FFT 1.3 hello

Hello guys it has been like 4 years since I have last played FFT 1.3. Found out that insane difficulty is having problems and finally found this place. It's a bummer what happened but what can you do.

A little bit about my FFT 1.3 history. I started playing a few weeks ago after many years. This is my 4th playthrough. I have never finished the game. On my 3rd playthrough I got pretty far into chapter 4. I had Beowulf and Cloud on my team, but I don't really remember where I quit. Yes I admit I quit because the game beat me into submission. That's not going to happen this time. I fully intend to beat it this time. Im not stopping until I do.

I was hoping to ask a few questions to hopefully help with some issues I am having.

The biggest question has to do with leveling. I know it is possible to be overleveled early on, but is it possible to be underleveled? I am in chapter 3 and for some time enemies have been drastically overleveling me. Im in the first battle with Rafa and Malak. My highest unit is level 30. Rafa is lvl 37 and malak is level 43. The other enemies are high 30s. I am only wondering if it would be safe to grind a little in random battles to close the gap and learn some skills, or will the enemies get even tougher if I do?

Next I can figure on my own but thought I would just ask. If I buy some level 1 recruits and take them into a random battle will the enemies be the same level. Lets say I take 5 lvl 1 squires in. Will the enemies be really high level since im in chapter 3? Im curious mainly for poaching reasons, and to level some characters I am leaving behind for now. Agrias for example. My generics are much better than her at least until I can take some time to get her some skills.

Next. For geomancers and samurais. Is elemental based off of MA or PA. Same question for samurai sword skills. Its a simple thing I know but I just can't tell. 

Well thats it for now. I Know I have more but can't think of them at the moment. If anyone has some answers for me. Many thanks in advance!

On 12/1/2019 at 11:54 AM, xwDUSTwx said:

The biggest question has to do with leveling. I know it is possible to be overleveled early on, but is it possible to be underleveled? I am in chapter 3 and for some time enemies have been drastically overleveling me. Im in the first battle with Rafa and Malak. My highest unit is level 30. Rafa is lvl 37 and malak is level 43. The other enemies are high 30s. I am only wondering if it would be safe to grind a little in random battles to close the gap and learn some skills, or will the enemies get even tougher if I do?

The enemies are in their high 30s because before each battle, the game calculates the enemy level via the party's average level (including Rafa and Malak which are WAY ahead of you). You either level up everyone on the team or just stop using them for a while

On 12/1/2019 at 11:54 AM, xwDUSTwx said:

Next I can figure on my own but thought I would just ask. If I buy some level 1 recruits and take them into a random battle will the enemies be the same level. Lets say I take 5 lvl 1 squires in. Will the enemies be really high level since im in chapter 3? Im curious mainly for poaching reasons, and to level some characters I am leaving behind for now. Agrias for example. My generics are much better than her at least until I can take some time to get her some skills.

Read above. Agrias and all specials have that trouble: Most generics will have the skills they need before you get the first one, so it's your call if you want to used them since they need some work

On 12/1/2019 at 11:54 AM, xwDUSTwx said:

Next. For geomancers and samurais. Is elemental based off of MA or PA. Same question for samurai sword skills. Its a simple thing I know but I just can't tell. 

Geomancers use both MA and PA to calculate damage, so it's a good idea to have a good score in both and samurais use MA or PA depending of the skill

On 13/1/2019 at 2:36 PM, ronlyn said:

the game calculates the enemy level via the party's average level (including Rafa and Malak which are WAY ahead of you)

False. FFT's scaling depends on the highest team member on your party roster, including those outside the battle. So in 1.3, when you recruit a new character like say Marche or Agrias, they also join at a higher level, resulting in an inmediate increase of difficulty via enemy scaling. Lame in my opinion. I enjoyed 1.3 a lot, but its design in certain aspects is severely outdated.

Sigh, I wish someone redid 1.3 in a proper manner, without doing something completely different.

thanks for the correction, and yeah I would like a more balanced 1.3 since everything went crash down once CH4 become a thing: Enemies with absurd speed/MA/PA/equipment and special units were a must unless you wanted to challenge yourself (bad idea on 1.3 to be quite honest) , a lot of options are either useless or inferior and finally, the player must play like it was a LTC since getting levels in a wrong class can easily ruin later fights

Hey thanks for the info. I know what you mean. I turned ramza into a time mage wanted to learn teleport. Kept smacking a low level generic so he would learn it without leveling. Don't wanna screw up them stats ya know.

Got another question for ya. Where do I get the faith rod? Ive made it to Bethla garrison but its not there to steal. Can I poach one?

Also was Onion knight nerfed or something? I've seen other peoples OKs one shotting things with whale whisker, stacking MA. I don't know I guess mine just sucks lol. Maybe im doing something wrong. She is only level 60 and I haven't left her class as to not screw with here growths. She has attack up also.

I'm speaking purely by memory and some things might be off, but...

Faith Rod was moved to a latter battle. Someone held it in the battle prior to Adramelk (Dicebarg's elder brother battle). It's a unique item, and pretty broken.

Onion Knight was nerfed in the last update. I think Whale Whiskers weren't Two-Handable anymore as a change in the last update (very lame), which was a huge nerf for them as well. There's still a ton of setups where the OK rocks with pure damage. The most common one is an end-game one using the Exca-2.

I wouldn't care much about growths, unless you are doing some kind of challenge.

24 minutes ago, Hart-Hunt said:

I'm speaking purely by memory and some things might be off, but...

Faith Rod was moved to a latter battle. Someone held it in the battle prior to Adramelk (Dicebarg's elder brother battle). It's a unique item, and pretty broken.

Onion Knight was nerfed in the last update. I think Whale Whiskers weren't Two-Handable anymore as a change in the last update (very lame), which was a huge nerf for them as well. There's still a ton of setups where the OK rocks with pure damage. The most common one is an end-game one using the Exca-2.

I wouldn't care much about growths, unless you are doing some kind of challenge.

Thanks alot for the info. Yes you are right. I didn't realize the 2 handed symbol doesn't pop up when I equip the whale whisker. Kinda lame but whatever. All the other sticks are 2 hand able. I've looked at all kinds of patch notes. Maybe I missed this info. There's alot to go through. Hard to find the information I need sometimes.

As for the faith rod I just picked up Cloud so hopefully after I train him and Mel up I will zone in on it soon.

For growths I remember back in the day I felt like I had a hell of a time dealing with speed, and having my units do enough damage. So this time I spent alot of time researching the growths and leveled my characters at mandalia a specific way. Ramza for example is lvl 98 with base stats 13 speed, 17 Pa, 14 ma, 388 health, 124 mp as a squire. He is highly effective. Much better than last time I played this. So I don't know for sure if it is generally worth the effort but my party feels really strong and the battles have gotten easier. Except Elmdor. Dear god that was a nightmare, but I got all his stuff took 12 attempts.

2 hours ago, xwDUSTwx said:

Thanks alot for the info. Yes you are right. I didn't realize the 2 handed symbol doesn't pop up when I equip the whale whisker. Kinda lame but whatever. All the other sticks are 2 hand able. I've looked at all kinds of patch notes. Maybe I missed this info. There's alot to go through. Hard to find the information I need sometimes.

As for the faith rod I just picked up Cloud so hopefully after I train him and Mel up I will zone in on it soon.

For growths I remember back in the day I felt like I had a hell of a time dealing with speed, and having my units do enough damage. So this time I spent alot of time researching the growths and leveled my characters at mandalia a specific way. Ramza for example is lvl 98 with base stats 13 speed, 17 Pa, 14 ma, 388 health, 124 mp as a squire. He is highly effective. Much better than last time I played this. So I don't know for sure if it is generally worth the effort but my party feels really strong and the battles have gotten easier. Except Elmdor. Dear god that was a nightmare, but I got all his stuff took 12 attempts.

And this is why 1.3 is a huge turn off for me: Most of the time you either blow away most of the challegue by exploiting the game or you can save scum until you get it right. There's no middle ground

(Of course you can argue that the early game is cool and all but then again, Vanilla FFT was balanced until the broken stuff starts to appear, then it's the same problem but backwards)

On 1/15/2019 at 6:26 PM, Hart-Hunt said:

Sigh, I wish someone redid 1.3 in a proper manner, without doing something completely different.

Amen to that, bruvva... 

Most of chapter 4 really isn't unfair, save for Altima and a few optional (skippable) Deep Dungeon fights. It's just that in Ch4, the game decides to completely steer away towards a different kind of combat dynamics and design. Where a variety of jobs and abilities was the name of the game in the first 3 chapters, in the fourth one Speed, CT manipulation, and DPS are kings. If you can master the technique of making your turns count in reliable ways, then Chapter 4 will seem easier and easier, and more a matter of planning how to break the uber-stats wall of enemies in each battle, and then executing said plan.

If you ever get stuck, I completed the main story (except for Altima) with the challenge of having 1 unit less in each battle, generics only, and no random battles (meaning natural growths, natural levels, and having to plan ahead which abilities I'll be learning). I find the playthrough very instructive, because it uses normal jobs and tactics, and mostly shines in CT counting and execution (my glory days ).

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWTk_7CuZPxLi3dgCM0IwagOrgDowjkiE

1 hour ago, Hart-Hunt said:

Most of chapter 4 really isn't unfair, save for Altima and a few optional (skippable) Deep Dungeon fights. It's just that in Ch4, the game decides to completely steer away towards a different kind of combat dynamics and design. Where a variety of jobs and abilities was the name of the game in the first 3 chapters, in the fourth one Speed, CT manipulation, and DPS are kings. If you can master the technique of making your turns count in reliable ways, then Chapter 4 will seem easier and easier, and more a matter of planning how to break the uber-stats wall of enemies in each battle, and then executing said plan.

If you ever get stuck, I completed the main story (except for Altima) with the challenge of having 1 unit less in each battle, generics only, and no random battles (meaning natural growths, natural levels, and having to plan ahead which abilities I'll be learning). I find the playthrough very instructive, because it uses normal jobs and tactics, and mostly shines in CT counting and execution (my glory days ).

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWTk_7CuZPxLi3dgCM0IwagOrgDowjkiE

 

I know what I'm watching this week 

I'm thinking about picking 1.3 for re-balance while staying faithful to 1.3 design concept. Which version would you guys recommend?

use the psx version: it's the most complete one and it would be easier to fix. 

On 1/24/2019 at 10:57 PM, ronlyn said:

use the psx version: it's the most complete one and it would be easier to fix. 

This.

The PSP version started off fairly faithful to the PSX version, but turned into a different beast over time. 

Yep. PSP was like an experimental release of 1.3, and had different creators. The only one who got released at the end was the first one, Dr. Bretto's. It wasn't as balanced as the original one. I'd pick 1.3 as a base, or even replicate 1.3's changed in a vanilla ISO.

So any news on FFT 1.4?

On 3/2/2019 at 11:19 PM, Mykale said:

So any news on FFT 1.4?

1.3 doesn't have any support from its creator, so no. 1.3 will never be updated again.

The problem with 1.3 is that most vets can cruise through it on auto-pilot after not playing the game for 10 years. The important decisions you have to make are already known and the simple execution steps are covered by basic knowledge of the mechanics of the game. So the only way to create a new 1.3 experience has to take this into account.

If anyone felt like creating 1.4 and base it on 1.3, I would suggest starting from scratch and then manually porting over the changes, instead of trying to rework the existing 1.3 patch. But however you look at it, it's a whole lot of work, and I doubt any one would be willing to see such a project through.