Insane Difficulty: Let's Die! FFT 1.3 Playthrough thing - Insane Difficulty

What's going on everyone, I wanted to pop in here and throw my hat into the ring of various playthroughs of this game. I greatly enjoy many fanhacks of games I grew up with, particularly difficulty mods, but FFT 1.3 has a special place in my heart. I never beat it, you see, despite the fact that vanilla Final Fantasy Tactics ranks #1 on my list of favorite games of all time. Oh, I "got to the end" by being a savescumming lil' punk throughout almost all of Chapter 4, but that hardly counts now does it? And even then, Altima put me in my place. So many years and several revisions later, I'm ready to get back on that horse, only for it to no doubt throw me right back off again. Seriously, my ass still hurts from the pounding I took from this mod back as a freshmen in high school, but I digress. It goes without saying, but this time I won't be using savestates of any kind, or using any sort of fast forward feature. That's right baby, if I die after a long cutscene that's just too bad, we're going back to the PSX days for this one.

I'm debating over adding a few additional restrictions as well, both concerning character bans. Malak is almost certainly out, even back when I first played this hack I thought he was way too good. And this coming from the guy who was a savescumming cheater. Like I said, I haven't played this for a few versions, but unless he's been changed in any significant way he's probably benched until Deep Dungeon, where the gloves come off. I'm also debating over Onion Knight, but I've never used her since believe it or not, she wasn't in the version I played! All I have to go by is footage I've seen, and although I can tell she's good, it's hard to say if she's OP just from watching. I guess we'll see.

Anyways guys, with that said I have a playlist started here. I aim to do about a battle a day, with grinding and such done offscreen. The latest video is on Dorter I, where Delita does his very best job to screw me. Fun times for sure. Also, just a heads up, the commentary for the first two parts is a little stiff, I gotta admit. Not gonna throw around excuses just gonna say that I'm aware and am trying (hopefully successfully) to improve that with each part. Anyhow, even if you don't have time for videos of this length (I'm sure we all know how long these battles can last, especially at normal speed), I would like some feedback; do I ban Malak and Onion Knight? Just Malak? Just the Onion Knight? Or are they not ban-worthy at all in your eyes? To me, Malak's inherent speed + Un-Truth being insanely good + his awesome equipment draw + his innate attributes make him OP, no question. A little luck based, sure, but it's rare to find him deadweight in any battle he is a part of. I'm legitimately interested, let me know, especially if he's nerfed now and I'm spouting nonsense.

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Eew... I don't think I could stomach that. I can't even stomach playing the game at 60 FPS anymore.

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I don't see why. Malak I think is pretty bad tbh. Unreliable AoE damage, many of the late game enemies have high faith, most enemies are not going to have below 50 faith in the range of 40-70 (as you're comparing 40-50 versus 51-70), has a hard time being revived by Life, Full Life, Fairy, or getting reraise put on him as a spell rather than wearing an angel ring or getting hit by preach, status buffs can barely hit him, and Chapter 4 enemies have ways of inflicting status effects on your team without needing high faith. I'd take a generic almost any day over him. OK is alright. She's really good in some ways, but having no skillset is enough of a drawback to where I'd say she's pretty balanced.

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My feedback is don't have the fights at normal speed. Seriously. Just speed it up. Because there are a lot of dead moments in FFT. As for characters, I don't think either are ban worthy in my eyes. OK is humbled by having one moveset in combat, and Malak's untruth is still bad in my eyes. Malak's speed is absolutely nothing special I assure you, he's not even a woman so he can't equip things like Salty Rage.

Augestein, on 04 October 2016 - 08:12 AM, said:

DID YOU JUST ASSUME ITS GENDER

Jokes aside.

Nice to see this going on. More LPs make things a lot more lively and entertaining around here. If you haven't, come to our Discord chat server, if you feel like sharing or have any question about the mod itself!

Augestein, on 04 October 2016 - 08:12 AM, said:

I second this. I enjoy watching JPs with commentary, but 60 FPS is a killer.

Good to have you recording!

Well, I admit that it's entirely possible that I just wasn't that good the last time I gave this a go. I'm freely admitting to having savescummed after all it just seemed to me at the time that the randomness wasn't too much to deal with. It's not that hard to get a 2-3 panel going, and I found that with up to 10 potential hits you can do a lot that other units just wouldn't be able to do. I guess I may refrain from banning Malak, it's entirely possible that I thought he was so good because I didn't build my team very well to begin with. I still think he has a lot going for him though.

I am glad to hear that OK isn't considered broken. It'd be a shame to have to bench her before really getting to check her out.

For the length thing, I sort of had something in mind. So in the Mandalia Plains fight I hit a point where I basically say "Okay, this battle is over, I'm going to get some JP and I'll come back when I finish this guy off." Basically, I was down to the last enemy who had no way of finishing me off so I could handle all of my busywork without having to commentate every last second. I also cut out any long periods where it's just me thinking of my next move. I know that it opens the door to accusations of savescumming or whatever, but if I know I'm doing it legit that's enough for me. This is my first real shot at LPing anything, but I'd like to be at least somewhat accessible to people who maybe haven't seen this game or mod in action and I feel like running the game at 1.5x/2x speed may scare some people away, particularly those who like to do things "legit". For boss fights...well I'm not that far but I was kind of thinking I'd show the strategy, show off what they can do, and if it ends up that I can loop them, just show the interesting bits. Then I'd probably upload just the raw footage from the fight, sped up like you're suggesting here. Also, it hasn't happened yet, but when I inevitably get brick walled by a map somewhere down the line I only plan on showing the first try and the winning try, maybe with a highlights reel of me dying a bunch if I feel up to it. It just wouldn't feel right to me to show off this game and not show off the deaths, you know?

I have put some thought into this, FFT is my favorite game and I want it to at least be watchable to others but I'm certainly not 100% opposed to bumping it up to 90 FPS or so, at least for the fights that can drag (looking at you, Zodiac Demons), though I'd prefer to refrain as much as possible. I'll say though I absolutely understand where you guys are coming from; Dorter would've been a great time to speed things up since one miss turned what should have been a ~15 minute fight into a 40 minute one, with no good places to cut either since the battle was so close. On the other hand, I just put up Part 6 [Zeklaus and Miluda I] where both fights lasted maybe 20 minutes between the two of them. For the rest of the video it's just me re-experiencing the plot (in all seriousness, I love the plot in this game) and generally acting like a jackass. I know a lot of us have the cutscenes damn near memorized, so would timestamps to the battles help at all for people who just want the action? Or is 60 FPS just too much of a dealbreaker even with the quality of life things I tried to implement in the editing?

Anyways thanks for all the feedback guys, it's appreciated trust me. There's a lot of good mods on this site I eventually want to look at, but I definitely want to start with my favorite, 1.3.

Onion Knight is not just ok. She is top tier. Malak is also very good, but he is situational.

Onion Knight is absolutely OK.

Laith, on 05 October 2016 - 04:01 PM, said:

I laughed at this way harder than I should have.

Also wanted to pop in and say I put up Part 7 [Miluda 2, Wiegraf, Zeakden], with post commentary since I lost the live track. I end up talking about some of the changes of the hack, what I like and what I think could maybe be improved a bit. Mostly I'm curious about ways to possibly convey more information to the player, I think I touch on this during the Miluda part. I'm pretty tired right now, but I'll definitely back that up more when I'm feeling up to it. I'm not too hard on the game for it, overall it really is just a minor quality of life thing.

I also did Part 8 [Chapter 1 Finale, Dorter II], and let me tell you, we rapidly approached McDonalds French Fry levels of salt near the end of this one. I lost the in game sound sadly, but I think I cut it down in such a way that there isn't a lot of dead silence.

Err not sure if this is acceptable or not being that it's a double post, but I did upload 2 more parts of this playthrough to my channel. Part 9 was a Dorter 2 win (massively sped up since I lost the first one) and Araguay Woods where I get a bit lucky after forgetting to stock up on items banning item since the battle is so easy. I also have Part 10 in which I take on Zirekile Falls and Zaland Fort City.

Also, this is probably as good a place as any to ask for this kind of thing, but I've tried to be at least mildly informative in my more recent videos, so if you see this and have any sort of trivia or interesting facts about fights I've completed so far, please feel free to share! Particularly when it comes to gameplay changes like Boss setups and Enemy Team setups and the like. I try to cover the variations when I can but it's far from fresh in my mind and relies on knowledge from several versions ago. Even then, there's no way to experience everything this game has to offer in one playthrough.

I mentioned a minor nitpick about conveying information to the player a few parts back, but didn't flesh it out here on site. Long story short, I was wondering if there was a way to clue the player into the fact that enemies like Miluda and Wiegraf have modified skillsets beyond the norm, because they share the names with generic skillsets in Chapter 1. It's minor, sure, but a new player not expecting it may be turned off or feel lied to. If it's not something fixable then there's nothing that can really be done I suppose, but if at all possible why not repoint their class description or skillset description (assuming it is tied to class, if it's not then ignore this as it would then become misleading for regular Battle Skill) to somewhere else and maybe expand on the description a bit? I assume the class table itself can't be expanded, but this mod has modified text all over the place so surely this much should be possible.

As for Zeakden - was it really necessary to make Algus immune to Stunning Strike? If it's just inherent to all bosses, well, I don't like it but I do understand. If not, then I'm kind of eh on it to be honest. I did more than my fair share of bitching about it in the video, but even after thinking it over in a less salty state, I still don't care for it. I withdraw my comment about it not breaking any other fights though, I put more thought into it and I can think of at least one Zodiac Monster that would be way easier if you chose to devote 2-3 units to Stunning Strike, though in Ch1 I think being able to use Stunning Strike is just strategy, not game-breaking. Speaking of Zodiacs though, did you guys give Zalera Non-Charge yet? Actually, don't spoil it please, but he was the only Zodiac that I comfortably beat on my first try. Hell, he killed himself via Blood Suck on Ramza who then walked up to him and dealt 999 damage, so please tell me he's not so pathetic anymore. If he is...Non-Charge guys. I honestly don't like the skill that much, but every other Zodiac Demon had some gimmick so why not give the one that was always known for crazy spells Non-Charge? I think it works, thematically, but I digress. I'm not anywhere near Ch4 so I don't know why I'm talking about that haha.

Dorter 2 - I didn't really have much to say. My luck during that fight was consistently horrible, so it got under my skin a bit as I don't think that fight is very hard to begin with. It certainly shouldn't have taken me as long as it did given my set up, but that's life. If there's one thing I'd change about this fight, I'd say please god take away the ability for the thieves to spawn with Mage Mashers, regardless of level. I get the logic, I really do - trying to create a version of the fight more detrimental to magic based parties. But really if you have even just one monk it makes the whole point moot. Not to mention the fact that I think two of the enemies, including one of the thieves that rush you ASAP, have Battle Skill and therefore access to Magic Ruin. So please, just give the thieves Hidden Knives or better depending on level. There's really nothing harder or more challenging about the Mage Masher version, no matter your setup IMO. I am aware that equipment scales with level, so if there's not a way to exclude it from the enemies equipment draw I say just scrap the knife all together, at least as it is right now.

Araguay - Boring fight is boring. There's not too much I had to say about this one, honestly the only interesting things to happen in my playthrough were 100% avoidable and completely my fault. It's a filler fight, but it always has been so I say it's just fine. Goblin Punch is a bit scary, but as long as you're not giving a ton of turns to low health Goblins, it's pretty easy.

Zirekile Falls - I like this fight, but honestly, I've never once lost here in any version of this game. I like all the changes that I saw here, the choice to have lancers over knights makes for a much more interesting fight considering their increased speed and mobility on a battlefield with lots of opportunity to exploit their jumping abilities. Still, at the end of the day, nothing outlandish in terms of difficulty. Protect Ovelia? Pffft. Protect the Lancers before she shoves a Holy spell up their ass. Now THAT would be hard.

EDIT: Oh yeah, just something I've noticed so far, but the AI doesn't know how to use Timed Strike properly. It's really apparent in this fight, where a Lancer mucks up 2-3 times with the skill. Maybe restrict Precision to ranged attackers in the future, since it seems to be mostly a melee fighter problem?

Zaland Fort City - God damn it Mustadio.

This post has been edited by Razz: 11 October 2016 - 04:34 AM

Wow I haven't posted in this since forever, but now that the forums are back I wanted to updated this since I'm closing in on the end of Chapter 3. Just finished the Gate of Riovanes Castle, and hopefully we'll be able to clean up the next few battles as well. With Chapter 4 right around the corner things are about to get interesting real quick haha.