old game debates.
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tiornys posted...

You're missing the point. It does me no good to know that the spell would land after they moved if I don't know how to arrange things so I can get a spell off before they move. I've seen plenty of complaints from inexperienced players about mages becoming "useless" because their mages were just barely faster than the enemies and they didn't know how to compensate.

it was fucking simple.
check the turn list.
if the spell will land before they move, cast it. if it will land after they moved, don't cast it.
caster's speed has nothing to do with this.

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Ricemills posted...

it was fucking simple.
check the turn list.
if the spell will land before they move, cast it. if it will land after they moved, don't cast it.
caster's speed has nothing to do with this.

Wooosh!

Ricemills posted...

it was fucking simple.
check the turn list.
if the spell will land before they move, cast it. if it will land after they moved, don't cast it.
caster's speed has nothing to do with this.

Here are the replies that the discussion is related to.

DuranOfForcena posted...

since stat growth has been mentioned, one thing i don't get is, according to this table:

https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Stat_growth_(Tactics)#Normal_jobs_2

almost every normal job has the same Magic Attack growth rate, and it's low? is that accurate? if that's the case, wouldn't it best for your mages to just level them up as Ninjas as much as you can for the higher speed growth?

DuranOfForcena posted...

lol i dunno i wouldn't really consider minmaxing weird. i have already been leveling all my main party as Ninjas for the higher speed growth, but i wasn't planning on doing it forever, especially for the frontline characters who would benefit from more HP growth. but if there is literally no normal job whose magic attack growth is higher than any other jobs', i might as well just level my mages as Ninjas for the rest of the game, right? i mean, if that table is accurate about magic attack growth.

Bad_Mojo posted...

You dont want your magic users to be faster. You want the enemy to go right before you so you can land spells. If you go right before them, the theyll move before the spell lands.

We all know about the list, Rice.
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Put it this way. Rice is answering the question "how do I tell if my spell goes before or after the enemy?"

We're discussing the question of "how do I best arrange things so my spells always go before the enemy?"

are you feigning ignorance or just genuine?
like i said multiple time, if the spell wont land at the desirable time, then just don't cast it.
CT bar are not fully depleted if you take no action, and you just need to adjust which is the right time to cast.
with higher speed, then you have more window of opportunity for the right time to cast.

this "higher speed is bad for caster" is just a mumbo jumbo theory. people who actually plays the game has no problem with high speed casters.

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Yeah, we're not casting the spells and they're missing . We're just wasting turns not doing anything because the spell will miss.

Again, this is a very minor issue because like I said, no one is using Thieves or Ninjas to cast those sort of spells. Well, maybe Time Magic with Short Charge on a Ninja so you can get a Haste

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tiornys posted...

We're discussing the question of "how do I best arrange things so my spells always go before the enemy?"

Correct

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Bad_Mojo posted...

Yeah, we're not casting the spells and they're missing . We're just wasting turns not doing anything because the spell will miss.

Again, this is a very minor issue because like I said, no one is using Thieves or Ninjas to cast those sort of spells. Well, maybe Time Magic with Short Charge on a Ninja so you can get a Haste

White Mage has a significant speed bump. Plenty of gear adds speed including the two best hats. Levels add speed.

It's a minor issue for experienced players like us who understand the CT system (although I will say that I often adjust equipment so that my mages have the same speed as the enemy instead of 1 higher just to avoid having to do CT manipulation in the early rounds). It's often a significant issue for inexperienced players who don't know how to manipulate CT, because they can easily end up never finding a window for casting a spell and that makes your mages feel pretty useless.

Ricemills posted...

this "higher speed is bad for caster" is just a mumbo jumbo theory.

It doesn't affect the normal game as much because the normal game is easy.

It does affect things in challenge runs, speed runs, hacked FFT mods, and in extreme speed situations.

The contention is: leveling Attack stat is always good, leveling the Magic stat is always good, leveling the Speed stat is always...? good. The correct answer for Speed is "not-always", when you are talking mages (chargers).
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Notti posted...

The contention is: leveling Attack stat is always good, leveling the Magic stat is always good, leveling the Speed stat is always...? good. The correct answer for Speed is "not-always", when you are talking mages (chargers).

no, i still stand by my opinion. high speed is good for casters.
maybe lower speed is good for the first turn where the enemy is within range, but as the battle goes on the higher speed will have the advantage.

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seems like you're just being stubborn ricemills.

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i genuinely never has the chance to see that lower speed is an advantage, not just in this game but in any other tactics game.

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Ricemills posted...

i genuinely never has the chance to see that lower speed is an advantage, not just in this game but in any other tactics game.

Again, it doesn't really matter. Being slower does help mages, but only because it will let them go after the enemy does. But all of your magic users will already go after them, so of course you would never run into this issue

CT management isn't a newbie thing, we're all just talking about random crap now because TC abandoned us

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Meh, I stop caring about spell charge time once I get fully mastered Arithmeticks, at which point magic becomes the most busted skill set in the game, even all the special characters with powerful sword techs can't compete with "blast everything with Sleep/Toad/Holy from anywhere instantly".
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Arithmeticks is so broken that we barely bother mentioning it most of the time on the FFT boards. In any discussion about powerful things or broken builds, the consensus is that Arithmeticks already won first prize and we're just talking about what comes in 2nd.

tiornys posted...

Arithmeticks is so broken that we barely bother mentioning it most of the time on the FFT boards. In any discussion about powerful things or broken builds, the consensus is that Arithmeticks already won first prize and we're just talking about what comes in 2nd.

Theyre not all that good in 1v1. They are the most broken class, but a lot of the classes can beat it 1 on 1. Even a Dancer could beat it 1 on 1

They can only do well against AI armies

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Calculators are not necessarily great. I maintain that the Arithmeticks skillset is ridiculously broken.

tiornys posted...

Arithmeticks is so broken that we barely bother mentioning it most of the time on the FFT boards. In any discussion about powerful things or broken builds, the consensus is that Arithmeticks already won first prize and we're just talking about what comes in 2nd.

that's good! a consensus, is a very important thing!

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