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1

Game Design and Modifications / Re: LFT: An FFT mod (The final release is a lie. Download here!)

« on: November 08, 2024, 04:00:52 AM »

N.B. I'm still on Chapter 2 so I can't be sure everything elemental is working right, but so far haven't noticed anything wrong.

I could consider joining the discord (cursory search didn't turn up a link to it though...). This current run got got started due to the fiesta that just started but none of my usual haunts are big on FFT so I don't have many people to talk about it with.

2

Game Design and Modifications / Re: LFT: An FFT mod (The final release is a lie. Download here!)

« on: November 04, 2024, 04:00:21 PM »

Hi, I've been doing another run on LFT and encountered a bizarre bug where Fire-elemental damage from all sources was doing extremely low (single-digit) damage regardless of source. I hadn't had this problem on previous runs - the only thing I could think of was that maybe switching emulators to Duckstation had caused or revealed a problem. At any rate I was able to fix it by installing the Elemental Fix v3 hack through FFTPatcher's FFTorgASM tool, so on the off chance that anyone else has the same problem maybe this message will help.

Love the mod in general though. It's become my default whenever I feel like playing FFT, and at this point I have several times more hours put into LFT than vanilla. Thanks to everyone who worked on it over the years.

3

Game Design and Modifications / Re: LFT: An FFT mod (The final release is a lie. Download here!)

« on: December 26, 2018, 08:18:17 PM »

Over the past week, I beat LFT! For the last series of maps, I swapped my units into their "final" jobs. Thus Ramza took up the punchy Ninja mantle, and my Samurai became once again a Geomancer; between the Rune Blade, Aegis Shield and Genji Gloves even Elemental became surprisingly powerful.

UBS B4: Was not expecting some of the wild setups in this mission. I was thinking I was pretty cool for having a Perseus Bow, and already here's a generic Archer carrying one! Almost makes me wish I had equipped Talk Skill or Steal. Luckily the Archer tried to Charge on Ramza, allowing my own Perseus Bowman to nail him with Weapon Break - and thanks to his Vanish Mantle it would always succeed. My good old Wizard made use of Quick to help dodge a Jump and Death to deal with the MP Switch Lancer easily. My Draw Out unit ended up using Elemental more often - the longer range was sometimes key. Plus I got a clutch Don't Act proc on one of the Lancers which helpfully negated his Blade Grasp foolery. My own Archer's Charge came in handy for combining with others' attacks to score 2HKOs, but I wished I had taken Concentrate instead of Attack UP; too many enemy units with significant evasion one way or another. Charge really did impress me with how useful it still was - I even used Charge+10 once!

UBS B5: This, in contrast, was quick and easy. I pretty much rushed down Rofel with Flare, Holy, Heaven Thunder and Mustadio Stone Gun shots. It helped that the priests weren't interested in healing Rofel when he got down to critical, and Rofel himself elected to cast Quick on himself three times in a row while my last Flare was pending on him.

Murond Death City: At first this seemed quite tricky - the enemies here, especially the Ninjas, have an imposing offense and Kletian is too sturdy to rush down. But I managed to win on my second try with a little bit of thought. My Perseus Bow Archer got the first turn and used it to Armor Break Kletian, making him much less durable in a stroke. The Ninjas went up and threw stuff at Ramza, but thanks to MP Switch he survived. The front Time Mage began charging Demi 2 on him, so he went right up in her face and used Chakra. That way the spell would hit her and a Ninja too, which prove fatal combined with an Asura from Rafa that also caught Kletian in a few hits. Kletian himself charged Flare on her in response, but that only allowed my Archer to sneak in a nice Charge +3. At this point my other units were dropping like flies, but between my Lancer stabbing Kletian and my Archer getting another Charge off the battle was won in short order. A deceptively tough battle where Armor Break made all the difference.

Lost Sacred Precincts: Somehow I won this on my first try without really intending to. I first moved my Archer to Weapon Break Balk, then had my Lancer Jump on the Chemist while the others fought off the incoming Hydras. I layered on Kiyomori and Haste 2 early on which proved to be essential, because Ramza fell to a Triple Flame and I had no other source of revival; so quickly we finished off the hydras, Frogged the Dark Behemoth (though I probably could have just avoided it), and jumped the gap to take on Balk before Ramza could crystallize. A combination of Elemental and Muramasa from my Geomancer, Charge and Jump managed to chew through his 550 HP in time; I had a further Charge and Fire 4 pending which could also have done the job if Arm Aim or misses had interfered.

Hashmalum: Had to figure out how to get everyone to survive his opening attack, but once I did he wasn't too bad; layering Kiyomori and Haste 2, then putting Slow on the big man made him a lot more manageable, and Damage Split was circumvented with repeated use of Threaten. Jump, Elemental and Ramza throwing Yagyuus served as the main damage source here. I did get a scare when Haste/Shell on my guys and Slow on Hashmalum all wore off and he killed two people with Quake, but by that point he was low enough I was able to rush down his remaining HP.

Time for Altima! I brought Mustadio, Rafa, my Lancer and my Archer to the battle. Ramza switched to Ubersquire with Attack UP and...Charge! Yes, really. Altima's first turn consisted of charging Ultima on Alma, who MBarriered herself and redirected the damage to Altmia + two demons. The Ultima Demons played nice and didn't throw around anything too scary, partly because only two of them got to act at all, Ulmaguesting some of my units and punching Rafa to death. That didn't help them much, and neither did Altima trying to Mbarrier the last Demon - Ramza was able to get in there, and thanks to Charge+2 was able to kill it before just before Mbarrier landed and its turn came up. Between Stone Gun shots, jumps and Perseus Bow Charges Altima's HP ran out swiftly.

Altima 2 was if anything more painless. The worst he did was target Return 2 on a cluster of units, but my Archer, who, it was centered on, got his turn before it resolved and so only he died. That was the only casualty of the battle. Magic Break from my Lancer cancelled Haste and Wall, and so with everyone Hasted between Excalibur and Mbarrier we kept up pretty well in turns. Later in the fight Mustadio got Berserked by Grand Cross, which only lead to him putting out even more damage with his Stone Gun. Rafa once again got the final blow, with Hydragon Pit at over 400 damage. That was a little disappointing, I have to admit. Hashmalum got more kills and resets out of me!

Stil, overall I really liked my experience with LFT. I might start up a variant run right away - maybe all monsters (plus Ramza)?

4

Game Design and Modifications / Re: LFT: An FFT mod (The final release is a lie. Download here!)

« on: December 17, 2018, 07:54:18 PM »

I actually haven't touched Calculator yet except to pick up Damage Split on one of my units, but Math Skill...that could do it.

Igros: The first half of the battle went by quickly, on my second attempt as with my (not written) first one: Ramza ran forward, and Dycedarg moved onto the post to Lightning Stab him. Unfortunately for him that meant Rafa could charge a Space Storage on him, and when Zalbag helpfully occupied the only other spot it could have hit Dycedarg was quickly ended. Other than the embarrassment of my Oracle getting oneshot by the punching Knight, the entire battle was such a blitz my Lancer never even got to act.

So Adramelk appeared...still on the pillar, of course, so Rafa charged up another Space Storage and Ramza took the spot Zalbag had departed to the hereafter from and gave a good one-two punch. My first attempt ended with doing too much damage to the guy, letting him start a 999-damage Night Sword rampage, so the newly revived Oracle charged up Foxbird to hopefully nix Critical Quick and everyone else moved in closer. Three Space Storages landed for 660 damage, and in response Adramelk cast Undeath, then - stayed in place! With Ramza blocking him he couldn't move anywhere. Rafa's quick enough to get her turn first and lets loose a Heaven Lightning, killing Adramelk before his second action. Nice going, Rafa!

The entrance to Murond was a extremely one-sided. The trouble for the enemies started when my Perseus Bow Archer jumped up and oneshot the Summoner, sending the Priest to cast Raise. One Geomancer walked around and didn't do anything (I guess because of the Float), while the other charged up a ridiculously fatal Holy on Ramza, but before it could go off Rafa managed to preempt and kill the Geo with a quick Asura. Meanwhile in the back, one of the Mediators was oneshot by a Fire 3, while the other was oneshot by a Charge+5 from my Archer. The poor Summoner was revived only to die twice more during this: once when Ramza ran up and punched her to death, and again when Rafa Asura'd her and the other Geomancer.

This was another stage where I brought my Lancer along only for him to contribute absolutely nothing. If I hadn't had the Perseus Bow and thus wasn't able to instakill the Summoner this might have been tougher, what with her and the Priest both being able to take offensive actions...but then again it might have just meant the Archer killing her midcharge instead of right away.

Inside Murond, a combination of Draw Out and Truth put an end to Rofel pretty quickly...except on my first try he broke my Samurai's Genji Armor! What a guy. Didn't try to steal anything this time, because I'd forgotten to save after the first battle. I guess you'd need Concentrate to get past Rofel and his Abandon/Venetian Shield power combo. Probably wouldn't be too tough otherwise. I'd maybe have run some Talk Skillers to constantly Persuade the knights, since they seem to be immune to everything good and decent!

Zombag was a really fun battle. Early tests noted Zalbag's cool Dracula Mantle, along with his tendency to cast Gravi 2 into Counter Magic and cower in the corner afterward; that never ended up happening in the final run, but it would have allowed an easy win if needed. I took my Archer with Steal to grab that Dracula Mantle, though I had some trouble getting him positioned with Steal's bad vert tolerance. But first he Charge +1'd an Archaic Demon and Ramza Screamed, while the other units waited. Shell 2 helped a lot, going off before some otherwise fatal Dark Holies which instead got a taste of Counter Magic, and Slow 2 helped keep Zalbag and the Ultima Demon far from being threatening. With two of them slowed, and a Haste 2 a little later, it was easy to keep Zalbag occupied either reanimating his buddies or killing Ramza over and over. Pretty soon the Mantle was had, and a few physicals and Space Storages later Ramza's other brother was dead.

Now I have plenty of things to try - go to Orbonne and the final series of battles, check out the Colliery or Nelveska, take another crack at the Wizard/Mimic death squad, and more. Sort of leaning towards doing some poaching/propositions, heading for endgame and leaving it at that - I want to do other playthroughs and I can always leave this save file aside for when I want to do the postgame.

5

Game Design and Modifications / Re: LFT: An FFT mod (The final release is a lie. Download here!)

« on: December 12, 2018, 01:57:56 AM »

Deeper into C4 now...

Poeskas Lake was another surprisingly tough fight. First try I went with a tight formation to layer up on Protect/Haste and deployed my Samurai with the Vanish Mantle, in hopes of being able to catch 2+ ghosts with a Muramasa. The Revenants surrounding the start had other ideas however, and while trying to power through them my Priest, normally well protected with a Crystal Shield, was sniped by the Archer while charging up for Cure 3. Then the Oracles and Summoner arrived and it was time to reset. My Samurai did manage to send two of the Oracles into critical but that was too little too late Next time, he Revenants showed off their new trick: AoE Slow. I was able to nullify most of it with a Haste 2 and handle things better; importantly, my Dragoon remained Hasted and was able to start OHKO'ing the ghost mages at speed. That plus a few Silence Songs and Flares preempting the enemies' spells spelled a quick victory.

Limberry Gate was fun. After an experimental first attempt, I equipped Ramza with a Jade Armlet to block Petrify and brought along my Dragoon, Time/Black Mage, Rafa, and Mustadio as an Engineer (I'd poached a Stone Gun and wanted to try it). It turns out, Stone Guns and Two-Handed Dragon Whiskers are really, really strong! Twice we oneshot Apandas with them, with Mustadio gunning down an Apanda that wasn't even charging. Meanwhile Ramza took out Celia (I think it was Celia) all by himself. Yes, really: first off Celia charmed him, causing him to...uncharm himself with Heal. Well, okay! After running towards the rest of the party, he absorbed two Bio 3s, proccing PA Save once, and got a fatal Ultima locked on from a pursuing Celia. So Ramza walked up next to her, hit her with his Defender, regaining just enough HP from Regen to survive the blast. Ultima went off, Celia went into critical, and Ramza learned Ultima! That's actually a first for me.

So, Limberry Castle. I...didn't like this fight. Just defeating Elmdor is hard enough, what with seven hundred(!) hitpoints and innate Def/MDF UP like all the bosses seem to have now and having to contend with Celia/Lede's instant ranged stop or Ultima. But okay, muster enough magical damage and maybe break through Blade Grasp once and you can manage. But trying to steal his stuff, hoo boy, it seriously made me wish I had poached some Chantages just to make this less insane. Many, many failed attempts were had at this, especially before I resigned myself to letting him Muramasa half the team just so he didn't put Haste on which was almost a loss condition by itself. Just getting him alone is a trial; I ended up putting Equip Sword on my Time Mage so he could hold Excalibur and Haste 2 everyone (does Slow work on Elmdor? I didn't check), along with a Steal/Attack UP Monk, my Samurai with Basic Skill for Reinforce, Ramza with Talk Skill and Item, and a Knight also with Basic Skill; lots of Angel Rings equipped too.

The "strategy" I worked out was to Sleep and Frog the Assassins as I could to take them out of the fight, constantly apply Reraise to all of my units and keep them all on low HP so that Elmdor would go for the kill instead of Blood Suck, and slowly wearing away with Speed Break until I could start stealing. This description doesn't do justice to how many permutations I ran through trying to make this work - next time I'm definitely bringing the perfumes. I do admit that I am not that good at this game, so there are probably setups and strategies I didn't consider that would have made all that more reasonable.

As for Zalera, his was a much more enjoyable battle At first I thought this battle was hopeless, with Zalera confusing the whole party before anyone could move while the skeletons tore us up. But with some better positioning, and equipping a couple Barettes, I was able to lure him into starting off with Flare 2. Much more manageable, and my Aegis Shield-toting Oracle could block it too. With that, I was able to get Kiyomori and Haste 2 off, giving me a fighting chance. For the first few turns I retreated to the back and fought off the skeletons; after that threat was taken care of I was able to go on the offensive against Zalera. He'd stopped Meliadoul and Ramza with Spell and killed my Time Mage with another Flare 2, but timely use of Heal and Reinforce more or less nullified that. Between Black and Time Magic Demi 2 did the best damage by a good margin so my Time Mage went with that, my Oracle cast Holy and my Dragoon stabbed for 374 damage, so when I started attacking it was over quickly.

Meliadoul as a Capricorn would play well with the two male Cancers (Ramza and Dragoon Guy) on my team - maybe I'll use her going forward? I like the looks of her Ruin skills too...

Fooling around later I happened upon the Mandalia Plains rare battle. I was, uh, not prepared for the beatdown that ensued. Perhaps a team full of Doubt Faith users could stand up to the endless barrage of spells...but the Mimes punch for like 200 each and I'd have to get pretty lucky to disable them all. Maybe Summoners rocking Titan + Earth Clothes..? Reflect Rings wouldn't help much since the Wizards all have Counter Magic.I kinda want to invite one of those Level 60 Mime Terminators, too.

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Game Design and Modifications / Re: LFT: An FFT mod (The final release is a lie. Download here!)

« on: November 30, 2018, 03:07:09 PM »

That makes sense wrt Bethla Sluice, I hadn't thought about it like that. Writing these after action reports is enjoyable myself, I'll gladly keep doing them.

As for my builds...it's a mix of units with clear, strong builds that I've built towards and units that have been faffing around aimlessly. I've been very happy with my Dragoon, for instance - Jump has consistently been a great, powerful skill, and graduating to Attack UP and, just now after some propositions, Two Hands has kept him OHKOing quite a few enemies or coming close. Similarly, while my Samurai had a rough start with having low Move and durability, now with MAU and higher-tier katanas she's been one of my best damage dealers. My Oracle/Priest has seen a lot of use for utility and status effects - Paralyze, Sleep and Petrify have seen heavy use in particular. Spell Absorb and especially Life Drain seem pretty weak - I guess they'd be good against Zodiac demons? Her time with Weapon Guard/Equip Shield was fun for dodging nearly anything and getting the Aegis Shield MA bonus.

Ramza's been here and there, but he always has his punching Ninja setup whenever tough battles come around. Right now he's working on Knight to pick up Move+1. My Time/Black Magic wizard has also been consistently strong. Short Charge is a big help in allowing him to fire off Flares and such before enemies can act or charge their own stuff. Almost too helpful, really - much as I'd like to try MAU or Equip Gun or w/e I can't see going away from Short Charge now that enemies are starting to get up in Speed. Especially those 11 Speed Ninjas...

My other units are a bunch of experiments. The usefulness of my Archer was a pleasant surprise, but bows are very map-dependent and I haven't wanted to stay in the job when all the important stuff is learned. So he's been bouncing around between Knight (for breaks), Chemist, Mediator, and Thief (for stealing). I was considering trying a casting Archer for a spin, but #1. I soon realized Short Charge doesn't go with Charge, and #2. His MA was much too low to make use of Summon - maybe Yin-Yang would have worked. I'll probably settle on Archer with Item or something eventually. Another thing - what's the deal with the Yoichi Bow? It seems to be obviated by the Ultimus Bow's +2 WP and Ultima casting. Is auto-Defend really that good?

I've also been slotting in Mustadio as a Singing Engineer and Rafa as a Heaven Knight with MAU occasionally and for randoms. Musty only just learned most of Sing so I haven't had a chance to evaluate how good it is, but Truth is...really good so far! If you can get the positioning just right she can really lay down some destruction.

There aren't any real dud jobs, which is definitely an improvement over vanilla. Summon Magic I haven't really touched, so I can't speak to it much other than wow, Shiva/Ramuh/Ifrit got the nerf bat. Samurai is in a weird place - they're the best users of Katanas as weapons given their innates, but if you're a Samurai Draw Out is right there and it doesn't seem worth it to focus on physical attacks instead. Even with the interesting abilities some Katanas have, I wouldn't use Equip Katana except in special cases. I guess it's the same for Ninja weapons and most of the other Equip X abilities though.

I haven't really used Time Magic for much else than Haste, Haste 2 and the occasional Stop, mostly because I'm always setting Black Magic alongside it and blowing things up. Don't Move for instance doesn't have that great of range and accuracy, and if I'm in range to Don't Move something, it's generally more helpful to give them a Fire 4 instead. Have not played around with Demi/2 or Meteor yet though. Reflect MVP. I do appreciate the changes to Black Magic - there's reasons to use every level of elements now thanks to the CT/MP changes, Flare is much better at ST damage, and Death has a great niche for reliable instant death especially with Short Charge. Frog is the odd one out - its accuracy is so low I haven't bothered with it since like Thieves' Fort.

e: Just beat Germinas Peak...despite Ramza and my Dragoon both getting slept instantly from Heaven's Cloud I was still able to pull out a win. Yoichi Bow's defend actually came in handy for dodging bow shots. Even more impressive was my Dragoon busting out 440 damage with a regular attack. Yikes!

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Game Design and Modifications / Re: LFT: An FFT mod (The final release is a lie. Download here!)

« on: November 28, 2018, 02:18:42 PM »

Going through the first half of C4 now...

Doguola Pass gave me some trouble! The twinked out Samurai is a problem if you let him live and the Lancers are killers as usual. With the benefit of experience, I went in stacking Speed and MA on my own Samurai, letting her get in position to OHKO two units with Draw Out off the bat. That put the tempo of the battle firmly in my favour.

Finath River: First attempt ended in quick defeat to a barrage of Choco Meteors. The next time I started everyone back a square or two, and the three Red Chocobos bunched up while pummeling Ramza...leaving them perfectly placed for a Fire 4, after which cleanup was equally swift.

Zalmo 2 was an interesting fight. After the enemy Oracles started charging a bunch of nasty spells I sent my Archer up to the rooftops for some sniping action, and...cast Reflect on my Time Mage! He had a Silence and Charm Song pending on himself, so Reflect turned out to be the best way to negate that, and it even occupied an Oracle Dispelling it. Go Reflect! While Ramza, a Thief and a jumping Knight circled around to clash with the Samurai girls, my Archer was hit with a Confusion Song and stayed that way for most of the rest of the battle. He was still a help in this condition, though! In between throwing around Eye Drops and trying to shoot my Thief, he fed an Ether to my Time Mage after he got Bizen Boated and Charge-KO'd an Oracle before he could finish a Petrify spell.

This battle wasn't terribly difficult and I managed to pull out a win on the first try. If you can get past the first couple turns of status spam, and prevent too many Raises from happening, you should have smooth sailing to victory. Zalmo himself was no threat beyond Cure 2 support and went down easily after his support bit the dust. The Samurai that starts high up could stand to have some Jump- or Move-boosting gear...by the time she arrives to fight, it's easy to focus her down. The most dangerous thing she did was Bizen Boat my TM who was still hanging around the start.

Bed Desert was a nailbiter, mostly because half my team could get oneshot by Balk and his Mediator pals. On the other hand I had two units with Initial: Reraise and three who could revive in some way, so thanks to Draw Out, Short Charge Flare/Fire 4 and Ramza's fists of fury I was able to pick apart Balk's support and end him with my last unit standing. As a sidenote, Mustadio managed to move-find a Vanish Mantle and a Dragon's Whisker - completely on accident!

The Dragon Whisker I'll be making use of right away, but I'm less sure on the Vanish Mantle. I know that just charging an ability cancels Vanish, and Draw Out always hits, so there isn't too much my team's doing that'd go well with it.

Bethla South Wall: Between the Kikuichimonji guy sniping from afar, the Ninja throwing all sorts of sharp objects, and the gunner Mediators surviving the first few turns was a challenge. Going back in with an Angel Ring on my Chemist and Dragon Spirit on my Priest made that a lot more survivable, after which my Dragoon and Draw Out user could go to town. Short Charge Flare and Fire 3 were clutch for stopping some concerning charged abilities from going off.

Bethla Sluice: This was a cakewalk. Muramasa Draw Out oneshot both Wizards on successive turns as they tried to charge up big spells (didn't help that one wasted his first turn Hasting a stationary Knight), and the enemies on the right side didn't have the offense needed to get past Ramza and my Dragoon.

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Game Design and Modifications / Re: LFT: An FFT mod (The final release is a lie. Download here!)

« on: November 16, 2018, 08:48:15 PM »

Oh. That explains a lot. I need to think of a better secondary anyway, it's mostly redundant now that Murasame and Kiyomori are around. Maybe Basic Skill?

At the gate of Riovanes, I changed Ramza into a Thief, as he was shy of unlocking Ninja. Winning the battle was the lesser challenge here, because after seeing the Defender and Mace of Zeus I wanted to steal the good stuff. This involved a series of maneuvers like Power Breaking Mr. Defender so he wouldn't be a threat and giving Malak a Hi-Potion when Rafa had gotten him low, but in the end both treasures, a Crystal Helmet, and a Circlet were had!

In preparation for the duel with Wiegraf, I went with the classic that I've often heard about but never used: the Martial Arts Ninja. Ramza added Punch Art and PA Save to the mix and was loaded for bear: Twist Headband, Power Sleeve and Bracer together gave him 13 PA. That would mean an easy fight, except for the new MP Switch on Wiegraf. That allowed a Lightning Stab to come in which procced Undead. I figured I could run away to Chakra then punch again for the win, which is how I learned about the other Chakra on Wiegraf. That's pretty clever, but unfortunately for Wiegraf PA Save had also procced on that Lightning Stab and now Ramza could just KO him in one hit.

When I moved on to Velius, Ramza got his turn as usual, and without any way to heal Undead I figured I should go for the kill and punch. Then...Ramza got a second turn. I guess he started at 100CT? Surprised he went first again though with only 8 Speed. Anyway, that attempt stalled out with the team not being able to deal enough damage to Velius before Ramza was flattened and then crystallized.

For the second attempt I went with a more conservative setup on Ramza: Black Hood, Judo Outfit, and Defense Armlet to block Undead. That way he could just tank the Lightning Stabs and farm a few PA saves to make up the difference. That worked out pretty well until I retreated too far and Scream happened, after which the next Lightning Stab put an end to Ramza.

Finally I figured I didn't need to null Undead if I could heal it with Chakra, so I swapped in a pair of Sprint Shoes. That worked a lot better since Ramza could regularly doubleturn Wiegraf. When the next phase of the battle started, Ramza again got two turns and attacked Velius twice for 800-some damage. Wow! That triggered Meatbone Slash so I knew it was close. After layering Protect/Shell/Regen/Haste on the others, my Dragoon ran up and Jumped on Velius which secured the win.

So, yeah...now I see why barehanded Ninjas are all the rage.

At this point I belatedly checked out the Circlet Ramza had MFI'd back at the gates. The +2 PA and Haste so entranced me that I decided to put it on my Dragoon for the rooftop battle. "What a great idea this is," I thought, "I'll cure the sleep and berserk ASAP with a Remedy and then he can demolish those Assassins." I quickly discovered that Remedies do not in fact cure Berserk, so while the Dragoon slowly marched towards the enemy two of my units were dropped by double Ultimas, a third was petrified, and Rafa was being sliced up by Elmdor. Before long it was just the Dragoon and Rafa, stopped and on critical HP, left among the good guys. A reset seemed imminent, but as I watched the Dragoon finally walked up to Lede and sent her to critical range in one blow past 60% evade. Victory!!

9

Game Design and Modifications / Re: LFT: An FFT mod (The final release is a lie. Download here!)

« on: November 13, 2018, 02:25:07 AM »

Oh, I heard about LFT from a friend on Discord while we were talking about SRPGs in general. She gave it her recommendation.

Made it through a few maps since my last post.
Orbonne 1 (Lancers): Tricky, because the Time Mages will haste up themselves and the Lancers, who hit very hard and were the main reason I had one wipe here trying to get by with my lower-leveled Samurai and Chemist!Mustadio. On the second go I wised up and brought my Archer; judicious use of Charge (love this skill, for real) and a combination of Petrify and Bolt 3 on a few Lancers won the day.

Orbonne 2 (Izlude): My first two tries quickly ended in failure when my Lancer and Ramza fell victim to Izlude and eating Windslash Bow hits while floating, respectively. This is a problem when Ramza is the only one who can revive! After playing around with a few strategies I settled on having everyone hang back, get Hasted, and move along the edge while picking off the enemies as they drew near, starting with a good Charge at the nearby Summoner. Death came in handy here when my Wizard was able to tag VySaika the Knight at 100% odds and run off. In the end I killed all the enemies on the map before dealing with Izlude, who was meanwhile distracted by Phoenix Down'ing people for him to stab to death.

Orbonne 3 (Wiegraf): Well, on the first attempt Lightning Stab and a Geomancer killed two people right off the bat and disabled a third. Then I made a better starting formation, replaced peoples' Wizard Robes with more durable stuff, and won handily. This is a very, very simple battle - don't let Wiegraf get a second action, or else.

After a few propositions, it was time for the journey to Riovanes. First up is Grog Hill. This one was pretty easy. Only a couple of the enemies come at you from the start, and as amusing as the dual-wielding Katana Thief is, he's easily handled by two Threatens. His Brave is so low he always Quick Attacked anyway...at least I was able to steal his Kiyomori.

Yardow Fort City: Several resets were had here. The first one was from Rafa dying before I had a single turn; subsequent attempts foundered on the rocks of the Summoners casting Leviathan (oh god) or Odin (oh god again). Luckily it turned out my Lancer (now an Equip Spear Knight) could OHKO the nearby Summoner with a Jump, despite her being at Level 28(!), and if your team is positioned right she won't cast anything on her first turn. On the winning run, the other enemies bunched up near the entrance in such a way that Monk Ramza, also with Attack Up, could Spin Fist four of them; I also took advantage of the Kiyomori steal to layer Shell on everyone to absorb the other Summoner's Leviathan. After that it was all downhill.

Yuguo Woods was a breather, despite almost everyone getting Slowed at the start followed by both Wizards charging Death spells (one missed). Fortunately Mustadio as a Chemist went before the Slow 2 went off and was able to Seal Evil the closest ghost. I can see how this battle could go south, between the Slows and Stops and Shadow Stitches and Deaths, but I didn't see much offense from the enemies here...the ghosts did really pitiful damage when they weren't Stopping people. I was able to kill one of the Wizards before he could finish charging an Ice3 and after that it was a mop-up.

At this point my team consists of:
Ramza: Went most of the way through Monk and Geomancer, with only Revive and Martial Arts left to pick up (and Counter/Hamedo but I'm not going there just yet). Maybe he'll be a punching Ninja? Or just go back to Squire when C4 happens. I haven't planned his class setup at all.

Knight with Jump/Equip Spear/PA Save/Move-HP Up. Love this dude, he leaps at people for way too much damage and hardly ever dies.

Oracle with White Magic, Equip Shield and Weapon Guard: still needs to go back into Priest to pick up the heavier spells. I managed to poach an Ivory Rod at the start of Chapter 3, briefly making her my best attacker until I gave her more defensive gear.

Time Mage with Black Magic secondary: Blows things up good. Also has Counter Magic for revenge kills and buff shenanigans. He learned Death as a Black Mage and even without Short Charge it's proven very useful sometimes...so now I've unlocked Short Charge and we'll see how awesome that is. He's picked up several Summon Magic abilities from Crystals, but I haven't touched the class all game...maybe next run?

Mediator/Archer/Thief/I don't know what to do with you: He steals! He shoots! He has a Papyrus Plate from poaching that does great! I'm keeping him in Mediator for now until he learns all the Talk Skill commands, and then...I'm not sure. I did just poach a Gastrafitis (!), Yoichi Bow (!!) and Ultimus Bow (!!!) off of some birds had when he accidentally tamed one, and Steal has been pretty useful so far.

Samurai with Magic Attack UP, HP Restore and Move+1. Not sure where to take this gal. Draw Out is becoming a lot stronger now that I have MAU and the Faith Katana, but I don't know what else to add. For the moment her secondary is White Magic, or rather Cure, Cure 2 and Raise because that's all she knows.

Mustadio: A recent addition to the active roster after I wanted to stop using the same six people all the time. He's just now learned everything but Auto-Potion from Chemist, so now he's back to Engineer to learn Leg Aim and because I can get him up to 10 speed with proper equipment which is just delightful. I was going to learn Equip Gun, pop over to Knight for Battle Skill, and make him a gunslinging, armor-breaking Ninja...until it hit me that none of the guns are Two Swords-compatible. I guess that might be a little too powerful, haha.

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Game Design and Modifications / Re: LFT: An FFT mod (The final release is a lie. Download here!)

« on: November 09, 2018, 11:42:23 PM »

Hi,
I started playing your LFT mod recently; I just finished the Orbonne battles in C3 and it's been a lot of fun so far. The class changes work really well; things like Archers having Ignore Height make so much of sense you wonder that it wasn't always like that. The difficulty feels a little higher and more consistent than the original, which is just right for a casual like me who hasn't played FFT in years. Until I fought Queklain the battle I had most trouble with was Fovoham Plains of all places - partly because my Wizard and Knight had bad compatibility with Wiegraf I struggled mightily to wear him down before somebody crystallized. Zeakden was similar - it turned into a desperate race by Ramza and my Priest to revive people while the enemy Knights kept wailing on them. I only won on the first try because Ramza had Arrow Guard and was able to block several fatal shots.

Queklain also was a big problem, because he would sleep or petrify two or three people at the start and between him and his bodyguards I couldn't keep up. Eventually I hit on the plan of grouping most of my units together so he would cast his damaging spell which was much easier to deal with. From there my Oracle was able to Petrify the Knights at great odds, my Wizard got Haste up, and Ramza+my own Knight layered a few Mind Breaks which put a stop to the really scary stuff. Petrify in general was very helpful against Knights. For a while I had fun with my Equip Shield/Weapon Guard Oracle with a Small Mantle being mostly immune to physical attacks, but since she had such low HP the enemies would have a try regardless - very handy for keeping my Archer and Wizard safe.

Anyway, thanks for the great mod! I'm already dreaming up variant playthroughs I want to try after this normal one completes.