[cube]

Kudos to Archael, 1.3 has got to be the best game mod I've encountered! I've clocked around 100 hours on this thing so far and have restarted several times. The furthest I've made it is the fight at Orbonne Underground Book Storage Third Floor. I'm going through again trying to keep my levels low and just started Chapter 3 with Ramza at level 18.

I've slowly been learning to take advantage of all sorts of aspects of the game I really didn't have to bother much with in Vanilla. The stat differences between genders and the AT list (how did I never use this) are two that spring to mind. I even check zodiac signs now, which was far too much trouble to bother with before.

One thing I'm aware of but I haven't been able to find good info about though is the permanent stat boosts you can get when you level up under a certain class. I know leveling up under thief gets you a speed boost at some point, but how does it work exactly? How many levels do I need to gain in the thief class? Do I just have to be a thief when I hit a certain level, or do I have to make sure whenever I gain a level I am a thief (oof sounds like a pain). Basically, what is the best way to take advantage of these permanent stat boosts?

Oh, and hi, I'm new here

[Austere]

cube, on 19 April 2012 - 06:15 PM, said:

Kudos to Archael, 1.3 has got to be the best game mod I've encountered! I've clocked around 100 hours on this thing so far and have restarted several times. The furthest I've made it is the fight at Orbonne Underground Book Storage Third Floor. I'm going through again trying to keep my levels low and just started Chapter 3 with Ramza at level 18.

I've slowly been learning to take advantage of all sorts of aspects of the game I really didn't have to bother much with in Vanilla. The stat differences between genders and the AT list (how did I never use this) are two that spring to mind. I even check zodiac signs now, which was far too much trouble to bother with before.

One thing I'm aware of but I haven't been able to find good info about though is the permanent stat boosts you can get when you level up under a certain class. I know leveling up under thief gets you a speed boost at some point, but how does it work exactly? How many levels do I need to gain in the thief class? Do I just have to be a thief when I hit a certain level, or do I have to make sure whenever I gain a level I am a thief (oof sounds like a pain). Basically, what is the best way to take advantage of these permanent stat boosts?

Oh, and hi, I'm new here

Hello!

This one is pretty complicated. Basically, the game has a hidden value associated with each character for each stat that it modifies based on your character's current job to produce the numbers you see on the status page.

For example, the raw hidden base value for a level 1 character's speed is 98304. The game then does some math based on what current job your character has selected to show you that character's 6 or 7 speed or whatever it is.

Each time you level up, the game adds a certain amount of points to the raw hidden base value of each stat based on what job your character was when he or she leveled up. So to take advantage of this, you have to take the painful route, and make sure you are a specific job each time you level up.

If you want to really dig into this topic, Maxi has a Googledocs Spreadsheet that you can input jobs and levels and see what kind of stats your character will have, it's in a topic buried pretty deep. I went ahead and found it: https://docs.google....MFU2THFtbENuV3c

I hope that link works, I'm in China and googledocs doesn't work for me. I just built my own in Excel instead (shameless plug, because I'm kind of proud of myself haha).

The general advice on the topic, though, is simply not to worry about it too much. Just don't level up from 1-99 in the magic side of the job tree and then decide to be a Lancer. Your health and PA will be pretty awful, and your speed probably won't be ideal either unless you went with Time Mage.

Check out the job listing for growths and multipliers: http://www.insanedif...tics%201.3/jobs

HPC, PAC, SPC, MAC etc. are growth rates. This value is how much your character will grow in a given stat when he or she levels up as that job. Unintuitively, because of the way growth rates are calculated in FFT, lower growth values are better. So a Knight's 8 HPC is slightly better than a Lancer's 9 HPC and a lot better than a Wizard's 12.

HPM, PAM, SPM, MAM etc. are multipliers. This value is how much your character's base values will be altered when they are in the listed job. For example, a Knight gets a ton of health because it has a massive HPM of 140 (for this one, higher numbers are better) but a Samurai has pretty poor health because it has a weak HPM of 75. This value is irrelevant in terms of leveling up, it only matters in terms of knowing the end product of your careful leveling scheme.

[Bastard Poetry]

For some reason, the first 20 levels are the most important for long-term gains. If you level as a Knight to 20, then switch to whatever jobs you want from there on out, you'll end up with a big HP boost by the time you hit 99.

The speed stat isn't quite so easy, though. You have to put more levels into the speed jobs to see the rewards, and it can't just be the first 20.

I played around with that spreadsheet for several hours once, and determined that 20 levels of Knight, 40 levels of Thief and 39 levels of Mime made for a very well-balanced character.

As far as I can tell, Thief is better than Ninja, due to slightly better PA and negligible speed differences.

Also, welcome to ID! Please, help yourself to a cup of Kaffe.

[Archael]

Bastard Poetry, on 19 April 2012 - 07:10 PM, said:

Also, welcome to ID! Please, help yourself to a cup of Kaffe.

---begin geek bro code block---

Spoiler

BP your avatar matches the site colors so well, it's almost like your wife picked it out for you. That is not to say that men can't have good taste in colors, seeing as how I picked the colors for this site, and it is also not to say that it is strange or gay or awkward for such men to have such complete tastes such as this, but I deregress.

---end geek bro code block---

Welcome Cube! Glad you are enjoying the mod so much and decided to make a topic to express that. I've been working on 1.3 for 4 years now and it never gets old to read that someone that you've never met (or touched.. but, well, ok lets leave that there) is being entertained so much by it.

I'm currently in the process of taking all the data you see in the 1.3 "Final Guide" and putting it on the 1.3 Wiki. Since you're new and have a fresh perspective, please let me know if there's any data category in the Wiki that you'd like to see. Right now job and item pages are empty, but I'll slowly go filling those out 1 by 1.

[Bastard Poetry]

Archael, on 19 April 2012 - 07:17 PM, said:

---begin geek bro code block---

Spoiler

BP your avatar matches the site colors so well, it's almost like your wife picked it out for you. That is not to say that men can't have good taste in colors, seeing as how I picked the colors for this site, and it is also not to say that it is strange or gay or awkward for such men to have such complete tastes such as this, but I deregress.

---end geek bro code block---

---begin geek bro code block---

Spoiler

Teal and orange, bro.

---end geek bro code block---

[Austere]

Bastard Poetry, on 19 April 2012 - 07:10 PM, said:

For some reason, the first 20 levels are the most important for long-term gains. If you level as a Knight to 20, then switch to whatever jobs you want from there on out, you'll end up with a big HP boost by the time you hit 99.

The speed stat isn't quite so easy, though. You have to put more levels into the speed jobs to see the rewards, and it can't just be the first 20.

I played around with that spreadsheet for several hours once, and determined that 20 levels of Knight, 40 levels of Thief and 39 levels of Mime made for a very well-balanced character.

As far as I can tell, Thief is better than Ninja, due to slightly better PA and negligible speed differences.

Also, welcome to ID! Please, help yourself to a cup of Kaffe.

Yeah, this is good advice. The way the stat formula works out, the early levels do matter the most.

Something I forgot to mention is that starting HP, MP, PA, and MA raw stats are different for males and females. Men specialize in PA whereas women specialize in MA. Leveling 1-99 as Knight will give a character the highest possible raw PA stat for his or her gender, but where a male Knight will have 26 PA at level 99, a female will only have 20. Vice versa for MA, replacing Knight with Wizard. The exception to this rule is that while Ramza has the PA growth of a male, he also has the same MA growth as a female. In this way, Ramza can specialize in MA as well as any girl, or do above average in both, allowing him quite a bit of flexibility, or the best possible stats for Geomancy, which uses both MA and PA in its damage calculations.

Two important things to realize when figuring out stats is that it can take many many levels in a certain job to hit just 1 point of growth in a category. As such, working with these "break points" can allow you to squeeze in an extra point here or there, especially in Health and/or Mana which tend to grow much more often. What I mean is that if being a Thief from levels 50-99 will get you an extra point of speed, check and see if levels 50-90 will also get you that point of speed. Then you've freed up 9 levels that you can spend in something else, possibly gaining an extra point of MA or PA, but more likely a little extra HP.

The second is that, in the end, your displayed stats are modified by your character's current job. What I mean is that, where a male leveled 1-99 as Knight will have a PA of 26 while his active job is Knight, he will have only 22 PA as a Lancer. So, unless you intend for that character to be a Knight often/all the time at level 99, there is no point in guaranteeing that he gains every level as a Knight. If you mean for him to be a Lancer most of the time, any leveling scheme that results in 22 PA as a Lancer gives you the best possible PA without wasting any levels reaching for a 23rd point of PA you cannot get. If you're willing to be a point or two off perfection, it provides you with even more leeway. Especially when it comes to a stat like PA or MA, I'm much more interested in grabbing an extra point of Speed than making sure I have perfect damage output.

[cube]

Thanks Austere & BP. That's some good info. I think I would drive myself crazy trying to maximize the utility of job stat growth. I'll just try and spend a bit more time in the jobs with good growth and maybe specialize my characters a bit more for the time being (I have the perhaps bad habit of wanting to unlock every job possible for each of my characters). Good to know what those numbers on the job chart mean.

[cube]

Archael, on 19 April 2012 - 07:17 PM, said:

Welcome Cube! Glad you are enjoying the mod so much and decided to make a topic to express that. I've been working on 1.3 for 4 years now and it never gets old to read that someone that you've never met (or touched.. but, well, ok lets leave that there) is being entertained so much by it.

I'm currently in the process of taking all the data you see in the 1.3 "Final Guide" and putting it on the 1.3 Wiki. Since you're new and have a fresh perspective, please let me know if there's any data category in the Wiki that you'd like to see. Right now job and item pages are empty, but I'll slowly go filling those out 1 by 1.

I've been making judicious use of the jobs and monster charts. It's very nicely laid out and pleasant to skim over.

I'm just very impressed with the balance of the mod. I've grown up playing and loving RPGs but there are a couple of problems with the genre:

1. Beating any challenge is usually possible just by grinding out a few more levels
2. Invariably some character classes or items just end up being useless while others end up dominating.

These have both been dealt with nicely in 1.3 and I'm actually being rewarded for my wits. Fun! I've done a good amount of game programming myself and I recognize how difficult maintaining that balance is (and also how good it feels when someone actually appreciates your work )

Anyway, enough ass-kissing for me, back to 1.3.

[Austere]

cube, on 19 April 2012 - 09:02 PM, said:

Thanks Austere & BP. That's some good info. I think I would drive myself crazy trying to maximize the utility of job stat growth. I'll just try and spend a bit more time in the jobs with good growth and maybe specialize my characters a bit more for the time being (I have the perhaps bad habit of wanting to unlock every job possible for each of my characters). Good to know what those numbers on the job chart mean.

No problem! Yeah, it's really not necessary to think about it too much. You've got the major points down. If you end up using the typical characters most people tend to use, you'll eventually abandon most if not all generics towards the end of the game (when min/maxing matters the most) anyway. Most special characters are hard to work with because most of them join you at a highish level with all of their levels spent in their special job.

It's useful to understand simple overarching concepts like that trying to get to Bard with Ramza first so that he has +3 Move finished early in the game is actually a terrible plan in terms of his longterm growth. etc. etc.

[Stann]

Austere, on 19 April 2012 - 09:56 PM, said:

No problem! Yeah, it's really not necessary to think about it too much. You've got the major points down. If you end up using the typical characters most people tend to use, you'll eventually abandon most if not all generics towards the end of the game (when min/maxing matters the most) anyway. Most special characters are hard to work with because most of them join you at a highish level with all of their levels spent in their special job.

It's useful to understand simple overarching concepts like that trying to get to Bard with Ramza first so that he has +3 Move finished early in the game is actually a terrible plan in terms of his longterm growth. etc. etc.

Luckily, most special units have tailored stat growths in their base class, so it's not much of a problem in 1.3.

My suggestion would be to ignore stat growths, I don't bother with it. You're much better off switching around your jobs to get more R/S/M abilities unlocked than eking out one PA point here or there. Just make sure you spend a majority of your time on the side of the tree you'll be using with that unit, and always make sure you have the other side of the tree unlocked so you can gain spillover JP from your teammates. In 1.3 you rarely have the flexibility of choosing your jobs based on stat growths anyway, since you'll need to switch around your team very often to deal with the storyline battles. Unless you're just going to grind levels in randoms I guess

[cube]

Just remembered another question I wanted to ask. Is there any information available about good move-find-item finds for the story battles? I have a low brave chemist sitting in my party that isn't seeing much use because I'm not sure if I should bother.

[Austere]

Stann, on 19 April 2012 - 10:19 PM, said:

Luckily, most special units have tailored stat growths in their base class, so it's not much of a problem in 1.3.

My suggestion would be to ignore stat growths, I don't bother with it. You're much better off switching around your jobs to get more R/S/M abilities unlocked than eking out one PA point here or there. Just make sure you spend a majority of your time on the side of the tree you'll be using with that unit, and always make sure you have the other side of the tree unlocked so you can gain spillover JP from your teammates. In 1.3 you rarely have the flexibility of choosing your jobs based on stat growths anyway, since you'll need to switch around your team very often to deal with the storyline battles. Unless you're just going to grind levels in randoms I guess

I might be mistaken, but I was under the impression that spillover JP still collects even if you don't have a job unlocked. You can't use it until you unlock the job, of course. I feel like I remember unlocking certain jobs later in the game and immediately having a lot of JP in some circumstances. Is this wrong?

[Quincunx]

You are correct, spillover JP still collects even if you don't have the relevant job unlocked yet.

[cube]

Heh, just had a great Zalmo fight. I went in with a scout team just to check things out and ended up knocking him out on turn 1.

1. Alma targets Ramza with mbarrier
2. Zalmo moves forward and targets Alma with Holy (enough to kill her)
3. Ramza moves forward and Jumps at Zalmo.
4. The Plague I just happened to bring with flies over the wall and hits Zalmo with Counterspell, knocking his Magic Attack down by 5
5. Zalmo fires Holy which barely damages Alma after the Counterspell. Alma triggers Counter Magic and hits Zalmo for over 200 with Holy. Since the damage was done with counter magic Zalmo can't trigger damage split
6. Ramza lands on Zalmo and takes him out.

[cube]

Um, I found something odd. I have a level 16 Wizard who can hit anything for 999 with chain lightning. Here's her equip:

Wizard Rod
Holy Miter
Wizard Robe
108 Gems

If I remove any one of those pieces of equipment the damage goes back to normal (below 100 damage). Abilities don't seem to have any bearing (removed everything except black magic and item).

[Archael]

cube, on 20 April 2012 - 08:59 PM, said:

Um, I found something odd. I have a level 16 Wizard who can hit anything for 999 with chain lightning. Here's her equip:

Wizard Rod
Holy Miter
Wizard Robe
108 Gems

Cannot replicate this issue on a 1.3.0.6 lvl 16 Wizard

Are you playing on Emulator or PSOne?

[cube]

Archael, on 20 April 2012 - 09:01 PM, said:

Cannot replicate this issue on a 1.3.0.6 lvl 16 Wizard

Are you playing on Emulator or PSOne?

I should have said I'm still using 1.3.0.5.

I'm using an emulator on a Mac (PCSXR).

[Archael]

cube, on 20 April 2012 - 09:29 PM, said:

I should have said I'm still using 1.3.0.5.

I'm using an emulator on a Mac (PCSXR).

Have you been patching other FFT mods?

[cube]

I patched 1.3.0.6 Content on a different ISO file.

[Archael]

cube, on 20 April 2012 - 10:00 PM, said:

I patched 1.3.0.6 Content on a different ISO file.

Can you please see if the issue is present on 1.3.0.6 using the same Wizard?