Stuck (or just getting sick of it) in Final Fantasy Tactics...

[VACRMH]

One minor spoiler I guess...

So i've been playing this for about 15 hours now. At first it was a few random battles to get my characters up a few levels, but now it's grind grind grind. No one is going anywhere, my characters suck, and i'm stuck on this battle (chapter two, attempting to stop the "hanging") and I'm ready to shelve the game. But maybe i'm doing something wrong?

Ramza was a Knight untill he learned everything, then I made him a Monk.
I have a white and black mage. (The white mages spells don't even connect half the freaking time, another issue that's pissing me off)
Then I have Rad, who I had as a monk for a long time, but now i'm toying around with a geomancer, which does little to no damage.

Any tips? I'd like to enjoy this game but it's getting really frustrating.

[whoisKeel]

Yeah, drop the Geomancer. They suck. Ramza makes a great monk. Train a ninja (for real). Make sure Ramza learns his special squire skills (trust me). You'll definitely want a Black Mage in your party, and probably a summoner. You can skip the Time Mage (but you can do some incredibly fun things with them later on). You can probably skip the archer and some of the useless magic users. Lancer and Samurai are both cool and good enough to keep around, but not essential. Never was a big fan of Knights, I'd rather steal with a thief than break.

It's been awhile, so I don't remember the particular battle. If your White Mage is missing quite a lot, you probably picked a dud. IIRC, faith is what makes a good mage (and brave is what makes a good fighter) out of 100.

If you get really stuck, you can kinda cheat. Have a mage turn a dude into a frog, turn off all counter-attacks, and trap the frog. Have your weak characters attack the frog, but don't kill it (heal it). Have Ramza speed that char up. Since you get XP and job points for everything you do you'll quickly train that character. It doesn't have to be a frog, but you get the point.

I wouldn't really train mages with anything less than mid 80's faith. You should've used your chemist to become a mage...if you didn't already.

The hardest fights are in chapter 3, and the Marquis IMO, and the rooftop battle. But it all depends on your party. Chapter 4 is cake once you start getting uber special characters. Also, a properly trained black mage with calculator 2nd skill is the best class hands down IMO...probably best left for 2nd play through though.

One last thing, equipment is incredibly important...some of the mid-game stuff is better than later-game stuff...particularly some of the rods, capes, and accessories. Pay very special attention to the bonuses that items give.


EDIT::: Make Rad a Ninja. A Ninja with secondary monk skills will be a bad ass. You will like uber ninja, it is unbalanced.

[VACRMH]

Great! This does help out a little bit, got some more questions....


Yeah, drop the Geomancer. They suck. Ramza makes a great monk. Train a ninja (for real). Make sure Ramza learns his special squire skills (trust me). You'll definitely want a Black Mage in your party, and probably a summoner. You can skip the Time Mage (but you can do some incredibly fun things with them later on). You can probably skip the archer and some of the useless magic users. Lancer and Samurai are both cool and good enough to keep around, but not essential. Never was a big fan of Knights, I'd rather steal with a thief than break.

How exactly do I get a samurai?


It's been awhile, so I don't remember the particular battle. If your White Mage is missing quite a lot, you probably picked a dud. IIRC, faith is what makes a good mage (and brave is what makes a good fighter) out of 100.

Well damn, and i've been training this person for hours, they almost have every spell. But what's the use if they suck? ;)


If you get really stuck, you can kinda cheat. Have a mage turn a dude into a frog, turn off all counter-attacks, and trap the frog. Have your weak characters attack the frog, but don't kill it (heal it). Have Ramza speed that char up. Since you get XP and job points for everything you do you'll quickly train that character. It doesn't have to be a frog, but you get the point.

Good idea, i'll have to try that out if I really need to :)


I wouldn't really train mages with anything less than mid 80's faith. You should've used your chemist to become a mage...if you didn't already.

Actually, my Black and White mages were the chemist's from the start of the game. But i'll take a look at faith and go from there, do males usually work better for fighting and girls magic?


The hardest fights are in chapter 3, and the Marquis IMO, and the rooftop battle. But it all depends on your party. Chapter 4 is cake once you start getting uber special characters. Also, a properly trained black mage with calculator 2nd skill is the best class hands down IMO...probably best left for 2nd play through though.

Calculator?


One last thing, equipment is incredibly important...some of the mid-game stuff is better than later-game stuff...particularly some of the rods, capes, and accessories. Pay very special attention to the bonuses that items give.

Is there a list of what I get in a battle somewhere? I've been getting extra items sometimes, but not all of the time.


EDIT::: Make Rad a Ninja. A Ninja with secondary monk skills will be a bad ass. You will like uber ninja, it is unbalanced.

How would I go about getting a Ninja?

Thanks for all the help :)

[Blitzwing256]

you're still early in the game, alot of the jobs like ninja and lancer you won't have the proper equipment to utilzie.

a very important thing to take into consideration, for random battles the enemy is ALWAYS stronger then you, so be a bit carefull about powering up TOO much early in the game.

mastering squire for ramza is important, yell and acumulate are extremely usefull.
leveling up will not effect storyline battles but doing it too much will make random encounters next to impossible (got my ass kicked by level 100 chocobos)

to get the better jobs you need to hit certain levels in certain other jobs. I would greatly suggest a thief and a mediator or two for the storyline battles, you can "Steal" items and party members if you properly level them up (and thus not have to fight them at all)

the game invovles alot of customziation and patience as some of the battles have a sharp learning curve.


oh and to answer your question, if you've already invested alot in your mage, you can use a mediator to permanetly raise thier faith skill, for every 5 points you raise faith or brave (or lower) in a battle it permanetly increases it by one
but never ever EVER raise it to 100, or that party member will jump ship and leave your party forever!

[whoisKeel]

Yes, Blitzwing's advice is good as well, you'll most certainly need a thief in your party. Be aware that you can check out what the enemy is wearing, and what that equipment does (by hitting select ?).

I'm not sure exactly where that fight is in the game, so it might be a bit early for quite a few of the classes I mentioned.

As far as how to get certain classes check out the "Job Requirements Map" on GameFaqs.

Also the Faith thing. Don't really worry about it too much, but also be aware that people with low Faith will be affected by magic less. So even if you have a good Faith mage, it may be difficult to heal/hurt low faith character.

I'm pretty sure Male/Female doesn't matter.

I shouldn't have even mentioned Calculator. Save it for the 2nd play through. It's a huge time investment that's probably not worth it unless you want to see everything in the game (This game has quite a few extras).

There probably is a list of what you get in battles on GameFaqs somewhere, but don't worry about it. You'll get what you get when you win the fight. There's also hidden objects on the map, but nothing really great until the sidequest parts of the game later on.

Really though, the best advice is if something isn't working try something else. Come up with a new strategy. Move some equipment around, change some classes, be more defensive/offensive, kill different characters first, etc.

[NE146]

so be a bit carefull about powering up TOO much early in the game.

Actually I specifically remember that's what turned me off about the game. I spent a whole lot of hours and days powering up guys early on. Then off we went only to be killed by super powerful enemies with super high hit points and we barely got into the 1/100th of the story LOL

[heybtbm]

Playing Final Fantasy Tactics is the perfect example of what it means to "level grind". If you get sick of grinding, maybe PS (and earlier era) RPG's aren't your thing. Seriously.

[VACRMH]

Playing Final Fantasy Tactics is the perfect example of what it means to "level grind". If you get sick of grinding, maybe PS (and earlier era) RPG's aren't your thing. Seriously.

Very true, and I have thought about that. Regular RPGs are fine, a favorite genre of mine actually, but SRPGs are another story.

But it was going good for the first few hours, and I don't mind coming back to rank some skills up every now and again. But nothing seemed to work very well which is what frustrated me.

I think my problem is that I need to know more about the system of the game before playing, should have read that damn tutorial a bit more :)

But I highly doubt i'll ever bother with the major strategy games like ROTK.

Thanks again for the help everyone :)

[skaar]

Man, I should play through that again. I remember abusing the hell out of calculators, and having all my characters circle-jerk a chocobo to gain XP/JP (they heal themselves when you beat on 'em, y'know ;) )

[goemon]

If grinding isn't your thing and you can read some Japanese, you might like the Black/Matrix series. I'm playing through Black/Matrix Cross for PS now, and the battles are hard, but you need strategy rather than levels to win. Zombifying enemy corpses and using them as suicide bombers is an example of that.

[whoisKeel]

Playing Final Fantasy Tactics is the perfect example of what it means to "level grind". If you get sick of grinding, maybe PS (and earlier era) RPG's aren't your thing. Seriously.

I totally disagree with this statement. Final Fantasy Tactics is the perfect example of understanding the system and applying strategy. The S in SRPG is there for a reason. If you want a level grinding "SRPG" go play Hoshigami or Disgaea. Pay attention to how the game is actually played, and apply some creative thinking before you make such comments.

That's not to say that you can't level grind, just that you most certainly do not need to.

[crazyjackcsa]

I'm glad this topic came up actually. I want to love Final Fantasy Tactics, but I can't. The SRPG is my favorite genre of game and while it isn't a popular point of view, I just can't get into tactics. I've played these games since the Shining series on the Genesis and while admittedly there aren't a lot of these games out there, I've loved every one I've played; Shining Force, Mysteria, The Fire Emblems, Vandel Hearts 1+2, I'm sure there are some other I've played and I'm missing. But the Tactics game is one I just can't like. And I don't Know why.

[NE146]

I've played; Shining Force, Mysteria, The Fire Emblems, Vandel Hearts 1+2, I'm sure there are some other I've played and I'm missing. But the Tactics game is one I just can't like. And I don't Know why.


I love all those games too but don't really care for FF Tactics. I'll tell you why (aside from my reason above).. but it's the JOBS system! I hate that you're just given characters and have to choose a job for them it may turn out they're just not suitable for it.

Also, my mindset in most RPG's is that "if it's available, max em out in it".. so I end up trying to give everyone every skill for every job.. which of course is an immense task (and yes I know it's my own fault.. but hey :p). It kind of drained the joy out of this game vs. a game like Vandal Hearts or Shining Force where you're given a character with skills... and that's that character. No making a healer into a fighter, etc.

[heybtbm]

I totally disagree with this statement. Final Fantasy Tactics is the perfect example of understanding the system and applying strategy. The S in SRPG is there for a reason. If you want a level grinding "SRPG" go play Hoshigami or Disgaea. Pay attention to how the game is actually played, and apply some creative thinking before you make such comments.

Uh-huh. You "get it", and we're all idiots.

Listen, you can disagree all you want. There is no way you're going to get past a few key battles without raising your levels above your opponents. Who here didn't get spanked the first time they played the Slums of Dorter level (battle #5 or so)?

Anyway, it still doesn't change the fact that a level 99 character is fun as hell to play with. I enjoyed "level grinding" in FFT (or any other older RPG/SRPG for that matter). It's just the way my brain works. It was a complement to the game, not a criticism.

[iamchris]

I think part of the allure of FFT is that you can play it in so many ways. No ones strategy will be exactly the same. I think its games like these that breed really detailed discussions because theres so many ways to go about accomplishing the same task. In a way it makes an incredibly linear game incredibly open ended.

Theres definitely a fair amount of strategy involved, and I think one of the mistakes they made was not showing what classes grow into other classes, because I think that could alienate a lot of people. When I first started playing, I just played, leveled up, noticed I could change jobs. So I checked out a faq, saw strengths and weaknesses and planned my party ahead according to how I wanted to play.

And I can see how some people just dont get into it. The game starts fairly slow, you havent had a chance to grow attached to your characters yet. Battles take FOREVER. But once you get used to it, you love it.

On a final note to my lil' part of strategy for the OP, a ninja is insanely useful. I made sure to get the knight skill for him that allows him to use a sword even as a ninja. This lets him dual wield swords, making his attacks really powerful. Any standard character pretty much went down in one hit. Between a Ninja like that, a black mage powered up and a white mage to keep those two alive, you're pretty much unstoppable.

[Haoie]

Impressive. With this game, I finished the intro battle, got horribly bored, and never continued.

[FantasiaWHT]

I poured way too many hours into it the first time I played it, back in college. I don't know if I could ever go back and play it again! I do know that my favorite strategy was to haste a dancer and keep all the enemies muted, frogged, slowed, poisoned, confused... etc.

My two complaints about the game were the story (so confusing that if you ever stopped playing for more than a day or two, you were hopelessly lost when you started playing again) and the small number of characters you get to bring to fights (I grew up with Shining Force).