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On September 06 2015 00:18 Ketara wrote:
I wouldn't call FFT the best turn based strategy game around. It's probably not even the best for PS1. Brigandine is pretty good.
But it's not bad, and it's got possibly the best story of any FF game, and great music too. I lurve it.
And you shouldn't have to grind ever to beat FFT. There's only one mission in the whole game where it should feel too difficult without grinding, and that one is admittedly a bunch of RNG crap and a badly designed mission. If you just try it a few times you'll luck out.
This is very problematic. I only finished chapter 2 but as far as I can tell at this point, FFT is too RNG dependent due to the variety of ways you can miss and the "random" AI behaviour (I don't think AI is actually random, but it's hard to predict the range of enemy units due to elevation, jump, and line of sight factors... heck, I find it very difficult to predict these things for my own units). I don't want to keep replaying the level knowing that my success mostly lies with RNG.
I can beat Fire Emblem games without grinding on highest difficulty (maybe except Luna+ for Awakening) - despite their random elements, it's still fairly tame. FFT is a chaotic mess with perm death mechanics.
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There's only one mission in the game that's like that though.
I think it's at the end of chapter 3? I don't want to spoil it.
There's one mission where you can literally lose before getting to move once and it's retarded, and you either have to grind till your guys are so fast that they move first, or replay it until you get to move before the mission ends.
Everything else is beatable with good strategery without grinding.
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On September 06 2015 00:35 Ketara wrote:
There's only one mission in the game that's like that though.
I think it's at the end of chapter 3? I don't want to spoil it.
There's one mission where you can literally lose before getting to move once and it's retarded, and you either have to grind till your guys are so fast that they move first, or replay it until you get to move before the mission ends.
Everything else is beatable with good strategery without grinding.
Unfortunately any good strategy can be easily ruined by a Rend Armor or Steal Heart.
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Wow, I'm like the opposite. I haaaated the FFTAs when I tried them out, but I loved the first FFT. I loved FFT so much that I literally grinded the game to level 60-70 just because grinding was *fun*. Initially the story was pretty good but later it more or less fell off a cliff and I didn't care about it any more, I only finished it on a whim.
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On September 06 2015 00:43 phyvo wrote:
Wow, I'm like the opposite. I haaaated the FFTAs when I tried them out, but I loved the first FFT. I loved FFT so much that I literally grinded the game to level 60-70 just because grinding was *fun*. Initially the story was pretty good but later it more or less fell off a cliff and I didn't care about it any more, I only finished it on a whim.
I think FFTA2 is a lot better, actually. The game is a lot more polished there are a lot of interesting side quests.
Magick Frenzy and Blood Price are problematic, but they are not necessities and you still have to deal with Laws like "Actions by Humes/Viera/Targeting an Area".
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I never really tried to play FFTA. I started it once, played a few missions, it seemed alright, then people started telling me that it didn't have the depth of story that FFT had and I just sort of immediately stopped playing it.
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On September 06 2015 00:51 Ketara wrote:
I never really tried to play FFTA. I started it once, played a few missions, it seemed alright, then people started telling me that it didn't have the depth of story that FFT had and I just sort of immediately stopped playing it.
Generally speaking, I recommend playing FFTA2 instead.
Not a heavy story like FFT, but FFTA2 has a lot of characters and interesting side quests (quest chains) which one can explore.
FFTA2 also removed some of the worst systems in FFT/FFTA (like frontal attack miss % - in FFTA2 you just do less damage in frontal attack)
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On September 05 2015 22:13 Scip wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2015 15:22 Ketara wrote:
Yeah apparently the original ending was not a happy ending, reading about it.
It got changed because sad endings don't sell igezz. Fking Christopher Nolan's ego shoulda just went with his brother's idea the alternate ending sounded so much cooler and the ending just partially ruined the movie for me zzz
+ Show Spoiler +
haven't seen it but people generally were saying that it was good and then it all got ruined by HURR MAT DAYYYYYMONNNN
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United States47024 Posts
On September 06 2015 00:39 Sufficiency wrote:
Unfortunately any good strategy can be easily ruined by a Rend Armor or Steal Heart.
Steal Heart has only 3 range and is opposite-gender only. The gender-specific targeting is really stupid and arbitrary, but it also gives an opportunity to play around the ability, so I wouldn't consider it one of the big offender skills.
On September 06 2015 00:51 Ketara wrote:
I never really tried to play FFTA. I started it once, played a few missions, it seemed alright, then people started telling me that it didn't have the depth of story that FFT had and I just sort of immediately stopped playing it.
FFTA has a certain plot theme that ties the entire narrative together, and if you miss out on that idea, the story seems very shallow.
The story *is* shallow but there's sort of a reason for that.
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On September 06 2015 01:20 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2015 00:39 Sufficiency wrote:
Unfortunately any good strategy can be easily ruined by a Rend Armor or Steal Heart. Steal Heart has only 3 range and is opposite-gender only. The gender-specific targeting is really stupid and arbitrary, but it also gives an opportunity to play around the ability, so I wouldn't consider it one of the big offender skills.
It is a huge offender unless you can somehow get enough EXP from the storyline to run a gender exclusive party. It's difficult to deal with because the chance to land is too high and it shows up too early in the game.
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United States47024 Posts
On September 06 2015 01:22 Sufficiency wrote:
It is a huge offender unless you can somehow get enough EXP from the storyline to run a gender exclusive party. It's difficult to deal with because the chance to land is too high and it shows up too early in the game.
I consider it less of an offender than Arithmetician/Calculator existing in the game. Especially since Charm can be broken on damage anyway and you can attack allies.
EDIT: Also, Sufficiency, did you end up getting around to actually playing Thracia? I'm curious about your thoughts on it (I know you hated Genealogy, which is a damn shame, but Thracia is much closer to the FE games you're familiar with).
EDIT 2: Where is LorTolk for this FFT discussion? Doesn't he love this game?
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Doesn't everybody love FFT.
If they made an FFT book I'd read it.
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I think I played 10-12 chapters or so of Thracia. But I lost interests on it because the UI is way too hard to use and some of the mechanics are just downright stupid (capture, permanent Sleep, scrolls).
Staff miss % wasn't as bad as I initially thought though.
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United States47024 Posts
Capture is like the most fun thing about Thracia, lol. Scrolls would be fine if the game had some mechanic to discourage you from passing them back and forth on your team.
Fatigue is probably the "worst" of Thracia's unique mechanics (it's kind of whatever when it shows up first, but it gets way worse as the game becomes more and more about your staff users and high level staves are an enormous stamina drain), esp. since the "optimal" solution to it is to arena abuse and buy a ludicrous amount of stamina drinks since they shop that sells them comes like 1 chapter after the first arena.
It's a shame that the old UIs of Genealogy and Thracia bother you so much, but oh well. In general, I still enjoy Thracia more than any of the GBA emblems (I absolutely hate 6 and 8, and while I objectively acknowledge that 7 is a good game, I just don't ever feel like I'm having fun playing it).
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I want to play tactics ogre now the one for the GBA.
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FFTA is ridiculously easy even without doing any grinding at all because the balance of races and classes is deeply flawed, and a lot of abilities are ridiculous to obtain due to said equipments (not as absurd as Ultima I recon, but using a specific class combo on the main character in missions where you can't setup beforehand (or the last savepoint) is artificial too).
If the AI was actually using abilities in FFTA (and not 3 of the most basic abilities for their job) you'd have stuff like Steal: ability, or the combos on archers (destroy, steal, instakill, about anything on 95% chance even against thieves from the front) and it'd be bullshit.
You also have a lot of abilities which are useless because they never get triggered (the abilities to bypass Reaction when there's usually a stronger, more easily obtainable ability which will not trigger Attack command-based Reactions; or these Reactions which only work against Attack, and thus are only a deterrent, or for a combo with Berserk (there's no interesting way to trigger that status effect).
Tbh I never noticed the effects of the Zodiac system, I'm ready to admit that it isn't good because of that (Tactics Ogre has a more prevalent system, I have no idea how the "morale" bar works though). Elevation I don't know the details of but it's pretty intuitive: you're less accurate and worse at dodging when you're fighting someone uphill from you. You can check the tiles for their exact elevation (it's in a corner of the screen), you can switch the camera around as you please (L/R buttons on PS).
I have no issues with perm-death (FFTA has the Jagds) and only once was not getting to cast in time a worry for me (I still managed it). If you can't raise someone in time you've usually got bigger issues than that (Tactics Ogre has immediate permadeath iirc, unless you use a very rare item?).
I didn't have an issue with unit turn + cast time but maybe it's the UI? It showcased pretty clearly when I'd get to act to me (and it made some decisions interesting, for example whether to cast on a unit or a tile, especially as the AI acknowledges what you do: I nuked a mage once, and he'd die from it, so he just went melee with two of my units and whacked one of them because he wouldn't have time to cast, so that I took collateral damage too; in other cases if you send an AoE adjacent to your units the AI won't walk there and eat it), the bigger issue was how useless something like Charge+X was for archers because at high numbers, not only they'd do more damage with lower Xs spammed more often, but they'd simply never get to attack since they'd get interrupted.
Mediator is a dumb class if you want that, and I'll give it to you.
As I mentioned, FFTA has the equivalent to all of Rend, it's just the AI never gets to use any actual class ability.
In an unrelated topic, I just watched Mad Max 2. I won't say it's the best movie I've ever seen but it was pretty enjoyable, it had some kitsch or cringey moments but they didn't detract from the good points, and the atmosphere and stuff (especially visually) was great.
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On September 06 2015 00:49 Sufficiency wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2015 00:43 phyvo wrote:
Wow, I'm like the opposite. I haaaated the FFTAs when I tried them out, but I loved the first FFT. I loved FFT so much that I literally grinded the game to level 60-70 just because grinding was *fun*. Initially the story was pretty good but later it more or less fell off a cliff and I didn't care about it any more, I only finished it on a whim. I think FFTA2 is a lot better, actually. The game is a lot more polished there are a lot of interesting side quests. Magick Frenzy and Blood Price are problematic, but they are not necessities and you still have to deal with Laws like "Actions by Humes/Viera/Targeting an Area".
I guess I could give it another shot again.
..also, mediator was the best class because that way you could get monster classes for the funzies.
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On September 06 2015 02:00 Alaric wrote:
FFTA is ridiculously easy even without doing any grinding at all because the balance of races and classes is deeply flawed, and a lot of abilities are ridiculous to obtain due to said equipments (not as absurd as Ultima I recon, but using a specific class combo on the main character in missions where you can't setup beforehand (or the last savepoint) is artificial too).
Why is easy a bad thing?
Also, again, it's a single player game: balance is not an issue. Also keep in mind that the "lesser races" are not that bad because Nu Mou and Bangaa can both get Ultima + Half MP, while Moogles are Moogles.
If the AI was actually using abilities in FFTA (and not 3 of the most basic abilities for their job) you'd have stuff like Steal: ability, or the combos on archers (destroy, steal, instakill, about anything on 95% chance even against thieves from the front) and it'd be bullshit.
You also have a lot of abilities which are useless because they never get triggered (the abilities to bypass Reaction when there's usually a stronger, more easily obtainable ability which will not trigger Attack command-based Reactions; or these Reactions which only work against Attack, and thus are only a deterrent, or for a combo with Berserk (there's no interesting way to trigger that status effect).
AI not using many abilities is a good thing. It's already too crazy due to different ability combinations beyond the outer appearance of the unit's class. By the way FFT also has tons of useless abilities.
Tbh I never noticed the effects of the Zodiac system, I'm ready to admit that it isn't good because of that (Tactics Ogre has a more prevalent system, I have no idea how the "morale" bar works though). Elevation I don't know the details of but it's pretty intuitive: you're less accurate and worse at dodging when you're fighting someone uphill from you. You can check the tiles for their exact elevation (it's in a corner of the screen), you can switch the camera around as you please (L/R buttons on PS).
Elevation system affects "line of sight" which affects the range of certain abilities and whether or not they can actually hit. It's more than just accuracy.
I have no issues with perm-death (FFTA has the Jagds) and only once was not getting to cast in time a worry for me (I still managed it). If you can't raise someone in time you've usually got bigger issues than that (Tactics Ogre has immediate permadeath iirc, unless you use a very rare item?).
I didn't have an issue with unit turn + cast time but maybe it's the UI? It showcased pretty clearly when I'd get to act to me (and it made some decisions interesting, for example whether to cast on a unit or a tile, especially as the AI acknowledges what you do: I nuked a mage once, and he'd die from it, so he just went melee with two of my units and whacked one of them because he wouldn't have time to cast, so that I took collateral damage too; in other cases if you send an AoE adjacent to your units the AI won't walk there and eat it), the bigger issue was how useless something like Charge+X was for archers because at high numbers, not only they'd do more damage with lower Xs spammed more often, but they'd simply never get to attack since they'd get interrupted.
Say you cast Fire on an enemy target. You can only ballpark whether or not the target will move before the channel completes. That's a serious problem.
Perm death is problematic because it makes the earlier game unusually hard when no one has Pheonix Down. FFTA's Jagd isn't really a big issue.
Mediator is a dumb class if you want that, and I'll give it to you.
As I mentioned, FFTA has the equivalent to all of Rend, it's just the AI never gets to use any actual class ability.
Using Rend as a player is fine. Enemies using Rend absolutely sucks. Rend abilities should give a temporary debuff, end of story.
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On September 06 2015 02:01 phyvo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2015 00:49 Sufficiency wrote:On September 06 2015 00:43 phyvo wrote:
Wow, I'm like the opposite. I haaaated the FFTAs when I tried them out, but I loved the first FFT. I loved FFT so much that I literally grinded the game to level 60-70 just because grinding was *fun*. Initially the story was pretty good but later it more or less fell off a cliff and I didn't care about it any more, I only finished it on a whim. I think FFTA2 is a lot better, actually. The game is a lot more polished there are a lot of interesting side quests. Magick Frenzy and Blood Price are problematic, but they are not necessities and you still have to deal with Laws like "Actions by Humes/Viera/Targeting an Area". I guess I could give it another shot again. ..also, mediator was the best class because that way you could get monster classes for the funzies.
FFTA2 has Blue Mage. You know what to do.
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It's more about how Mediator lets you manipulate a lot of stuff once you get a battle down to the last man and either disarm him, perma-sleep him, or something while your mediators run around adjusting your party's stats. 
Oh, yeah, elevation rule of thumb: bows and crossbows and stuff lose/gain one range per difference in tile elevation between the shooting tile and targeted tile. Guns are LoS, and I didn't have an issue with these, even with the camera.
Edit: eh, Rend is the kind of grief-ability either way because in PvP you get builds made to destroy stuff (Merchants, I think? had that in Ragnarok Online, builds to just destroy the other guy's whole equipment; the Rogues had Strip, which unequips a piece of equipement with a debuff to requipping something in the next X seconds). And if it's single player the AI usually doesn't care that its equipment gets destroyed because the unit's never gonna be used again.
Rend does exist in FFTA, Viera (markswomen? The class above Archer, I don't know its English name) have access to it.
But the best part of that for Viera is that Assassins are the fastest class in the game and have an instantkill move. Give them the Support skill for base 95% accuracy on everything, use the above-Archer skillset as your second one so have access to the ability turning you invisible, and you get invisible turn one, act faster than anyone in the game, and can OHKO anything except bosses with a 95% rate before you turn invisible again.
Ultima+half HP is meh in comparaison. Actually, you can use White Mage's Double MP combined with one of the Ultima skills to OHKO a bunch of stuff instead (the "poor" version is Paladin with Double MP and using their single-target Holy weapon-attack. Doubles your base damage, doubles again because Double MP, and doubles again against Undeads).
Nu Mou have the strongest magical nukes, but Moogles don't bring anything special to the table (boss fights don't have big enough terrain for the gunners to shine, and save for this or Pandora they're outclassed everywhere).
My grip with the easy game is when it gets trivial. I'm annoyed at BG2, sure, but that's because I know I'm bad at D&D and minmaxing that stuff, and I'm playing the game for the story and the banter with no interest in the fights whatsoever, so I'm not blaming the game for it.
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EPT
