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Topic: FFT: War of the Lions (Read 10710 times)

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headphonics

#121 October 17, 2007, 07:01:37 am

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Quote from: DarkNecrid on October 17, 2007, 03:56:30 am

its probability

its bound to happen

yeah i agree

the nature of probability is that events are bound to happen more times than probability dictates it should. again, do you not get that i am not complaining about things happening, so much as i am saying it would be awesome if i could skip the part where things happen with alarming and incredibly unlikely frequency? i understand that yes, after hitting someone so many times, you will miss a dozen times in a row. it is an eventuality. THANKS. i am saying that, in my playing experience so far, it happens a lot. A LOT. and it is really unfun and regularly makes battles drag on substantially longer than they should. at this point i really just don't think that the shit the game says in terms of events and their probabilities are in any way accurate a lot of the time. either that or this entire game has been an unending back luck streak for me (hint: this is probably not the case). anyway, i would understand, more or less, if things like my having used steal heart 14 times without it ever working, whereas it has never NOT worked when an enemy used it, which has been fairly often, even though they both display roughly the same success rates, happened infrequently. but they don't, they happen with alarming regularity. it feels like the entire thing is based around one of those shitty random number generators that, out of all numbers in existence, generate the number nineteen five or six times in a row. i hope i am alone in this experience, because it'd be ridiculous to find out this is how it works for everyone (as in, generally accepted inaccurate probability readings) and no one really brings it up as a general flaw in the gameplay. i didn't experience this in ffta at all, for example, and i'd imagine the system in that is incredibly similar.

Last Edit: October 17, 2007, 07:07:40 am by bazookatooth

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Marcus

#122 October 17, 2007, 07:16:29 am

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I just think you have badluck because I've never had a problem with unfair probabilities.

Maybe you should wear a four leaf clover around your neck every time you pick up a video game. It might help.

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Neophyte

#123 October 17, 2007, 07:19:08 am

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Yeah, you've got some bad luck.
I can steal items and charm people fairly well at even 40%.

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Dead Phoenix

#124 October 17, 2007, 07:35:47 am

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Quote from: bazookatooth on October 17, 2007, 07:01:37 am

i didn't experience this in ffta at all, for example, and i'd imagine the system in that is incredibly similar.

actually one of the major complaints people have with FFTA is the exact same problem your having with FFT now. Fact is this shit is common in a lot of TRPGs, but it seems to be more common for some more then others(that or some people are just less forgiving about it).

My suggestion? Give everyone Concentrate(or whatever they call it now), though this may only work with physical attacks, I'm not to sure.

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headphonics

#125 October 17, 2007, 08:03:28 am

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alright well, fair enough. but save/load state would still be nice for those of us whose experiences are in no way probable! it is just not really about cheating so much as not being cheated, imo. although, with that said, now that i beat the game, i have started cheating a bit as far as experimenting with classes/weapons go, as i wanted to see what jobs like dark knight could do, but didn't really feel that it was worth the hours of grinding out levels for various other jobs, especially since it was kind of a letdown, even with amazing weapons i cheated my way to. dodged a bullet, there! it also helped me get agrias up to see how she compares with whatever orran's father's name is (pretty well, it turns out).

i think my biggest disappointment/reason i'm glad i cheated instead of doing it legitimately was how dumb dark knights look. i was expecting some badass sprite/portrait, and both of them look completely silly. i was also a little disappointed that my ninja could not dual-wield these two amazing swords that came when i activated an all-item code, even if he had the equip swords ability activated.

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maladroithim

#126 October 17, 2007, 06:04:49 pm

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Quote from: bazookatooth on October 17, 2007, 08:03:28 am

i think my biggest disappointment/reason i'm glad i cheated instead of doing it legitimately was how dumb dark knights look. i was expecting some badass sprite/portrait, and both of them look completely silly. i was also a little disappointed that my ninja could not dual-wield these two amazing swords that came when i activated an all-item code, even if he had the equip swords ability activated.

That's because Knight Swords are a special equipment class only knights can use. Some characters can equip them as squire/equivalent as well. Change your ninja to a knight and he'll probably be able to do it.

I agree with you that the random number generator seems stacked against the player, but I really only notice this with stealing. With Concentrate, my steal abilities always have a 40%-70% chance of working, but they frequently miss. Being that I am underlevelled, I was having a hard time against Meliadoul, because I wanted to steal her Defender before killing her (coupled with the parry skill it's my favorite sword in the game). I would get about three chances at 48% before I'd have taken too much abuse and would reset and this happened for about five resets or so. The chances of failing nine times in a row are 0.1953125% -- I seriously doubt I was THAT unlucky. Incidentally, I stole her accessory the next turn; the chances of success twice in a row are 25%, so I am not surprised.

Steal Heart is also most definitely the least reliable skill in videogame history despite its advertised 70% success rate (I fail about 2/3 of the time and no, enemies never miss). Enemies frequently hit my characters that have evade as high as 97% (ninja equipped with main gauche and a good cloak). And I can't TELL you how many times my monk would miss with his 98% chance to hit revive skill -- so often that I gave him the Items ability instead. I then kicked him out of my party because Beowulf is my favorite character.

Anyway, there is definitely something suspicious going on. It doesn't ruin the game for me, though. I just accept that my luck is much worse than the game lets on, and as long as I consider that, I still really love the game.

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Marcus

#127 October 17, 2007, 06:58:20 pm

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I forgot to mention about the compatibility thing. You have a much higher chance of stealing if you're compatible with the enemy you're stealing from. Also, compatibility affects damage and damage resistance as well as success. I seem to notice that with steal heart, enemies will ALWAYS be compatible (or the opposite sex) as soon as they're given it. It's almost as if the game detects how many different star signs there are and then assigns that enemy with the most common one. It's a really lame gameplay factor, but it works well in your favor if you abuse it right.

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Severus

#128 October 17, 2007, 07:09:29 pm

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Quote from: angry black man on October 17, 2007, 06:58:20 pm

I forgot to mention about the compatibility thing. You have a much higher chance of stealing if you're compatible with the enemy you're stealing from. Also, compatibility affects damage and damage resistance as well as success. I seem to notice that with steal heart, enemies will ALWAYS be compatible (or the opposite sex) as soon as they're given it. It's almost as if the game detects how many different star signs there are and then assigns that enemy with the most common one. It's a really lame gameplay factor, but it works well in your favor if you abuse it right.

Yeah the zodiac system can be abused if you know how to do it, most bosses are Virgo, so you can configure it to do more or take less damage from a boss but you can generally ignore the zodiac compatibility.

Quote from: The Notorious M.O.G on October 17, 2007, 05:23:42 am

Not that I'm aware of, but I see what you mean with Speed affecting some probability. I was going to attempt to answer this to the best of my ability, but I have something that I hope proves to be far more helpful.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/psx/file/197339/3876

That's the Final Fantasy Tactics Battle Mechanics Guide. It's large, and it can be confusing, but that document right there has every single possible aspect of the battle system documented and pretty much figured out in its entirety. GameFaqs has some of the stupidest gamers on the Net, but their FFT fans are second to none.

You got that right, the FFT gamefaqs boards are the only ones I really go to even though they are currently flooded with "Is Cloud is this" topics. There is even a patch and several utilities for the original which are really useful/cool to be found there.

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maladroithim

#129 October 17, 2007, 07:57:47 pm

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Quote from: Severus on October 17, 2007, 07:09:29 pm

Yeah the zodiac system can be abused if you know how to do it, most bosses are Virgo, so you can configure it to do more or take less damage from a boss but you can generally ignore the zodiac compatibility.

That's interesting, because my zodiac sign is Virgo, so my main character has always been Virgo too. I can imagine some people would find the game insanely hard (like the infamous fight at Riovanes) just because they happen to have a sign that is compatible with Virgo.

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Blitzen

#130 October 17, 2007, 07:58:36 pm

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I find that in the early stages of the game you can speed up battles considerably by heeding to the zodiac and planning your battle strategy around it. Zodiac compatibility is something that I take in to account when I am constructing my core party at the beginning of the game. I mean, if an enemy uses steal heart, you should be ready to maybe steal it back, and by stacking the odds in your favour, it can only help, its worked for me before.

If you're looking in each turn to inflict maximum damage at minimum risk, having a good sense of who is compatible with who in your party can make or break a battle if you use it incorrectly. That better chance of success could easily mean a cast of Regen on a high-risk character, or the extra 20 damage per turn on a monk's punch that you need to defeat Algus at Zeakden.

outerspacepotatoman

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headphonics

#131 October 18, 2007, 12:27:23 am

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Quote from: maladroithim on October 17, 2007, 06:04:49 pm

That's because Knight Swords are a special equipment class only knights can use. Some characters can equip them as squire/equivalent as well. Change your ninja to a knight and he'll probably be able to do it.

I agree with you that the random number generator seems stacked against the player, but I really only notice this with stealing. With Concentrate, my steal abilities always have a 40%-70% chance of working, but they frequently miss. Being that I am underlevelled, I was having a hard time against Meliadoul, because I wanted to steal her Defender before killing her (coupled with the parry skill it's my favorite sword in the game). I would get about three chances at 48% before I'd have taken too much abuse and would reset and this happened for about five resets or so. The chances of failing nine times in a row are 0.1953125% -- I seriously doubt I was THAT unlucky. Incidentally, I stole her accessory the next turn; the chances of success twice in a row are 25%, so I am not surprised.

Steal Heart is also most definitely the least reliable skill in videogame history despite its advertised 70% success rate (I fail about 2/3 of the time and no, enemies never miss). Enemies frequently hit my characters that have evade as high as 97% (ninja equipped with main gauche and a good cloak). And I can't TELL you how many times my monk would miss with his 98% chance to hit revive skill -- so often that I gave him the Items ability instead. I then kicked him out of my party because Beowulf is my favorite character.

Anyway, there is definitely something suspicious going on. It doesn't ruin the game for me, though. I just accept that my luck is much worse than the game lets on, and as long as I consider that, I still really love the game.

Yeah, this is exactly what I mean! It's good that I'm at least not the only one who noticed this type of stuff. Anyway, I still enjoyed the game a lot in spite of it, but I wished they would've improved upon it, considering this was a port and any problems the game has are long-standing ones.

Also, who's Beowulf that you took your ninja out in favor of him? I LOVE my ninja. He seriously 1-shots pretty much everything, without any funny business. Just dual-wielding regular ninja swords (it took me a while to realize that maces functioned the same way they do in FF12). His health and survivability were shit when I got him, but I got rid of everything but x-potions in my inventory and had him learn auto-potion, and it pretty much made him ten times more durable than he was before. Auto-potion as an ability is ridiculously reliable and, in my experience, about 90% of the time any of my dudes with it enabled get hit, they heal for 150. This makes it all the more disappointing that I had first strike on both Ramza and my ninja for three entire battles and saw it occur ONCE. It's 1300 JP, so imo it should really be a lot more reliable, even if it's not a 100% chance thing (although it seemed to be when I was fighting that baron on the roof right after you kill Belias). I also taught him that ability to take drastically reduced physical damage, and I found that to be a far better defensive ability than the ~80 more hit points he'd get when I gave him the ability to equip heavy armor. So yeah I'm digging him since he does like 300 damage to any non-knight, at least. Maybe I will look into getting this Beowulf guy if he's that much better.

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Marcus

#132 October 18, 2007, 12:58:38 am

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Beowulf is one of my favorite characters in the game. He's a secret character (you get in Machine City and you have to have mustadio with you; you go on a huge side-quest afterwards and get 2 other characters in your party). He's a temple knight with a high base evade for a physical attacker, he can equip knight swords and heavy armor like a knight, he has about the same mp as an oracle, and all of his special abilities are status effects.

What's great is that the status effects themselves almost ALWAYS work. I don't know what they renamed him, but in the original he had the ability to deal damage from a range (like holy sword abilities) but also add affects like dispel (cancels all protection/beneficial status effects), he could lower an enemies brave by 20-40 points (and all enemies are susceptible against CHICKEN which occurs at 10 or less brave), he could raise or lower faith which can be used to increase magical damage(against enemy)/decrease magical strength (if enemy casts a spell at you), he could paralyze, silence, or petrify enemies and my favorite was SHOCK sword which did damage based on how much health he had left.

My favorite group was what I called the Good Knight team (fuck you, I like the pun). It was Ramza (of course), Orlandu, Agrias, Beowulf, and Meliadoul if I had room for a 5th. Meliadoul had time mage spells, Beowulf had white mage spells, Agrias had teleport and knight abilities so I'd have her hasted and teleport behind enemies to use sword break or helmet break (which works more often than armor break and helmets affect critical hits i believe), and Orlandu was just a hoss. Using all their innate abilities and abilities from other classes, I pretty much dominated the field. At one point, Agrias' speed was so high (due to haste + tailwind) that she could sometimes act twice before anyone else and I'd just zip around and break enemies equipment while Beowulf weakened the enemy, Meliadoul supported the party, and Orlandu whipped ass.

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The Dude

#133 October 18, 2007, 07:28:37 am

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Last time I beat this game I used Beowulf to chicken the end bosses demons, and then toyed with the bastard. Might try it again. Anyone know if they added game+? Not that it would make sense story-wise, but it'd be nice to just wander and level. (All the characters join at the effing end of the game! )

edit- I've always shook my head at the success rate statements. Mustadio, for example, does Shot Arm. On one dude the chance is 40%, and on another it's 77%... Well, I'll nail the 77% naturally!--MISS! DODGE!
-ANNOYED!-

Last Edit: October 18, 2007, 07:37:30 am by Dudesoft

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Severus

#134 October 18, 2007, 11:14:33 am

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Beowulf is a special breed of rape character although much more subtle than Orlandeau or Balthier. I loved the new sidequests that fill out his back story they put in, including the fight against another Templar (Temple Knight) where Beowulf is a guest.

Chicken is overkill, two hits of that wastes 10 turns of the enemy as they run away trying to recover their courage. Casting Faith and Atheist (innocent) was great if you wanted to interfere with the damage/success rate of an incoming spell it's just a shame he couldn't use it on himself. Break was amazing and Vengeance (Shock!) had it's uses and had excellent range.

On a side note I just spent ages learning fly (to master the job) and it's needlessly expensive (5000jp) when the much better and cooler movement ability, Teleport is like (650jp)

Last Edit: October 18, 2007, 02:13:12 pm by Severus

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Shadowtext

#135 October 18, 2007, 04:24:34 pm

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Yeah, I always loved Beowulf. He's the reason I started using Oracles. And I'm glad I did, because even though they're not as powerful as Beowulf by a long shot, they do get a bonus to Magic Attack that makes them excellent users of "Draw Out." Oracle/Samurai is one of my favorite combos these days. I suppose they've renamed that, though, so replace "Draw Out" with whatever the Samurai action command is now.

By the way, did you guys see this?
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Gamelife/~3/171258143/final-fantasy-t.html

Apparently the producer wants to do a next-gen followup to FFT, after the success of War of the Lions. I wouldn't take that as confirmation that it's going to happen, but it fills me with hope. Sounds like it would be more of a remake than a followup, though. Which isn't quite as cool. But it does mean we FFT fans without a PSP might have something to look forward to other than FFTA2.

Last Edit: October 18, 2007, 07:51:39 pm by Shadowtext

Websites: Shiningbeam.net (Personal) | Bimini Road (Development Circle)
Releases:

Eyrie Platforming Engine for RMXP pre-Alpha (Released 12-24-2006)
Taret Blade Project Page at RMN (Updated 12/09/2007, including Dev Snapshot)

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The Dude

#136 October 18, 2007, 05:40:40 pm

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NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
I'd be so pleased for a NEW Tactics game! I've played FFT to death, and am now playing it to death on PSP-----Don't make FFT the new FF1&2, Square-Enix!!! Give us something new instead of rehashing old shit! GOD DAMN!
I mean, yeah it's not a comfirmation-- but it would just suck ASS to play FFT AGAIN with beefier graphics. That would truly mark the final gayness to the FF franchise. I'm tired of FF1and2. They pumped that bitch out like three times. If they do it to FFT as well... holy fuck!
I wouldn't even care if was the exact same system--I just want a fresh story/map to play. GEEZUS.

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HL

#137 October 18, 2007, 05:42:05 pm

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Quote from: Dudesoft on October 18, 2007, 05:40:40 pm

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
I'd be so pleased for a NEW Tactics game! I've played FFT to death, and am now playing it to death on PSP-----Don't make FFT the new FF1&2, Square-Enix!!! Give us something new instead of rehashing old shit! GOD DAMN!
I mean, yeah it's not a comfirmation-- but it would just suck ASS to play FFT AGAIN with beefier graphics. That would truly mark the final gayness to the FF franchise. I'm tired of FF1and2. They pumped that bitch out like three times. If they do it to FFT as well... holy fuck!
I wouldn't even care if was the exact same system--I just want a fresh story/map to play. GEEZUS.

they gave you something new with FFTA

and we all saw how that turned out

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NightBlade

#138 October 18, 2007, 05:48:30 pm

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Quote from: DarkNecrid on October 18, 2007, 05:42:05 pm

they gave you something new with FFTA

and we all saw how that turned out

Apparently square isnt capable of making a good game like FFT anymore. Infact; they could barely port the damn thing to PSP.

FFTA 2 is coming out, and it looks just as sub par as FFTA! Hurray!

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maladroithim

#139 October 18, 2007, 05:50:44 pm

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Well, for me it's not that Beowulf is particularly useful, but that he's a really cool character. Characters like Orlandu and Meliadoul can really mop up enemy forces and are obviously more powerful, but what I like about Beowulf is how cool his abilities are. It's more fun to turn an enemy into a chicken than it is to kill him in one hit or break his weapon.

Also, does anyone else have Balthier? He's like . . . ridiculously good. It's insane.

Also Necrid: TOSE is responsible for the port sucking, and they are responsible for most ports that suck being sucky as well as most spin-off games that suck being sucky. I guess it's a problem with Square-Enix farming out labor to Mexican programmers or whatever rather than competence of the core talent resources the company has.

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Sludgelord

#140 October 18, 2007, 07:17:44 pm

Who's the boss? Not you, bitch.
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i think the only thing i ever really used beowulf for was turning people into chickens, which was pretty unfair and maybe even a little better than orlandu's moves since it had a 100% chance to pacify enemies and it took a really long time to revert back to normal. i remember he also had this move that deals damage based on the enemy's max hp and when i used it on the boss of the game it did like 1000 damage, which was way more damage than anyone else was doing but on everyone else it was pretty much useless.

but yeah, i think beowulf is really good if only for his ability to turn people into chickens.

Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden

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